Based on ethnographic experience with homeless movements, the article discusses how the whiteness of the State has functioned and functions in the occupation of the city of Sao Paulo. State whiteness, here, is understood as the links between the different kinds of racism that can be found in some State practices and concepts, especially in what comes to urban policies and the repression by the police. The State whiteness, as a way of functioning, is linked to the racial hetero-classification performed by the State, altogether with the spread of the non-recognition of the social relations as racialized. Nevertheless, the State whiteness is constantly defied and confronted by non-white people and groups and their ways of occupying the cities, such as the footing, the occupation of empty buildings, and the rolezinhos.
Whiteness; Racism; Racial Relations; Urban Anthropology; Anthropology of Politics