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Disadvantage: The Genetic Case 55confirmation here: ‘the data merely corroborate what is already visible toany observer: the farther one goes up... the power hierarchy, the whiterBrazilian society becomes’ (see Muello, 2005). A quirky but interestingpaper by Edmonds (2007) discusses how perceptions of race and beautyreveal themselves in the flourishing Brazilian plastic-surgery business.To undergo expensive cosmetic intervention to alter a ‘negroid nose’,for instance, or an ‘ugly’ Indian body is surely to give very tangibleproof of a socio-racial hierarchy.In his famous and much-reprinted book on rich and poor, urbanand rural, separate and mixed, Gilberto Freyre (1936) argued thathybridity and cultural miscegenation were the touchstones of Braziliansociety and its greatest strength, a mixing characterized by a ‘reciprocitybetween the cultures, and not a domination of one by the other’(Philippou, 2005: 252). This is surely an inaccurate, if socially desirable,assessment; further, it is possible that Freyre’s advocacy of racial equalityin a society unwilling to fully embrace it may have actually reinforcedwhat Skidmore (1974) later called ‘the whitening ideal’ in Brazil. In anyevent to return to the universidade there is surely a poignancy in theexistence of an affirmative-action policy that would be out of place and,indeed, unnecessary in a truly mestiço society; see also Campos de Souzaand Nascimento (2008).Finally, thinking about ‘racial’ mixing reminds me of an anecdoterecounted by Ernst Mayr, the famous evolutionary biologist; it concerns ajournalist who travels to Haiti and interviews the president:Most indiscreetly the American newspaperman asked the Presidentwhat percentage of the people were white. And the President of Haitisaid, ‘‘Oh, about 95 per cent.’’ The American newspaperman looked alittle puzzled and said, ‘‘Well, how do you define white?’’ And thePresident of Haiti said, ‘‘How do you define colored?’’ And theAmerican newspaperman said, ‘‘Well, of course, anybody with Negroblood is colored.’’ Said the President: ‘‘Well, that’s exactly ourdefinition, too: anybody with white blood is white.’’ (Mayr, 1968: 104)The Genetic Case for DisadvantageEugenics and the roots of assessmentHistorically, biological determinism has been the most pervasive of‘scientific’ accounts for group disadvantage. It has always been a centralfeature of racist discourse that some groups are inferior to others, aperception that has led to a wide variety of actions, ranging from general