Cuban color

 

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By
Elíades Acosta Matos                                                       Read Spanish Version

To
travel in a bus in Havana, like the ones that go down Lisa or Alamar,
for example, or to stroll through the city’s streets, provides a good
observer with answers to many of the questions that intrigue
visitors. For example, the degree of solidarity achieved by the
people, which nothing has been able to transform into selfishness or
indifference, is patent and constant. The same happens when we see
Cubans of different races intermingle without any prejudice, admire
each other’s beauty, acknowledge each other’s merits, whatever they
may be, and love each other without letting skin color be an
obstacle.

A
sustained press campaign abroad paints a Cuba divided in closed
boxes, where blacks suffer shortages that, in reality, afflict us all
equally. According to these "spokesmen," blacks are held
back by a Revolution that has done nothing for their legitimate
rights. Rather than "Cubans," these "specialists"
say, they should be called "Afro-Cubans." The rise to power
of the first black president in the history of the United States has
put the topic on the table once again.

The
question being asked is whether or not there is racism in Cuba or if
enough has been done in the past 50 years to eliminate their
expressions. Put a different way, whether socialism can foster full
equality among all men, or if that accomplishment has been done by
capitalism, which has been able to guarantee equality to a few, among
them a man named Barack Obama.

To
be objective, the questions should be reformulated, at least
including other, no less important questions. For example, when and
how racial divisions and prejudices were instituted on the island;
what is (and was) the Revolution’s policy on this issue; and if the
measures adopted were effective and obtained palpable results.

The
Revolution that triumphed in January 1959 inherited a long list of
exclusions, postponements and injustices, of which racism was one.
This burden, a true cancer that corrupts human relations and
feelings, did not originate in the socialist society but had its
roots in the colonial society and its apotheosis in the traffic of
humans and slavery. According to historical data, the annual
importation of slaves until 1851 was 10,400. [1]

U.S.
intervention, far from palliating the harmful effects of this policy,
introduced other racist practices until then foreign to the country.
Gen. Leonard Wood did not flinch when he declared at a Senate
committee hearing that "many of today’s Cubans are the fruit of
marriages between Negroes and native-born criollos
and
such marriages produce an inferior race." [2]

No
one should be surprised that not even the hard-working Mambises
escaped this double racism. "After the war," says Esteban
Montejo, the protagonist of The Biography of a Cimarron, "an
argument started over whether the Negroes had fought or not. […]
The result was that the Negroes were put out on the street. They were
brave as lions, but were out on the street. That was wrong, but it
happened." [3]

The
Republic that was inaugurated in 1902 maintained racial
discrimination in its essential expressions. Although the
Constitution declared the equality of all Cubans, social practices
and the refined forms of exclusion prevented such declarations to be
put into practice.

The
Revolution and socialism in Cuba have had to struggle with the heavy
burden of the racial problems that colonialism introduced in the
island and capitalism was incapable of eradicating. Ever since 1959,
rather than voicing good wishes and passing seraphic laws, the
revolutionary government has transformed the relations of production
and the social relations so that all Cubans, without exception and
independently from their racial or class origin, may have access to
the opportunities for self-improvement and development.

It
is true that in Cuba there have been no specific racial policies
(which, incidentally, have not guaranteed any equality in other
countries) but there have been employment, cultural, sports,
educational, scientific and social justice policies, and policies to
protect the needy that have allowed all Cubans to advance, on the
basis of their personal merit and their will. When socialism in Cuba
had moments of crisis, as in the 1990s, and specific social programs
were postponed, or when undesirable inequalities emerged in areas
such as personal income, setbacks have automatically occurred in the
field of racial equality.

To
express it in Cuban street lingo: through the same door that allowed
the germs of capitalism into the island, part of the many advances in
equality of opportunities, social justice, and brotherhood among men
have emerged. And vice versa.

Much
is speculated about the racial differences in Cuba, especially by
those who attempt to use them and develop them as weapons for a
political and cultural war aimed at delegitimizing the policies of
the Revolution and dividing the Cubans. The truth is that the results
of the 2002 census and the scientific studies made since then brought
disheartening news to those pyromaniacs. Let us look at some.

• Nationwide,
65.2 percent of the population is white, but the number of mestizos
increased
by 4 points since the previous census.

• A
recent study by the Cuban Institute of Anthropology among 2,784
individuals in Havana City revealed that 1,690 of them (60.7 percent)
lived in racially homogeneous families, while 1,094 (39.2 percent)
lived in mixed families.

• There
is no substantial difference between the rates of schooling and the
levels present among the different races.

• Out
of 18 main sectors of the economy and social life that were analyzed,
there is an over-representation of the white population in barely 12
percent of all whites, which means that the presence of whites and
blacks in the remaining 88 percent is balanced.

• Out
of 100 respondents in Havana questioned about population and the
risks of poverty, only one mentioned a racial problem.

• In
the case of marriages, according a 2004 study by the Institute of
Anthropology, the racial differences have no significant influence,
and there is a very low perception of whether this is a problem at
the time of choosing a mate.

Among
the insufficiently solved problems are these: (a) the lowest
percentages of blacks can be found in sectors of the emerging
economy, such as tourism; and (b) blacks have reduced access to
family remittances from abroad, due to the ethnic composition of the
émigré communities.

Do
these data mean that there are no racists in Cuba and that there are
no inequalities and problems that affect Cubans of one race more than
those of another? Of course not. When history has placed people of
different races at different starting points, nobody can pretend that
all the differences, all the injustices and all the prejudices
related to this issue will be eliminated in half a century.

But
the fact that the Revolution and socialism have done more than any
previous government and system for all Cubans — especially the
humblest, the traditionally underprivileged and among them the blacks
and mestizos — is a verifiable and evident truth, as well as the
fact that there is a long road still ahead.

To
researcher Pablo Rodríguez of the Cuban Institute of Anthropology,
"in our concrete conditions, it is not a black movement that
will contribute to specify blackness, and by extension to specify
other groups, which will be a solution to the problem. […] The
question lies in maintaining a crusade of blacks and whites against
racism in the field of action and research, so [racism’s] ballast and
effects that reduce the human condition may be proscribed from our
society." [4]

At
this stage, despite the pyromaniacs and "specialists" who
try to tear apart what the history of Cuba joined together forever,
from the heroic days of the redemptive manigua,
the words of Juan Gualberto Gómez ring with special force and
timeliness: "Ask for nothing as blacks; ask for everything as
Cubans."

It
is not a question of promoting a handful of fortunate men and women
but an entire people, those people who do not consider themselves or
act as if they were different from, or inferior to anyone. Those
people you see on the streets or the buses carrying proudly on their
skin the Cuban color.

Elíades
Acosta Matos is a Cuban writer and essayist. He has written numerous
essays and books, among them "Apocalypse according to St.
George," "From Valencia to Baghdad." His latest book,
"21st Century imperialism; The cultural wars," will be
launched at the 2009 Havana Book Fair. Acosta was chief of the
Department of Culture of the Central Committee of the Communist Party
of Cuba.

[1]
Juan Pérez de la Riva: “The amount of forced immigration in the
19th Century," Social Sciences Printing House, Havana, 1997, pg.
5.

[2]
Quoted by Jason M. Yaremko, "U.S. Protestant mission in Cuba,"
University Press, Florida, 2000, pg. 37.

[3]
Miguel Barnet, "Biography of a cimarron," Gente Nueva
Printing House, Havana, 1967, pg. 156.

[4]
Pablo Rodríguez Ruíz, "Time, spaces and contexts of the
current racial debate in Cuba."