For Blacks in Cuba, the Revolution Hasn’t Begun - NYT opinion

[flamingdem]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/opinion/sunday/for-blacks-in-cuba-the-revolution-hasnt-begun.html?_r=1&


This is oversimplified but hits on some truths. One of the biggest issues is remittances from a largely white population in Miami to a largely white group of relatives in Cuba. That creates economic disparity but shouldn't be lumped in with racism. Also, don't know where the author has been but he's missed a series of very lively debates about race in Havana that happened at one of the institutions and was open to the public. If I can find the references will post links.

--------- snip

It’s true that Cubans still have a strong safety net: most do not pay rent, and education and health care are free. But the economic divergence created two contrasting realities that persist today. The first is that of white Cubans, who have leveraged their resources to enter the new market-driven economy and reap the benefits of a supposedly more open socialism. The other reality is that of the black plurality, which witnessed the demise of the socialist utopia from the island’s least comfortable quarters.

Most remittances from abroad — mainly the Miami area, the nerve center of the mostly white exile community — go to white Cubans. They tend to live in more upscale houses, which can easily be converted into restaurants or bed-and-breakfasts — the most common kind of private business in Cuba. Black Cubans have less property and money, and also have to contend with pervasive racism. Not long ago it was common for hotel managers, for example, to hire only white staff members, so as not to offend the supposed sensibilities of their European clientele.

That type of blatant racism has become less socially acceptable, but blacks are still woefully underrepresented in tourism — probably the economy’s most lucrative sector — and are far less likely than whites to own their own businesses. Raúl Castro has recognized the persistence of racism and has been successful in some areas (there are more black teachers and representatives in the National Assembly), but much remains to be done to address the structural inequality and racial prejudice that continue to exclude Afro-Cubans from the benefits of liberalization.

Racism in Cuba has been concealed and reinforced in part because it isn’t talked about. The government hasn’t allowed racial prejudice to be debated or confronted politically or culturally, often pretending instead as though it didn’t exist. Before 1990, black Cubans suffered a paralysis of economic mobility while, paradoxically, the government decreed the end of racism in speeches and publications. To question the extent of racial progress was tantamount to a counterrevolutionary act. This made it almost impossible to point out the obvious: racism is alive and well.

[flamingdem]

1. Here is an article describing the discussion of race over time in Cuba:

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=16838

--- snip

Black members of several US organizations, including some in their formal capacities, called for public discussion on the Cuban racial problem to make it visible and to facilitate the search of solutions on the part of the State as well as the island’s social institutions.

In a response, the president of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC), Miguel Barnét, and other Cuban cultural figures, admitted that the process of racial integration has not been easy; however, they denied restrictions on “civil liberties by reasons of race” in the country.

According to their declaration, published in the island’s digital media on Friday, the transformation process undertaken over the last half century has allowed Cuban “blacks and mulatos” to find “opportunities for social and personal realization, supported by policies and programs” that foster the integration of society.

“This, we know, is a process that is not exempt from conflicts and contradictions in which inherited social disadvantages and deeply-rooted prejudices play an important role,” acknowledged the statement, which was in response to the declaration signed by over 50 Black intellectuals from the United States.

Also the response of Cuba intellectual Nancy Morejon:



For Cuban intellectuals, among whom figure poet and essayist Nancy Morejón, “behind this fiction is evidenced the perverse intention of adding respectable voices from the US African-American community to the anti-Cuban campaign that seeks to undermine our sovereignty and identity.”

In the signatories’ opinion, “if the Cuba of these times were that racist country that some wish to paint,” its citizens would not have contributed massively to the liberation of African peoples, nor would more than 35,000 African youths have received education in Cuban schools over the past 40 years.

“Nor would 2,600 young people from some 30 nations of that region be studying right now in our universities,” adds the declaration, which also refers to cooperation in the form of the training of medical personnel and other human resources, as well as public health assistance provided to countries of Latin American and the Caribbean, where there is a “significant the African diaspora.”

The Cuban letter recalls that in those “first days” of the triumphant revolutionary process in 1959, “the institutional and judicial bases of a racist society were dismantled, and people of African ancestry immediately benefited from the battle waged by the new government to eradicate all forms of exclusion.”

[Mika]

2. What a friggin shameful article.

To sum it up - Miami's white RW "exile" Cubans are racists, and, via chain immigration the racial demographics remain virtually unchanged - and they're the one's sending remittances.

[flamingdem]

3. Yes, I see what you mean!

That certainly reframes things and reminds us of Cuba's history with race. Should we begin with the 90s or how about the 50s? I'm trying to find out about medical school graduates but cannot find a figure for Afrocubans, I think the percentage is high. Women graduates make up 50%. The author leaves out the gains of the revolution conveniently.

[Mika]

4. Here ...

Part 3: Cuba: How all children learn in a mostly-black land
http://www.ifajs.org/Cubaoct09/cubaparents.html

[Bacchus4.0]

7. another article from the same source

But underlying the American letter and the Cuban response is the more subtle question of the role racism and racial prejudice play in Cuba, a nation whose social mores once mirrored those of America's Jim Crow era. Surprisingly, even as Cuban intellectuals dismiss the attempt of their African-American counterparts to stand up for them, they talk openly about Cuba's racial problems — and the solutions that are needed.

Despite the Castro regime's public pronouncements against racial discrimination, the signs of racial disadvantage, if not outright racial prejudice, are easy to find. The best jobs in Cuba's growing tourism industry are overwhelmingly held by whites. Hotel doormen, chambermaids, tour guides, translators or restaurant waiters can earn more tips in a day than a doctor or government bureaucrat is paid in a month.

"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."

http://www.ifajs.org/cubainbw/cubaracism.html

[flamingdem]

11. Yes, it proves that race is being discussed, Tomas Fernandez Robaina works for the library

and is a respected figure, not some blogger..

[Mika]

5. Another...

Cuban Education And Human Capital Formation (PDF file)
http://www.ascecuba.org/publications/proceedings/volume20/pdfs/pumar.pdf

[Bacchus4.0]

6. educational policy of the government and the existence of racism are separate issues

the US has a policy of affirmative action, diversity, and equal opportunity. Government policy on equal treatment didn't elimnate racism.

[bemildred]

8. NYT would do better to address inequality here at home,

which is much more egregious than anything in Cuba, rather than hauling water for the State Dept.'s neoliberal whackos. If the USA wants to really be a global leader, we should lead by setting a good example.

[ocpagu]

9. Couldn't agree more.

nt

[flamingdem]

10. absolutely bemildred

isn't this an interesting trend with Yoani Sanchez and now this author get to haul water and distract from our bad policies at home and towards Cuba.