Racism in Cuba

By Jorge Morales

From La Joven Cuba [The Young Cuba]

MATANZAS – I am Cuban and black, without pride or prejudice. That’s just what I am. My grandfather is Spanish, my great-great-grandfather fought with Quintín Bandera and, ethnically, my family is a rainbow.

Chatting at work recently with a colleague, I learned of general guidelines issued to promote women and blacks in management posts. I found that funny, because I don’t see in these characteristics any condition for promotion. I simply see people’s ability, intelligence and transparency as the main deserving values.

My comrade told me she didn’t understand why this happened and, in fact, was unaware of the existence of racism. When I gave her some examples, she was puzzled. Personally, I am bothered by the saying “it’s a staff policy.” So what’s a staff? I have no idea, but mistaking race or gender for the ability to hold a job is at the very least laughable. And I say this as a black man.

I have read Esteban Morales and his magnificent book about race in Cuba. As a black Cuban, I have discovered the social perspective of our reality, which is totally unknown but looms over us every day. The social conditions to terminate slavery and marginalization, which existed for more than two centuries before the triumph of the Revolution, were not erased by decree when Fidel broached the issue after 1959.

Racism was no longer debated because it was felt that a public statement would eliminate it. What racism did was to hide and become an invisible enemy. When I studied at the university, my fellow students included many white men, more than the proportion of whites in our society. There were 21 whites, 2 blacks and 2 mestizos [browns].

One of the more renowned whites used to tell me, from his totally racist standpoint (let’s call things what they are) that he liked blacks as friends but wouldn’t want his sister to date one. Moreover, if that were to happen, he was sure that his sister would be expelled from home.

I told him that his position was so racist that it repelled me. He told me that that’s what everybody felt but didn’t say. At the start of the Revolution, it was established that it would be color-blind but the problem of the existing racism in our society was not fully debated. It still hides, camouflaged, because there has been no real nationwide debate about it.

Some years ago, the [TV program] Round Table dealt with the prison population in the United States and its ethnic breakdown. What’s tricky is that our TV has also show programs about OUR prisons, and blacks are a majority in them too. So, we criticize our neighbor without doing a real analysis of what’s happening here.

In various cities I’ve visited, the slums are inhabited mostly by blacks. In conversations with friends, I’ve heard that we excel at music and sports, but seeing a black in a university is rare.

I know teachers who don’t teach in some elementary schools because they’re in areas with a predominantly black population. Here in Havana, we see neighborhoods that are predominantly white and others that are mostly black. Still and all, the demographic behavior leads to homogeneity.

White Cubans don’t hesitate to hail our baseball, volleyball or athletics teams, identifying with them, or dancing to the music of the VanVan, but act differently when their stepmothers or brothers-in-law are black.

This kind of racism is worse for society, because the racist person does not acknowledge himself as such. In recent years, we have seen greater black representation in our media, i.e., leading actors roles in television series and programs. Let me make clear that racism goes both ways. I have met blacks who say “we’re black so we have to help one another,” so I’ve walked away from them.

At the university where I studied, in Matanzas, there was a professor who used to refer disparagingly to blacks, saying they don’t have to what takes to graduate. He said that in the classroom, so the folks at UJC and FEU knew all about it. Nobody confronted him because he taught a complex course and besides he was a Party member (I don’t know what he did in the Party). Fortunately, he eventually retired.

By not debating an evil that has rooted itself and hidden itself in our society, we don’t help eliminate it. To think that by writing a Declaration and proclaiming the antiracist nature of the Revolution we have solved the problem is to be blind to reality. Cuba is not changed by proclamations and this topic requires a very strong sociological study. It is not a question of ideology but of people and prejudice, something more complicated that politics.

At present there is a struggle over sexual equality, a debate promoted by Mariela Castro Espín. It has made giant gains in a society where machismo is ingrained. Yet racism is not debated and racial affairs are left to stand just as they are. Worse yet, the topic is politicized much too often.

People abroad try to hurt the Revolution by alluding to this situation, and the State automatically denies it (because every time someone abroad says something, the State says the opposite, without thinking much about it.) Racism is also politicized by using the racial issue as one of the achievements of the Revolution – which in many ways it is – but the State fails for mention the numerous difficulties that still exist. In the best of cases, it downplays them.

The issue is serious, even though we haven’t stressed it and see it as “normal.” I know mestizos who don’t want to identify themselves as such. When I was in college preparatory school, I had a friend who went to get his identification card and they listed him as a mestizo. When his grandmother saw the card, she went to the office that issues ID cards and created a major disturbance because the office clerk “couldn’t see that my grandson is white.” To pacify her, the clerk issued a new card – even though color doesn’t change just because a document is changed.

We must create opportunities for all, the same way that we must eliminate color or racial background elites. They exist. If you doubt it, ask a business manager where he lives, how many businessmen live nearby and how many are black. Things must be called by their right name, like FIFA does. Racism is racism, whether in Cuba or France, in a soccer game or a university hallway.

We must debate what’s bad, not simply ignore it or establish selective processes for colors. There’s thousands of examples. You solve the problem not by promoting colors or sexes but promoting abilities and skills, by creating opportunities for all and by combating all racist acts.

Maybe the first step will be to create a real debate throughout society. We’ll see if the decision-makers learn to call things by their rightful name. In any case, they should face the phenomenon openly and deeply. It seems to me a lot more “revolutionary” than giving false appearances or preserving the status quo. By dealing head-on with race, we also decide the future of this country.