ABSTRACT
Some years ago Pierre van den Berghe, a leading comparative sociologist and specialist in the area of race and ethnic relations, formulated a typology of race and ethnic relations that has proven to be an extremely useful sociological tool for comparative and historical analysis. Van den Berghe distinguishes between two very different types of race relations. What he calls a paternalistic system of race relations has prevailed historically in preindustrial societies devoted to slavery. This type of system was found most prominently in the southern United States and in Brazil, although a version of it also existed in South Africa before this century.
