Thread on affirmative action in Brazil. In 2012, Brazil began mandating that 50% of seats in all programs offered by federal universities should be distributed via affirmative action to the following three groups: public school grads, the poor, and blacks/Indians.
Affirmative action also applies to government jobs in Brazil. 20% were reserved for blacks until 2025 when this was increased to 30%. This applies to all government organizations as well as public companies and mixed-capital state-run companies.
One effect of this has been to make race much more salient in Brazil. For most of the 20th century, Brazil had a reputation for being a post-racial state with little racial conflict. Affirmative action changed this, as there are now concrete racial privileges to be won.
In college, affirmative action admits of course do worse than their non-affirmative action admit peers, however this gap disappears if you control for measured ability [lol].
Compared to the counterfactual, affirmative action admits earn more as a result of their privilege, while top students earn significantly less thanks to affirmative action, because of worse firm placement after college, worse network effects, and even learning less.
Thread with excerpts from the 'Pretorians' section of TR Fehrenbach's "Fire and Blood: A History of Mexico" (1973). In 1821, postcolonial nation-building seemed easy; the only example was the USA. But the US was homogenous, well-led, free, and already had an identity.
Mexico was the reverse, with no history of self-rule, the criollo/casta/indio split, and no great leadership. The two major factions were the 'continuistas' (conservatives) and the 'reformistas' (liberals).
Mexico was the reverse, with no history of self-rule, the criollo/casta/indio split, and no great leadership. The two major factions were the 'continuistas' (conservatives) and the 'reformistas' (liberals).
Excerpts from TR Fehrenbach's "Fire and Blood: A History of Mexico" (1973) on the Mexican War of Independence. The Mexican criollos were far less impressive than their South American counterparts, and produced no leaders equal to Bolivar or San Martin.
Where the South American criollos quickly declared independence upon the French conquest of Spain, the Mexican ones dithered. Acting quickly, the local peninsulares coup'd the government and the criollos accepted it.
With the criollos basically accepting Spanish domination, leadership of the independence struggle passed to men like Miguel Hidalgo, who turned it from a (hopefully) bloodless coup to a social and race war.
Thread with excerpts from the Colonial New Spain portion of TR Fehrenbach's 'Fire and Blood: A History of Mexico' (1973). His view is that New Spain would have remained permanent divided and stagnant if not for the northern frontier.
The true frontier of New Spain was not the thinly-populated and stagnant (almost identical when the Anglos showed up as in the 17th century) New Mexico, but much further to the south, in the arid regions only a little north of the Valley of Mexico.
The frontier lacked civilized Indians who could be reduced to slaves, and was instead populated by energetic mestizos and criollos, working owned ranchos for a market rather than owning huge estates for prestige.
A few excerpts from "Years of Peril and Ambition: US Foreign Relations 1776-1921." Several terms from the Treaty of Paris, especially that Britain would abandon its Great Lakes forts and the US would have the right to navigate the Mississippi, were not upheld.
Americans who moved into Spanish Louisiana retained "allegiance to the United States and displayed open contempt for their nominal rulers." Imagine that.
An 1810, American immigrants to Spanish West Florida seized control of Baton Rouge, proclaimed an independent republic and requested annexation by the US, though this failed.
More excerpts on Colonial Mexico from TR Fehrenbach's "Fire and Blood" (1973). Fehrenbach saw the discovery of silver in Mexico, mostly in the arid north, as a disaster, as it led to Spain administering Mexico as a loot box rather than developing the productive economy.
The thinly-populated, but silver-rich North became a military frontier.
The suspicious Spanish Crown gave those born in Spain, the peninsulares, a monopoly on offices (and commerce) in New Spain. As offices were the main route to upwards mobility, the local creoles resented this.
Thread with excerpts from the colonial Mexico portion of "Fire and Blood: A History of Mexico" (1973).
The Catholic Monarchs who united Spain reined in the aristocracy, abolished serfdom, disempowered the Castilian parliaments, and ended all noble presumptions to royal powers and revenues, creating a new bureaucracy (with a new army) to run the state loyal to themselves.
Spain combined this modern bureaucratic state and army with maintenance of privileges for the old nobility and an almost medieval religious mindset.