ABSTRACT
The “truth” about their “ancestry” emerged in both cases; and observers of race relations bitterly concluded that “all blacks” and “all Jews” were falling under a shadow of suspicion and mistrust. Race and color, ethnicity and indigenous culture, national habits and religious creeds were all confused and confounded, and unceremoniously tossed into what Israel Zangwill once called “the melting pot,” which surely has nowhere melted. An incident in New York which also suggests why the shaky foundation of the “race relations industry” may well be collapsing. In the ruins something new and strange is emerging, with perhaps an even more dispiriting mix of what a harassed and manipulated citizenry may find fair and proper in a darkening struggle for rights and self-identities. Foreign observers no longer believe as firmly as they used to that, the Brazilians had a dream of their own and its colorful spirit of open ethnicity was helping it to dance and sing to fulfilment.
