The Unspoken Whiteness of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: The Gracies versus Luta Livre

This article explores why the relationship between race and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and the ways that Brazilian jiu-jitsu has been racialized as white, have often been invisible, particularly for non-Brazilians. It argues that both non-Brazilians who practice the martial art, and the scholarly analysis of jiu-jitsu, have often ignored how the marital art has been positioned as ‘white’ within Brazil’s complex and highly unequal structures of racial dominance. Focusing on challenge matches that the Gracie family fought against practitioners of luta livre (a Brazilian style of catch-wrestling), the article shows how these matches located jiu-jitsu within Brazil’s racial hierarchy, though often in implicit ways. The article situates this process within the academic literature of race in Brazil which argues that race, and in particular whiteness, is often vitally socially-important, yet also rarely directly spoken about.