246 Racing and Erasing the Playboy: Slang, Transnational Youth Subculture, and Racial Discourse in Brazil This article explores the complex negotiation of race, class, and space that surrounds the Brazilian Portuguese slang term ‘playboy.’ It is argued that youth use this slang term to grapple with transnational debates around race and to make sense of their nation’s situ- ation of stark inequality. Poor black male youth, in particular, use this social label to challenge their marginalization from the Brazilian nation-state, constructing themselves as more empowered racial and political subjects. Yet their more controversial semantic shifts are reinterpreted by dominant society, erasing the race of the playboy and diffus- ing their critique of Brazil’s alleged racial democracy. [slang, race, whiteness, youth, Brazil] Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Vol. 17, Issue 2, pp. 246–265, ISSN 1055-1360, EISSN 1548-1395. © 2007 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. Direct requests for permission to pho- tocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions website, http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintInfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/jlin.2007.17.2.246. ■ Jennifer Roth-Gordon UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA Com a cabeça raspada ou cheia de parafina Eu tiro onda porque acho que sou gente fina Mas na verdade, eu pertenço à pior raça que existe Eu sou playboy! Penso que sou feliz, mas sou triste Eu sou pior que uma praga, eu sou pior que uma peste, Eu tô em qualquer lugar da superfície terrestre E digo aonde a playboyzada prolifera-se a mil É num país capitalista pobre como o Brasil —Retrato de um Playboy, by Brazilian rap/pop star Gabriel o Pensador, 1993 With my head shaved or full of product I get full of myself because I think I’m a good guy But in truth, I belong to the worst breed that exists I’m a playboy! I think I’m happy, but I’m sad I’m worse than a plague, I’m worse than a pest, I’m everywhere on the surface of the Earth I’ll tell you where playboys proliferate by the thousands It’s in a poor, capitalistic country like Brazil —Portrait of a Playboy, by Brazilian rap/pop star Gabriel the Thinker, 1993 In this article, I draw on ethnographic research conducted in Rio de Janeiro to explore the complex negotiation of race, class, and space that surrounds the Brazilian Portuguese slang term ‘playboy,’ an out-group social label used to negatively sanc- tion white wealthy male youth. 1 I argue that Brazilian youth embrace this particular