Recent scholarly interest in the populations of African descent in Latin America has contributed to a growing body of literature. Although a number of studies have explored the issue of blackness in Afro-Latin American countries, much less attention has been paid to how blackness functions in mestizo American countries. Furthermore, in mestizo America, the theoretical emphasis has oftentimes been placed on the mestizo/Indian divide, leaving no conceptual room to explore the issue of blackness.
Brazil's tourist-jammed cities are some of the most violent on the planet. A considerable number of the country's 43,000 annual murders occur on the streets of Sao Paulo, Recife, and Rio de Janeiro. And Brazilian cities are not alone in what might be called a bad neighborhood. The fact is that most major Latin American and Caribbean cities are today plagued by an epidemic of violence. With more than 20 murders per 100,000 people, the regional homicide rate is roughly three times the global average. Many of the larger urban centers -- from Caracas and Ciudad Juarez to Kingston and Port-of-Spain -- register the highest rates of lethal violence in the world.
