Abstract
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 situation 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 diffusing their critique of Brazil's alleged racial democracy.
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