3) Spanish and other European immigrants that were encouraged to settle in Cuba as per attempts to "bleach" the island. This was the first time anything like this was seriously proposed since Haiti earned its independence. This is important to note because the "spectre" of Haiti loomed ominously over Spanish and Cuban whites for a century and most of their policies towards Cuba's Blacks were reflective of it. The following year, the Cuban Ward Connerly of his day, Martin Morúa Delgado was elected Speaker in Cuba's Senate. The year after that, Morúa introduced legislation that became known as the Morúa Amendment and it outlaws the PIC because is was based on race and racism was supposedly eradicated in Cuba. Just before the vote was taken to enact this bill into law, Estonez and other PIC leaders were imprisoned and were kept in jail until after the law was passed.
The benefit features Dr. Raul Ruiz Miyares, a professor of Afro-Cuban culture and history at Casa del Caribe, Santiago de Cuba. His lecture, "Cuba & Africanismo: The Making of Revolutionary Culture", will include slides and a video. The benefit also includes: spoken word, an Afro-Cuban folkloric performance, a Caribbean dinner, and a Latin, World Beat dance party, all on Friday, May 2.6 p.m.
The dramatic vision and delicate balance of composition found in Adona's photographic works were developed while working with painter Rozzell Sykes. Her vision was literally changed. The awareness of light, shadows, colors, textures, tones and balance had changed. Soon she began creating with paint, stark images with the feel of Japanese simplicity. [Alisa Adona]'s paintings showed a freshly textured view and an exciting new eye in the Los Angeles art world. Over time, she was compelled to capture what she saw through the lens of a camera, ultimately making photography her new love.
[Assata Shakur]'s comments highlight the long and continuing relationship between African Americans and Cuba. Black abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass and Henry Highland Garnet had actively supported Cuba's struggle for independence from Spain over a century ago. After the revolutionaries seized power in 1959, [Fidel Castro] made a powerful impression among African Americans by staying in Harlem during his first visit to the United Nations. Castro's famous September, 1960 meeting with Malcolm X, to the great consternation of the U.S. government, reinforced the solidarity felt by progressive black Americans toward the revolutionary government.
Enrique Patterson, a columnist at Miami's El Nuevo Herald, recently spoke at Baruch College in New York City about racial discrimination in Cuba. Patterson, who is Cuban-American, said Cuban culture has a tradition of racism that developed before Fidel Castro and has not ended under Castro's reign. Patterson said racism is preventing a transition to democracy.
The news media showed pictures of the immediate family and family friends. What I found amazing is that it appears that only light-skinned Cubans are trying to escape from their homeland. I saw the Cuban basketball team in the late Olympics. I have also seen pictures of Cubans in a television special one by Harry Belafonte. What I saw were dark-skinned Cubans having the time of their lives. It made me wonder, in light of what I have been told by African people living in Florida, that the light-skinned Cubans are more racist that some southerners. What is really going on in Cuba, and what is this Elian Gonzales issue about? The more I got into thinking this way, the more questions were raised. Why are most of the people trying to escape from Cuba light-skinned? Why are the majority of the athletics in the Olympics dark-skinned? The women's basketball team and the volleyballs teams were the bomb. They were some big, pretty sisters. I also thought of the Haitians. Why are Haitians sent back to Haiti and Cubans allowed to stay in America? They are both supposedly oppressed people. The Haitians are dark and the Cubans, who are trying to escape, light. Is there something more than meets the eye?
Blacks have accused Cubans of taking advantage of their White complexions while simultaneoulsy being "minorities" when it is convenient for them. When opportunities for government contracts and grants for "minorities" are created, Cuban's apply as "minorities." When affirmative action policies are enacted for "minorities," Cuban's are also the beneficiaries. But somewhere down the line these police officers forgot they were "minorities." It took the two retired white officers, who cooperated fully with the FBI, to remind them.
At the recent Summit of the Americas, President [Barack Obama] suggested that the U.S. could learn a lesson of goodwill from Cuba. In 1998, Cuba's government began programs to send large-scale medical assistance to poor populations affected by natural disasters. Each year some 2,000 young people enroll at the school, which operates from a former naval base in a suburb of Havana. Cuba's 21 medical faculties all train young people of poor families from throughout the Americas, as well as hundreds of African, Arab, Asian and European students. The country sends teams of doctors all over the world to respond to natural disasters. Cuban doctors have provided medical services to the underserved in Africa for over a decade. Blacks' views of relations with Cuba differ vastly from those of most Cuban immigrants and Cuban-Americans. The former lily-white upper crust of Cuban society wield political clout in Florida and are dead set against normalizing relations with Cuba's government. Consequently most politicians have chosen to adopt Cuban-American views. From 1960 to 1979, hundreds of thousands of Cubans began new lives in the US. Most of these Cuban Americans came were from educated upper and middle classes and form the backbone of the anti-[Fidel Castro] movement. Cuban Americans are America's fifth-largest Hispanic group and the largest Spanish-speaking group of white descent.
"You must understand that we are very different in Cuba," insisted Gabriel Molina Franchossi, director of Gramma newspaper, the official organ of the communist party in Cuba. "To Afro-Cubans, big lips and big backsides are objects of beauty. To us, such images represent the feminine ideal." Afro Cubans also seem naive. Cubans are fond of saying that Fidel Castro abolished racism when he came into power 40 years ago, as though this can be accomplished by a simple decree. What they really mean, of course, is that Castro outlawed discrimination And again, who am I to say he hasn't? In the United States, discrimination didn't become illegal until the mid-60s when Congress passed a series of civil rights laws effecting voting rights, equal employment, and fair housing. By 1968, Richard Nixon was ending a wave of white backlash into power and the process of undermining those gains began. Blacks appear to have had a different experience in Cuba, where better than 40 percent of the population is either Black or mestizo (mixed) and where a fair percentage of those who are considered "white" acknowledge some degree of African or mestizo blood in their heritage. "We in Cuba are not so easily categorized as in the United States," said Reynaldo Calviac Lafferte, director of the International Press Center. He pointed to a wall in his office. "In the same family, there are some who are as white as that wall." Then he slapped his patent leathers. "And there are some who are as black as my shoes. For us, race is not an issue like it is for you."
