"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."
"There are tens of thousands of roofless or windowless homes, schools, healthcare facilities, nursing homes, daycares and cultural centers that were partially or totally destroyed," Jones added.
"I don't want to look arrogant, especially with [Cornel West]. But I believe he sat on the side of something he doesn't actually know," [Nancy Morejon] said of the open letter West and 59 other African Americans sent to Cuban President Raul Castro late last year. In it, they accused his government of mistreating civil rights activists and a "callous disregard" for its Black population. "Yes, there is racism in Cuba," Tomas Fernandez Robaina, a prolific writer about the social condition of Black Cubans, told me. The country "engaged in romanticism" when Castro ordered an end to racial discrimination nearly a half-century ago, Fernandez said. "Now we understand it will take more than goodwill to get rid of it, something Americans should know better than Cubans."
Reviews the books "Economies of Desire: Sex and Tourism in Cuba and the Dominican Republic," by Amalia L. Cabezas and "The Industrial Vagina: The Political Economy of the Global Sex Trade," by Sheila Jeffreys.
"With the exception of the local corner bar, which they could patronize, Black Cubans did not share recreational activities with white Cubans. They were not hired as clerks or even as menial help in the restaurants. There were no Black Cuban entrepreneurs, except for a tailor, a barber and a very successful dry-cleaning establishment," Grillo says in the book. "In the main, Black Cubans and white Cubans lived apart from one another in Ybor City." While slavery may have been different in Cuba, Afro-Cubans wound up with a social status not much different from that of African Americans. Even Blacks who were financially successful had to deny their ethnicity in order to be accepted within Cuba's white society: "In Cuba, affluent Black Cubans moved within the society of the affluent. 'Es Negro, pero es Negro blanco' ['He is a Black man, but he is a white Black man'] was an expression I heard often."
HAVANA - A group of US lawmakers is working at easing dialogue between Washington and Havana, as President Barack Obama's administration weighs plans to drop its decades-old strategy of isolating communist Cuba. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee's top Republican Richard Lugar, who in February said decades of US sanctions on Havana had failed, wrote to Obama in a March 30 letter that: "additional (US) measures are needed... to recast a policy that has not only failed to promote human rights and democracy, but also undermines our broader security and political interests." U.S. Congressman [Bobby Rush], left, and Rep. [Barbara Lee], D-Calif, second from right, attend a ceremony in front of Martin Luther King monument in Havana, Saturday, April 4, 2009. Seven members of the Congressional Black Caucus arrived in Cuba last Friday to discuss improving relations with the communist government amid speculation that Washington could ease travel restrictions to the island.
Miami, FL: Florida International University, Cuban Research Institute
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
The Cuban Research Institute (CRI) at Florida International University (FIU) is dedicated to creating and disseminating knowledge about Cuba and Cuban Americans. The institute encourages original research and interdisciplinary teaching, organizes extracurricular activities, collaborates with other academic units working in Cuban and Cuban-American studies, and promotes the development of library holdings and collections on Cuba and its diaspora. Founded in 1991, CRI is a freestanding entity within FIU's Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs and works closely with its prestigious Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center.
The political awareness of Afro Cubans remains exclusively tied to the Revolution. "And [Fidel Castro] is the one sustaining the Revolution: the reason Cuba is so strong is because of Fidel," said a prominent U.S.-based Afro Latino journalist who preferred not to be named. "After Fidel, the Cubans in Miami will simply pounce on the island," this journalist contends. "They have connections in Cuba; they have their people in place in Cuba already. When they take over they're going to be opening up the political arena to the U.S. again. Cuba has ostensibly been "independent" since Dec. 10, 1898, following decades of fighting between the nation's independence army, the Cuba Libre, and Spain. By 1898, the war was between Spain and the United States, but Cubans had declared their independence as early as Oct. 10, 1868. At that time, they'd also called for the island to end its enslavement of Black people, but emancipation from slavery was not made law until Oct. 7, 1886.
