Topic: Racism
Congressional Black Caucus Leaders Visit Their Beloved White Slavemaster Servando thinks he has found the true reason why some Congressional Black Caucus leaders love Castro so much.by Servando Gonzalez
(libertarian)
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
A few days ago, a group of key members of the Congressional Black Caucus, visited Cuba to pay a visit to their beloved white slavemaster just 90 miles South of the U.S. border: Fidel Castro.
As expected, they went gaga after their unique experience. Recalling her emotional moments with the Cuban slavemaster, CBC Chairwoman Rep. Barbara Lee said, "It was quite a moment to behold."
Rep. Bobby Rush, after describing Castro's home as modest and Castro's blonde wife (with a few exceptions, most Castro's women's have been blonde and U.S. educated) to be particularly hospitable. Then, he added, "It was almost like listening to an old friend."
Rep. Laura Richardson said Castro was receptive to President Obama's message of turning the page in American foreign policy. "He looked right into my eyes and he said, 'How can we help? How can we help President Obama?'", she added.
Back in Washington, D.C., just hours after their meeting in Havana with the Cuban slavemaster, key members of the Congressional Black Caucus revealed the true purpose of their visit, and began calling for an end to U.S. prohibition on travel to Cuba.
"The fifty-year embargo just hasn't worked," CBC Chairwoman Barbara Lee told reporters at a Capitol press conference. "The bottom line is that we believe its time to open dialogue with Cuba."
But Rep. Lee is wrong. Contrary to prevalent lore, far from being a failure, the "embargo" has been a total success.
Let me explain this a little more.
But, before somebody may get a wrong idea of my thoughts about Lee's words, I would like to make it clear that I have always opposed the so-called "embargo".
In the first place, because, I don't think the U.S. government should prohibit any American citizens to travel to any place in the world they want to. The most our government should do is to advise us about the dangers we may risk by visiting a particular country, but it is us, the citizens of this supposed free country, the ones to decide.
Secondly, I have always opposed the "embargo" because its true purpose, the secret motive for its creation, was to give Castro a credible pretext to justify Cuba's dismal economy.
Though there is enough circumstantial evidence proving the truth of my previous statement about the true purpose of the "embargo", I will give you one directly from the The Horse's mouth, Fidel Castro himself. [Cubans used to call Castro "The Horse"]
Jose Maria Aznar, Spain's former Prime Minister, made some efforts to help the end of the American embargo on Cuba. But he has mentioned that, to his utter surprise, during a private conversation he had with the Cuban dictator in 1998, Castro told him that he needed the embargo "for this and the next generation."
More recently, during an interview in the Mexican daily Milenio, Aznar expanded on the subject, and recalled about once telling Castro: ''If I could, I would lift the embargo and be done with you.'' Castro responded: ``I vitally need the embargo.'' Aznar now is convinced that ``Castro's great ally is the embargo.''
For half a century Castro has used the American economic embargo as a handy justification for Cuba's economic disaster. But, despite bogus statistics, it is evident that the economy of Castro's Cuba today is barely above the level of Haiti's.
But let's go back to the Cuban slavemaster and his "African-American" admirers.
Most Americans seem to ignore the fact that, before Castro came to power in 1959, Cuba was one of the most racially integrated nations in the world, with a socio-cultural system relatively free of racial discrimination. As Professor Richard R. Fagen has pointed out, "Batista's Cuba exhibited a greater degree of national integration than did Mexico after 50 years of integrative revolution.'" (1)
Though personal racial biases were far from non-existent, Cuba was almost free of institutional racism. Racial relations among Cubans were very different from the ones traditionally existing in the U.S. Proof of this is that Fulgencio Batista, the Cuban president Castro overthrew in 1959, was a dark skinned mulatto who found his way to top political positions in Cuba -- though not to high society -- and eventually became president of the country by popular vote.
Further proof of the above is that the Cuban equivalent to U.S. Veterans Day is the 7th of December, the anniversary of the death in combat of General Antonio Maceo y Grajales -- a military genius whose innovative tactics were later studied in important military academics around the world. Also, probably one of the most important women in Cuban history is Mariana Grajales, Maceo's mother, who sent her sons to fight the Spaniards.
The Maceos were black.
Moreover, among the delegates to the Convention to approve the first Constitution of Cuba in 1901 were two prominent blacks, Martin Morua Delgado and Juan Gualberto Gomez. A list of prominent black men and women in Cuba's history in the field of politics, law, science, journalism, literature and education, not to mention music and sports, could fill hundreds of pages. (2)
Since Castro assumed power in 1959 he has been claiming that his regime brought an end to racial discrimination in Cuba. However, if one is to believe what Castro does, as opposed to what he says, the evidence strongly indicates that he does not have a high appreciation for what he considers the "lower," dark-skinned races. (3)
There is evidence that at least part of his hatred and contempt for President Batista was racially motivated. Fulgencio Batista's humble origins and his mixed blood (half black, and probably Cuban Indian) was a motive of scorn among some of his opponents -- most of them members of the Cuban wealthy and aristocratic classes, including Fidel Castro.
As an interesting detail one might add that Fidel's racial slurs about Batista (he usually referred to the Cuban President as "negro de mierda" -- lit. "shitty nigger") had a sympathetic echo among CIA officers under diplomatic cover at the American Embassy in Havana who strongly despised the Cuban president.
Some people claim that perhaps Fidel learnt his racial biases from his father Angel and his mother Lina (Angel's second wife). (4) Angel and Lina ruled their largely black cane cutters at the Biran estate by gun law, unmercifully killing the bold ones who stepped too far out of line. The Castros never ventured into the field without their guns, and the local military post, a corporal and two soldiers, slept on Angel's land, ate his food and received a small monthly stipend from him. (5) Another reason for Fidel's racism may be that Maria Argote, (6) Angel Castro's first wife -- a woman Fidel deeply hated -- was a dark-skinned mulatta. (7)
And it seems that Fidel Castro's racial biases still persist. A few years ago Dr. Antonio Castro Soto del Valle, an orthopedic surgeon and one of the five sons of Fidel Castro with his common-law wife Dalia Soto del Valle, unexpectedly married a beautiful black Cuban woman. When they heard the news, consternation erupted in Fidel Castro's family. (8)
Contrary to Castro's racial demagoguery, the fact is that, even though blacks constitute a large segment of the Cuban population, only 15 blacks hold seats in the 150-member Central Committee of Castro's "Communist" Party, and only six of the 24-member Politburo are black. (9) A simple look at Castro's ministers and generals, shows a group of old white men.(10)
Amazingly, the Cuban government's official Web site provides strong evidence of the sexual and racial discrimination prevalent in the Castro government. A list of the 52 most senior members of the Castro government shows only four women and three blacks. The Cuban government's official statistics available in the site show that the Cuban population is 37 percent Caucasian, 62 percent black, and 1 percent Asian. (11)
It is extremely revealing that not a single one of the many Army officers involved in the "drug trafficking" case of 1989, all of them men close to Castro, was black. (12) As a matter of fact, blacks have had a larger representation in most previous Cuban governments than in Castro's.
A notable exception, however, to the small presence of blacks in the Castro government is found in the Cuban army.
Photographs of Cuban army units show close to 90 percent of black soldiers. But officers, particularly high ranking senior officers, are 95 percent white.
Evidently Castro, like the leaders of many imperialist nations, uses racial minorities as cannon fodder. Most Cuban soldiers among the several thousands killed in Angola were black. (Though the Castro government has never provided any figures, analysts estimate Cuban casualties in Africa to number between 4,000 and 7,000.)
Another fact that makes one wonder about Castro's professed love for blacks (he has visited Harlem every time he has visited the U.S.), is that of lately American blacks are seemingly not welcome in Cuba.
But this was not the case at the beginning of his revolution.
Since the very first day he took power in Cuba, Fidel Castro planned to use American black radicals to spearhead his revolution inside the United States. As early as September 1960, while he was visiting the U.S. to deliver a speech at the U.N. General Assembly Castro staged an incident and used it as a pretext for moving from his hotel in midtown Manhattan to the hotel Theresa.
Located in the heart of Harlem, the Theresa was in an area known as the center of black nationalism. Down the street from the Theresa was Lewis Michaux's African Memorial Book Store, the biggest black nationalist book store in the country. Around the corner was the Harlem Labor Center, a black militant organization. Within a few blocks from the hotel were located the offices of several black nationalist publications and organizations, including the Black Muslims.
During his stay at the Theresa, Castro met several times with Malcolm X and other black leaders. Some authors even claim that the Black Revolution was actually a creation of Fidel Castro, carefully planned and directed from Cuba. (13)
In the early sixties some American black leaders, among them Huey Newton, Stokely Carmichael, Angela Davies, Rap Brown, Bobby Seal, Eldridge Cleaver, and Robert F. Williams, were routinely visiting Havana to experience first hand the marvels of a society free of racial discrimination. Some of them received urban guerrilla training in Cuba. It is not a coincidence that in the summer of 1967, while the Organization of Latin American Solidarity was gathering in Havana, riots were erupting almost daily in many American cities. (14)
Detailed instruction for methods of urban warfare, later applied in Watts, Detroit, Newark and other riot scenes, had appeared in The Crusader, a Cuban-financed newsletter mailed from Canada to the U.S. (15) Copies of Che Guevara's manual on guerrilla warfare were sold by the thousands in book stores frequented by black nationalists, such as Vaughan's in Detroit, Robin's in Philadelphia, and Michaux's in New York.
Eventually, however, the relations between Castro and the American black radicals went sour. By mid 1969, some Black Panther leaders visiting Cuba, including Eldridge Cleaver, complained of harassment and event arrests by Cuban authorities. (16) Finally, after some bold attempts at taking control the American black revolutionary movements in the late 1960s, the honeymoon between Castro and the black militants was over. Currently, perhaps with the exception of Louis Farrakhan, no American black is using Castro's Cuba anymore as an example of a racism-free society. (17)
In early 1999, William Lee Brent, one of the few American black militants still living in Cuba, told Salon magazine about widespread racial discrimination in Castro's Cuba. Brent is a 65-year-old Black Panther and air pirate who took refuge in Cuba thirty years ago to avoid American justice.
At the time of the interview, he was living a precarious life in Havana with his wife of 23 years, journalist and fellow radical Jane McManus, making a living by doing odd translating and teaching jobs. Brent said that Cuban blacks lacked a sense of identity as blacks and continued to face discrimination -- something he felt every time he walked into certain buildings with Jane, who is white, at his side. "They wave me right in and they ask him for his ID," Jane said. (18)
In the mid-sixties some Cuban intellectuals, among them Walterio Carbonell, a Marxist sociologist and a friend of Castro from their days at the University of Havana, and Nancy Morejon, a young poet, tried to create a Cuban version of the black liberation movement. It was a sort of a makeshift mixture of Black Power with a touch of Aimee Cesaire's negritude theories. But, as soon as Castro's secret police got word of it they were detained.
Morejon quickly realized her ideological "mistake" and promised to reform. Carbonell, who sincerely believed that there were too many whites in high places in Fidel's non-racist society, persisted in his ideas and was given a two year hard-labor sentence in one of Castro's gulags. (19)
One of the outcomes of the expansion of tourism in Cuba in the 1990s was an increase in racial discrimination. Since then, almost all of the employees at the new hotels catering to dollar-carrying tourists are white, and the Castroist police use racial profiling to stop and question young blacks on the streets, particularly near the areas where foreign tourists concentrate.(20)
Though some "progressive" American blacks still keep visiting Castro's Cuba to enjoy the marvels of a racism-free society, (21) it seems that Cuban blacks know better. Almost 40 percent of the Cubans who escaped during the Mariel boatlift in 1980 were black. (22) Since then, blacks have continued escaping from the Island in great numbers.
It is sad that the Congressional Black Caucus leaders found no time in their busy schedule to travel to a Cuban Prison and pay a visit to Dr. Oscar E. Biscet, M.D. Dr. Biscet, a black man, has been roting in several of Castro's prisons for long years, for the sole crime of openly criticizing the Cuban slavemaster's regime.
So much for Fidel Castro's non-racist Cuban society some American blacks love so much. (For an insightful look at Castro's system of slavery in Cuba, see Modesto Maidique, "Fidel's Plantation," The Stanford Magazine, Vol. 11, N. 4, Winter 1983, pp. 27-32.)
As I mentioned in a previous article, the denomination "African-American" is more than an ethnographic one: it has strong political connotations. As many African-American militants have pointed out, it expresses pride in their African origins and solidarity with others of the African Diaspora, particularly the ones brought to America as slaves. Most of these slaves had been acquired by other blacks through intertribal wars or simple kidnappings.
It seems, however, that the souls and minds of the members of the Congressional Black Caucus who visited Castro are more closer to the blacks in Africa who enriched themselves by making some of their own kin slaves and selling them to the Portuguese and other Europeans, than to the ones brought to America as slaves.
Like most American "progressive" liberals, African-American leaders are full of admiration for the "achievements" of the Castro regime, particularly in the fields of education and public health. Apparently they forget that, like the slavemasters of yesterday, Castro takes good care of his property, thus guaranteeing the good health of his horses, his cows, his chickens, and his slaves, which currently are the majority of the Cuban people.
This unconscious love of slavery by many so-called "African-American" leaders perhaps explains not only their love for the white slavemaster in Cuba, but also their concerted efforts to turn Americans, particularly black Americans, into slaves of Uncle Sam, the new American slavemaster.
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Notes:
1. "RevolutionFor Internal Consumption Only," in Irving Louis Horowitz, ed., Cuban Communism (New Jersey: Transaction Books, 1970), p. 38.
2. For a list of blacks that left their mark in pre-Castro's Cuba, see Jos Luis Fernndez, "Lies and AccomplicesAccomplices and Lies," Guaracabuya, June 8, 2001.
3. Carlos Franqui, Family Portrait with Fidel (New York: Random House, 1984), p. 150.
4. Actually Fidel was a bastard son product of an extra-marital affair. He was born while Angel was still married to his previous wife. The whole story is explained in detail in the Epilogue.
5. Nathaniel Weyl, Red Star Over Cuba (New York: Hillman/MacFadden, 1961), p. 41.
6. Her name sometimes appears spelled "Argeta" or "Argota."
7. Mario Lazo, Dagger in the Heart (New York: Twin Circle, 1968), p. 112.
8. Marcelo Fernandez-Zayas, "Intelligence Report From Washington," February 10, 2001, wpais@cais.com.
9. Stephan Archer, "Castro Persecutes Blacks," NewsMax.com, May 9, 2000, www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/5/9/210025.
10. Miriam Marquez, "Castro's U.S. dollar policy of haves, have-nots is pure racism," The Orlando Sentinel, Jan 15 1999. A recent report, "Afro-Cubans: Powerless Majority in Their Own Country," (CUBA FACTS, Issue 46- March 2009) prepared by Hans de Salas del Valle, Research Associate at the Cuba Transition Project, Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies (ICCAS), University of Miami, shows an increasing racist tendency in Castro's Cuba. According to the Report,
Afro-Cubans comprise over 60 percent of the island's population, yet
Black and dark-skinned multiracial Cubans constitute only five percent of hospitality workers catering to Europeans and other tourists' international joint ventures with foreign firms (which tend to offer the highest wages by Cuban standards), while making up nearly 70 percent of the state-run labor force.
Moreover, only about 35 percent of managerial positions in the state-run sector are held by black and biracial (mulatto) Cubans.
Afro-Cubans are disproportionately represented in the prison population -- 80 percent of Cuba's inmates are black or mulatto.
In terms of higher education, Afro-Cubans are already perceived to be woefully underrepresented accounting for as little as three percent of university enrollments.
Afro-Cubans in the Castro Government: Senior Leadership (Politburo) of the Cuban Communist Party: 17% Executive Committee (Secretariat) of the Cuban Communist Party: 4% Council of State (Head of State and Senior Advisors): 35% Council of Ministers (President and Cabinet Members): % National Assembly (Cuban Parliament): 36% Provincial Assemblies (provincial legislatures): 35% Senior Command, Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR): 10% http://ctp.iccas.miami.edu
11. See http://www.cubagob.cu.
12. Juan Benemelis and Melvin Man, Juicio a Fidel (Santo Domingo: Taller, 1990).
13. See, i.e., Joe Azbell, The Riot Makers (Montgomery, Al.: Oak Tree Books, 1968), p. 104.
105. An interesting detail, however, is that, like all revolutionary movements around the world which Castro has managed to penetrate, the Black Revolution ended in failure. Coincidence?
14. Ibid., p. 102.
15. Ibid., p. 106.
16. International Herald Tribune, June 26, 1969.
17. Nevertheless, some prominent american blacks still continue giving their support to the Cuban white slavemaster, notable among them Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. As their support for Castro in the Elin Gonzalez case demonstrated, by helping Castro to enforce his non-written fugitive slave clause these people were actually backing an Underground Railroad in reverse. The fact indicates that their distaste for slavery is not ethically, but politically motivated. (The concept of Underground Railroad in reverse is from William Norman Grigg, "The Gospel According to Marx," The New American, March 13, 2000.)
18. Arthur Allen, "Long Time Gone. A black militant's exile in Castro's Cuba," Salon Magazine, http://www.salon1999.com/11/features/cuba1.html.
19. Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Mea Cuba (Barcelona: Plaza & Jans, 1992), pp. 37, 54. Also in Hugh Thomas, op. cit., pp. 888, 1433.
20. Ron Howell, "Con el turismo se expande el racismo," El Nuevo Herald, May 18, 2001.
21. Notable among American blacks who love Castro are: Maxine Waters, Danny Glover, Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, Jessee Jackson, Charles Rangel, Sidney Poitier, Angela Davies, Louis Farrrakhan, Whoopi Goldberg and Harry Belafonte, just to mention a few. For a devastating critique of the American Left and its relations with Castro's racist government see Sidney Brinkley, "Racism in Cuba and The Failure of the American Left," Blacklight online, http://www.blacklightonline.com/cubaracism.html.
22. Jess Arboleya, The Cuban Counterrevolution (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Research Center for International Studies, 2000), p. 189.
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Servando Gonzalez is a Cuban-born American writer. He received his training as a historian at the University of Havana, and has written books, essays, articles, and multimedia on Cuban and Latin American history, intelligence and espionage, semiotics and political satire.
Servando is the author of Historia hertica de la revolucin fidelista; Fidel Castro para herejes y otros invertebrados, Observando, The Secret Fidel Castro: Deconstructing the Symbol, The Nuclear Deception: Nikita Khrushchev and the Cuban Missile Crisis, and La madre de todas las conspiraciones: una novela de ideas subversivas. He is currently working on his second novel, Juegos mentales: una novella de guerra psicolgica, which deals with the Bogotazo riots and the true origins of the CIA.
His articles have been published in many magazines, newspapers, and Web sites in the U.S. and abroad. As a multimedia developer, Servando authored many computer programs, among them: Hypertext for Beginners, Popol Vuh: An Interactive Text/Graphics Adventure, The Riddle of the Swastika: A Study in Symbolism, and How to Create Your Own Personal Intelligence Agency. His documentary film, Treason in America: The Council on Foreign Relations, the first program of the TruhLies series, appeared in mid 2008. The next program, Partners in Treason: The CFR-CIA-Castro Connection will appear in early 2009.
You may read other Servando's articles at his website.
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Since 1959, Cuba's revolutionary government has embarked on the task of eliminating centuries of racial prejudice dating from the arrival of the Spanish in 1492, when the indigenous people of the island were massacred and the black slave trade was introduced.
To gain a full appreciation of the advances that have been achieved in combating racial prejudice in revolutionary Cuba, it is important to have an outline of the history of race relations in Cuba. The major historical periods are the colonial period, the period of the republic 1901-1959 and after the 1959 revolution.
Racism is an ideology that justifies the social practice of racial oppression, of institutionalised inequality based on racial categorisation. The invasion of the Americas following its "discovery" by Christopher Columbus was central to the development of capitalism in Europe. After the invasion it was necessary for the colonial ruling class to develop racist bigotry to justify the oppression of the indigenous people and the development of the slave trade.
Since the victory of the revolution, racist oppression has been systematically combated and defeated. However it would be utopian to suggest that individual racial prejudices do not still exist in sections of the population. The Cuban revolution laid the economic and social foundations for the effective elimination of racism, but, with increasing political and economic attacks by the US, even the gains that have been achieved face pressures.
The history of Cuba is a history of socio-economic discrimination against the overwhelming majority of the population. This discrimination was based not only on race but more importantly on class, leading many scholars to define the pre-revolutionary period as that of a colour/class system. The post-revolutionary government, therefore, correctly realised that to overcome racism it needed to overcome the class system itself.
Colonial period
One of the difficulties in looking at the issue of race politics in Cuba is in finding the most accurate statistics on who is, or defines themselves as, black. According to the 1955 Cuban census, negroes or mulattos comprised the following percentages of the population: in 55.85 per cent in 1827; 32 per cent in 1899; 25.2 per cent in 1943; and 26.9 per cent in 1953. Though these are the official figures it is important to note that they are based on a person's own definition, rather than on any objective definition of who is considered black, mulatto or white. Such figures are useful, however many other studies suggest that the percentage of blacks or mulattos is closer to 35-40% of the population in the post-revolutionary period.
The 1800s were a period of revolutionary battles, many of which began to raise the issue of race. It was also a time of massacres of the black population, such as that in Aponte in 1812 and La Escalera in 1844. The Cuban revolutionary hero Jos Mart was one of the most outspoken and aggressive campaigners for the liberation of blacks. The ten-year war that erupted in 1868 was begun by Carlos de Cespedes' act of freeing his slaves, opening the way for a greater political role for blacks.
The right-wing backlash which promoted a "fear of the black" was answered by Mart in 1868: "There can be no race hatred, because there are no races ... What then is there to fear? ... Shall we fear he who has suffered most in Cuba from the privation of freedom, in the country where the blood he shed for her has made her too dear to be threatened ... The revolution, which has brought together all Cubans, regardless of their colour, whether they come from the continent where the skin burns, or from peoples of a gentler light, will be for all Cubans." It was the battles lead by Mart and others that led to the abolition of slavery in 1886. The late 1880s also led to an increasing involvement of blacks in the struggle for independence, particularly the wars of independence 1895-98.
The republic
The 1901 constitution effectively imposed discriminatory practices which hit blacks the hardest. Voting was restricted to males over 21 years of age who could either read and write, or owned real property valued over 250 pesos, or proved that they had fought in the liberation army. In response to such practices, the Association of Black Voters was formed in 1908, soon after changing its name to the Party of Colour. Part of its platform stated: "Freedom is not asked or begged for, it is won; and rights are not handed out anywhere, rights are fought for and belong to all. If we go on asking for our rights, we will die waiting because we will have lost them."
However, in 1910, the government, in a clear attempt to curtail black political participation, introduced a law banning the formation of political parties on race lines. The banning led to the race war of 1912 that saw a genocide of blacks by the military.
By the turn of the century a systematic form of racial oppression was firmly in place in numerous parts of Cuban society. These included the formation of exclusive social clubs, bars, restaurants, beaches, movie theatres and night clubs. Exclusion was also maintained through income levels. Lourdes Casal, in an article entitled "Race Relations in Contemporary Cuba", writes:
"In Havana, upper class social clubs excluded blacks and mulattos systematically. (Even Batista, during his term as President of the Republic, was banned at the Havana Yacht Club, the most exclusive of the upper class clubs.) These clubs controlled private beaches in Havana which, therefore, excluded blacks. Middle class clubs, especially those organised around professional associations, admitted those blacks who belonged to the respective professional organisations."
"In Cuban small towns and provincial capitals, segregation was rigidly enforced in formal social life and in the patterns of informal association related to courtship, such as in public parks. The private school system was predominantly, although not totally, white. Elite schools practised racial discrimination but it was hardly necessary because few blacks could afford the high tuition costs and other expenses", writes Casal.
Race discrimination was also evident in occupational distribution, with blacks occupying the overwhelming majority of lower-paid and less skilled jobs in the economy. The republic's immigration policy encouraged white workers from Spain and promoted an assimilationalist policy. The government even went to the extent of introducing a process of reclassification of many mulattos as white, effectively trying to erase Cuba's black history.
Revolutionary period
The victory of the revolution provided the opportunity for a fundamental change in the way in which blacks were treated and the way in which black history and culture was viewed within Cuban society. Casal writes: "The egalitarian and redistributive measures (such as land reform) enacted by the revolutionary government have benefited blacks as the most oppressed sector of the society in the pre-revolutionary social system."
As early as March 1959, Fidel Castro spoke of the need to begin the struggle against racial prejudice. In a speech on March 21, 1959, Castro said: "In all fairness, I must say that it is not only the aristocracy who practise discrimination. There are very humble people who also discriminate. There are workers who hold the same prejudices as any wealthy person, and this is what is most absurd and sad ... and should compel people to meditate on the problem. Why do we not tackle this problem radically and with love, not in a spirit of division and hate? Why not educate and destroy the prejudice of centuries, the prejudice handed down to us from such an odious institution as slavery?"
Castro also acknowledged that the "blood of Africa runs deep in our veins. People's mentality is not yet revolutionary enough. People's mentality is still conditioned by many prejudices and beliefs from the past ... One of the battles which we must prioritise more and more every day ... is the battle to end racial discrimination at the work place ... There are two types of racial discrimination: one is the discrimination on the recreation centres or cultural centres; the other, which is the worst and the first one which we must fight, is racial discrimination in the job."
These remarks led to the Proclamation Against Racism: "We shouldn't have to pass a law to establish a right that should belong to every human being and member of society ... Nobody can consider themselves to be of pure race, much less a superior race. Virtue, personal merit, heroism, generosity, should be the measure of men, not skin colour." Castro then denounced racial discrimination and racial prejudice as "anti-nation". "What the eternal enemies of Cuba and the enemies of this revolution want is for us to be divided into a thousand pieces, thereby to be able to destroy us."
It was clear from the start of the revolution that the new government would look at the race issue more from a class perspective than on purely racial grounds. From the start the revolution introduced various affirmative action programs that helped the most disadvantaged sectors of the population, including women and Afro-Cubans.
The revolution has always prioritised socio-economic changes: they abolished the private heath care and education system which economically discriminated against blacks. The government's introduction of free health care and education has particularly benefited the black population of Cuba, who made up the bulk of the working class.
Castro said in March 1959: "There is discrimination at recreation centres. Why? Because blacks and whites are educated apart. At the public grade school, blacks and whites are together. At the public grade school, blacks and whites learn to live together, like brothers. And if they are together at the public school, they are later together at the recreation centres and at all places." The right wing responded with slogans like "neither black nor red".
On the eve of the revolution, roughly 15 per cent of Cuban primary school children and 30 per cent of high school students attended private schools, which were primarily white. The underfunded and poorly-staffed public education sector further enforced the so called "colour-class system". The segregation of the elite also made it difficult for the development of social networks across racial lines. Castro's comments were a very direct attempt to overcome those problems. Che Guevara also raised the issue in a speech to university students in 1960, stating that the "university must be painted black, worker, campesino".
The situation today
On a political and cultural level the revolution has opened many doors for greater Afro-Cuban involvement and recognition. In April 1976, Castro became the first white Cuban head of state to recognise the mulatto character of Cuban culture and nationhood stating in a speech: "We are a Latin-African people."
Casal writes that: "Cuban culture, which has slowly been evolving during several centuries, is undoubtedly Afro-Hispanic. In spite of the efforts of the white-dominant class, in spite of their resistance, black cultural elements are integrated into Cuban music, Cuban popular lore, Cuban art, poetry, in such fashion that, without their component of black heritage , they would not be what they are, they would not be Cuban. And this must not be seen as a result of an assimilationist option, but rather as a consequence of true mestizaje."
Greater recognition was given to the Afro-Cuban culture with the 1991 decision to allow religious believers into the Cuban Communist Party. This change particularly affected Afro-Cubans and further opened the door to political participation through being allowed to be nominated for party membership.
Housing
Prior to 1959, blacks tended to be concentrated in the most dilapidated areas of Havana. However the revolution immediately reduced rents by 50 per cent and eventually ownership was granted to tenants. Thus, more blacks now own their houses in Cuba than any other country in the world.
One indicator of the level of people's consciousness on racial issues is that of inter-racial unions. Thirty-nine years of revolution has produced structural changes that have placed young people in daily contact with others of all races, but housing patterns and family ties continue to shape the kinds of inter-racial relationships they form.
Nadine Fernndez, a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of California, spent two years in Cuba in 1992-93, gathering information on the issue, which culminated in an article titled "The Color Of Love: Young Inter-racial Couples in Cuba". Though Fernndez admits that prejudices still exist she makes it clear that since the revolution's victory there has been a steady increase in the numbers of inter-racial unions. There are many reasons for this, primarily the increased social mobility that blacks have enjoyed since 1959.
"Parents and grandparents built their lives and families around the revolution, integrating to a greater or lesser extent the revolution's struggle for racial, class and sexual equality. Often parents and grandparents find themselves holding contradictory views on these issues - caught between a legacy of discrimination and revolutionary ideas of equality", writes Fernndez.
Her study found that there was a level of prejudice among the older generation when it came to inter-racial unions, particularly white women with black men. However the number of inter-racial marriages varies geographically. In the Carraguao section of Havana a survey found that 32 per cent of the marriages were inter-racial, while nationwide the proportion is only 14 per cent according to the 1981 census.
The structural changes that the revolution has undertaken in the social and economic sectors have fundamentally changed the social and economic inequalities that had plagued Cuban society during centuries of slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism.
Since 1959, the revolution has opened the door to an ever increasing level of racial integration in all spheres of social and economic life. However, racial prejudice has not disappeared in Cuban society. It is still around particularly in a section of the older generation, but such views that do not receive much attention. The Cuban revolution clearly provides the example that racism can only be fought and undermined through a fundamental change in the social, economic and political structures of a society along socialist lines.
I know this is a serious forum, but for those of you who understand Spanish, here is a funny prank call that a Miami morning show did to Fidel Castro using pre-recorded voices from Hugo Chavez.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LkKY1IywmA
If you know Spanish is funny to listen to Fidel swearing on the phone.
Jorquera's long comment (actually an article he copied from the Green Left Weekly) is based on the leftist principle "verba, non facta," which is Latin for "words are more powerful than facts".
But, instead of quoting Castro, he should give a try at proving that the facts I mentioned in my article are wrong.
Because it is obvious that, if facts are more important than words, there should be something racialy wrong in a country with 60 percent of black population, where a mostly white elite hold most positions of power. There should be something racially wrong in a country where poor blacks escape in rafts, risking their lives to live in a supposedly racist society.
If one is to believe Nadine Fernandez, the highest social places in Castro's Cuba should be the prisons, which, because of the social mobility she mentions, are filled with blacks (men and women).
It is true that Batista, during his term as President of the Republic, was banned at the Havana Yacht Club, the most exclusive of the upper class clubs. But it is also true that, in my home town in Cuba, I could not join the "sociedad de color," a private club for blacks only.
In pre-Castro's Cuba there were private clubs for Blacks only, for Chinese only, and for Spaniards only (actually the Spaniards clubs were for Galicians only, for Asturians only, and for Catalonians only). Actually, the "Buenavista Social Club," now famous thanks to the musical group which took its name, was a famous club for Blacks only in the city of Marianao, a suburb of Havana.
On the other hand, in pre-Castro's Cuba no Cuban black was ever stopped at the door of a hotel or prohibited to get to a beach just because of the color of his skin.
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Caucus who visited Castro are more closer to the blacks in Africa who enriched themselves by making some of their own kin slaves and selling them to the Portuguese and other Europeans, than to the ones brought to America as slaves.