Oi galera, feliz ano novo!
Apologies beforehand for the large and not portuguese post, but I'm kind of flabbergasted about a friend's recent comments and I'm still trying to wrap my head around it, and I don't know if there is something lost in translation or what the hell, let me explain.
I want to go to Reveillon in Copacabana, the crowd is horrible, I know, but the fireworks are spectacular and is one of the biggest NYE parties in the world, I've been there the last three years, I've enjoyed it quite a bit, it's great, even with the drunks, the crowds, the danger of getting mugged and the disgusting sea shore with so many people peeing.
The thing is that when I told my friend he absolutely refused, he'll rather be thrown in the middle of the Morro de Alemao dressed as a cop, I understood, it can be really annoying and its not his thing. But when he started to mock me for enjoying it because I was going to be part of the "faroferos" I called him a classist, and how I find hilarious "farofada" is such an insulting term when it's the food everyone eats.
And I think this touched some nerve, because he tried to explained how I was completely in the wrong, but every term he subsequently tried to use to explain why the crowd was so bad was even more classist and even racist, "programa de indio", "favelice" etc, etc, I was absolutely shocked how he couldn't recognize what he was saying, yet he continued.
This is not new, I've heard more than one brazilian's absolute disgust for people from the favela or even just people who enjoy samba, but coming from him was pretty shocking, he is otherwise an excellent guy, if a bit of damn hipster, but really he's really nice.
So tell me rio/brazil gaf, what am I missing here? I'm very familiar with the racism and specially the classism that exist in latinamerican society since in my home country Colombia is pretty much the same, but I've never seen this level of denial... or am I in the wrong and I understood things the wrong way? how are terms like "favelice", "programa de indio", "farofeiro" used in such insulting and dismissing manner not insanely classist? I'm far for being politically correct, it has get me banned more than once here in GAF, but for me this is crystal clear prejudice, and I don't get why brazilians don't see it. He wasn't saying these things in jest.