Or to put it another way, Israel massacred 1400 Gazans only a year ago; police and their surrogate death squads in Brazil summarily execute more than a 1,000 black men every year, and President Obama is bombing poor, darker-skinned peasants in Pakistan every week, and Professor Walters wants us to
be mad at Cuba?

This decontextualized argument is not for serious people.

Is Cuba today this a racial improvement over Batista, who himself was not white? Consider the following:

“His friends called him el indio [the Indian], and his enemies called him el negro [black man],” recalled his eldest son years later. . . When he first saw Batista, U.S. Military Attaché T.N. Gimperling believed he was achinado, meaning part Chinese, Indian, and Afro-Cuban. . . . His enemies assumed he was Afro-Cuban, and he was frequently depicted as having exaggerated African features in Cuban newspaper cartoons. . . It is quite probable, given the extent of intermarriage in the Banes region and the high number of former African slaves in Oriente Province, that Batista’s family was a mixture of Spanish, African and Indian lineages. “ — From pages 4 and 5 of Frank Argote-Freyre’s biography, “Fulgencio Batista: From Revolutionary to Strongman” (brackets in original text)

Castro’s revolution booted Batista’s black and red blood out of the President’s chair and restored white guys to power.

Today the prison population in Stalinist/Apartheid Cuba is 90% black while only 9% of the ruling Stalinist party is black.

“By all accounts, blacks are disproportionately represented among Cuba’s prison population. … De la Fuente [A Nation for All: Race, Inequality and Politics in Twentieth-Century Cuba, University of North Carolina Press, 2001] notes that in the mid-1980s, a brief period for which data exist, blacks were 7.6 times more likely than whites and 3.4 times more likely that mulattos to be declared socially dangerous, and they represented 78 percent of all prisoners jailed for this reason.” (Racial Politics in Post-Revolutionary Cuba, by Mark Q. Sawyer (Cambridge University Press, 2006), page 118.

See also “Why Castro fears Obama administration” by Carlos Moore, Special to McClatchy Washington Bureau, Nov. 19, 2008. Last updated: December 15, 2008 02:56:04 PM. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/337/v-print/story/56074.html

P.S. I’ve been to Cuba, too.

I’m surprised that Ron Walters hasn’t responded to the comments made previously on this issue. Can someone ask him to make some sort of comment or response? After he made a point of writing this long commentary, readers probably would like to know he he maintains his position or has modified it in any way in light of the responses it has garnered.
=======================================

Racism in Cuba: An Unresolved Issue
January 15, 2010
Patricia Grogg

http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=18246

HAVANA TIMES, January 14 (IPS) – Racism is an unresolved issue in Cuban society. “It’s necessary to admit that the problem exists, to know its impact on the social system we defend, and to attack it at its roots,” said Esteban Morales, an economist, political scientist and author of articles and essays on the subject, interviewed by IPS.

As a researcher at the University of Havana’s Center for Hemispheric and US Studies, Morales understands Cuba and the US with equal depth. He responded to the fact that 60 [African-American] intellectuals —some of recognized stature and prestige— accused the Raul Castro government of persecuting and harassing people due to the color of their skin.

Morales believes those accusations “ignore” the reality of his country and “are being mounted as part of the same campaigns that (US) administrations have historically launched against the Cuban Revolution.”

“We speak of racism and say that it’s necessary to improve civil rights, democratic rights, but not only of blacks, but of the entire society. In that struggle we have allies at the highest levels of the country’s political leadership,” he affirmed.

IPS: In what respects did the social efforts of the Cuban Revolution fail by being unable to eliminate the disadvantages of its black population?

ESTEBAN MORALES: Despite the radical nature of the process that opened up in 1959, social programs —for years— did not take color into account. With the triumph of the Revolution, social policies treated all poor people equally, and no distinction was made with respect to blacks. However, this was something that should have been done, because the color of one’s skin is a strong variable of social differentiation in Cuba.

Whites came here of their own will, as settlers, with life goals that were often realized. Blacks were brought here by force and turned into slaves. These are different points of departure that cannot be forgotten, nor can they be avoided, and their weight is still felt today.

Even when everyone’s level was elevated, and blacks achieved a more favorable position over this past half century, the deep differences didn’t totally disappear. When the “Special Period” came (the crisis of the 1990s), we realized that those who suffered most from the crisis were in fact blacks.

Still, in today’s Cuba, it’s not the same to be poor and white as to be poor and black.

IPS: Nevertheless, in 1962 the Cuban government declared that the problem of racism had been resolved.

EM: That was an error of idealism and voluntarism made under the pressure of the political circumstances of the time. Starting from that moment, there began a long period of silence around the issue. This was justified by saying that to talk about those differences was to play into the enemy’s hands. Those who insisted [on the existence of racism] were considered racist and divisive.

The issue resurged with force during the Special Period; I would say with a virulence all its own, which is characteristic of something that is assumed to be resolved but really isn’t.

IPS: On more than one occasion it’s been said that people in this country are educated “to be white.” Do you believe it’s fair to consider these types of contradictions to be forms of “institutionalized” racism?

EM: It’s a certain form of institutionalization, but not through some directive or done in a conscious manner, but a form derived from flaws and errors in the educational process, in the teaching of history, in racial representativeness in our books. By not dealing with the root of the problem in schools, the consequences of slavery persist until today.

These problems do not have to do with institutions, but with aspects and problems of social life, with the dysfunctions and imperfections of our society. Racial consciousness is still lacking in Cuba. For whites this is not important, because they were always in power; but blacks must have a racial consciousness to struggle against racism and for their place in society.

Racial discrimination is a phenomenon that remains on people’s mind, in their families, in personal relationships, and occasionally in some institutionalized groups – which is not easily resolved.

IPS: What is your proposal for solving these deficiencies in education?

EM: The only way to solve this is through the strict monitoring of equal opportunities for all jobs, especially in the new economy, that’s to say in tourism and joint-venture companies involving foreign capital; in education and intensive cultural work.

In fact, we shouldn’t educate for any particular color, but what’s happening in practice is that our students are generally educated thinking that it’s better to be white, and that it’s a disadvantage to be black.

We have to solve problems of occidentalismo (Euro-centrism) in our education, to deepen the teaching of history —about Africa, Asia, the Middle East— and the racial representativeness of our bibliography. We should take the discussion about racial discrimination into schools so that when a young person goes out on the street and hears a racist epithet, they’re able to defend themself against it.

IPS: What do you propose in social terms?

EM: “We are all the same” was also a slogan under Cuba’s demagogic Republican (pre-Revolution) period. Equality is the aim, the goal, as long as inequality and difference are what trip us up daily.

As a starting point, it’s necessary to recognize the inequalities that exist in our society, though we’ve struggled to solve them to a point of verging on egalitarianism. They are an inheritance and, at the same time, a phenomenon that can be reproduced as a result of the dysfunctions of our social model, which must be improved.

Only by understanding these differences in depth and working on them, will we be able to arrive at true equality.

IPS: Do you think it’s necessary to have special programs and policies for the black population?

EM: In Cuba, a certain kind of affirmative action policy exists, though we don’t call it that. Based on the thorough investigation of the situation of the family, the problems of children, people with disabilities, and different social groups, we’re coming up with practices for taking affirmative action, because we’re connecting with people who have been historically less advantaged, those who are more vulnerable.

There is information that needs to be refined, and that can only be done by looking at discrete situations in terms of housing, employment, health care. In everything it’s necessary to keep color in mind, and when the study sample is larger, the more clearly it’s seen that blacks are on the bottom, mestizos are generally in the middle, and whites are on top.

IPS: Why isn’t there a deeper discussion on this matter, covered by the island’s press, so that everyone can recognize it?

EM: The debate is building strength in the intellectual and community environment, as well as in cultural centers, but it also has to reach the agencies of the State, as well as the political, social and mass organizations of the country. That’s what we’re demanding, because according to our studies more than 60 percent of the population of 11.2 million Cubans is non-white (made up of blacks and mestizos).

IPS: Do you believe that it [race] should also be a part of the political agenda?

EM: Of course it should. The fact that President Raul Castro raised the issue in his speech before the parliament on December 20 makes me think the matter could be on the agenda of the upcoming Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba. If this is not the case, I believe it should be.

In addition, there exist two commissions that are studying the problem from different vantage points: one at the National Library and the other within the National Union of Writers and Artists (UNEAC). The Parliament should also have a commission to look into this matter.

If the legislature deals with the issues of religion, women, and youth, why doesn’t it look at the race issue, which I consider as being at the same level – but which has been the least addressed?

IPS: Is there a risk that the debate be interrupted for fear that it could create internal division, or that it could be manipulated against the Revolution?

EM: To the contrary, what’s actually being used in the campaigns of the enemy is our delay in having addressed the issue of race. What can divide us is our failing to discuss it.

What affects us politically from the point of view of our international and national image is to have a discourse that doesn’t correspond to reality, because until very recently we said there were no racial problems in Cuba.

A Havana Times translation of the original article published in Spanish by IPS

For a detailed background commentary, Fidel’s reflection:
Nothing can be improvised in Haiti (detailed, but not very long)
http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/reflexiones/2009/ing/f240509i.html
==================================================

Cubans in Port-au-Prince Are In Good Health

HAVANA, Cuba, Jan 13 (acn) All the Cubans working on collaboration programs in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, were reported to be in good health. Only two of them suffered minor injuries from the earthquake that hit that Caribbean nation on Tuesday.

The head of the education brigade, Adalberto Bravo Carbonell suffered a dislocation to his right knee and Alina Almeida Rivera, also member of the brigade, had a minor lesion on her right leg, as reported by the Cuban National News Program.

The Cuban medical brigade providing services in Port-au-Prince has already established a new hospital camp next to the one that was brought down by the earthquake.

The Cuban experts reportedly had provided medical care, including a few surgical
operations, to more than 800 patients up to Wednesday morning. Nine of the patients died including three children.

According to the TV news program’s report, a further medical brigade from Cuba will arrive soon in Haiti to help the people.

The group, created for emergency situations, is taking medicines, clothes, food, saline solution and plasma bags.

“Barton Fink” gets his facts wrong in virtually every. My objection to Ron Walters’ comments is that they are not based on facts. For example, he claims that the evidence against Darsi Ferrer, arrested for receiving stolen property was “weak”. But he fails to say what the evidence was, or what made the evidence weak.

The bibliography which I provided demonstrates that in Cuba though the problem of racism remains a real one, the government of the island doesn’t pretend there’s no problem.

Since this, uh, “Fink” is obviously not a real person, there’s no need to discuss anything else he says at all. My real name is Walter Lippmann, and I write under my own name, not pseudonyms. I write about Cuba from some practical knowledge because I’ve been there often and know something about the topic. No such claim can be made by Ron Walters, and even less this “Fink”.

In my opinion, people from the United States ought to be careful to avoid thinking that the experiences and lessons of life in the US can be applied to every other country on earth without taking into account that country’s history, culture and experiences. I believe Ron Walters has made that kind of error here.

The United States didn’t elect its first Black president until 2008, in the third CENTURY after gaining its independence from the United Kingom. Cuba, which had and continues to have racial problems of its own, elected its first black president in 1940, at a time when the island had only achieved formal and juridical, but not practical nor actual independence, from the United States of America. Actual independence, I would argue, only began on January 1, 1959, with the triumph of the Cuban Revolution.

Though I am non-Black, and can’t discuss racism from the same personal experience foundation that Blacks can, I’ve attempted to follow these issues for many years. I’ve traveled to Cuba and stayed for extended periods of time. In addition, I direct an Internet-based news service, CubaNews, available at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/

Part of the work of the CubaNews list is to locate Cuban materials on these themes, and to make translations of them for the English-speaking public. Even as fierce an opponent of the Cuban Revolution as Carlos Moore has found himself citing my work and my personal website regarding these issues, as you can find in his recently-published autobiography, PICHON. (see the footnotes to the book)

Among the accomplishments of the CubaNews list has been locating and translating from Spanish to English articles on racism, which is a continuing problem, from the contemporary Cuban media. I’ll cite a few examples and hope that Ron Walters, and anyone else interested in these matters, will take a look at what Afro-Cuban authors have had to say about them. Citations below.

Thank you,

Walter Lippmann

Esteban Morales: Cuban Color
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs2809.html

Esteban Morales: Challenges of the Racial Problem in Cuba:
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs2296.html

Esteban Morales: Anti-Cuban Subversion – The Race Issue
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs1516.html

Miguel Barnet: Preserving Memory:
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs2091.html

David Gonzalez and Walterio Lord:
Some Quick Comments on Carlos Moore’s PICHON:
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs2346.html

The Independent Party of Color:
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs2080.html

The Teachings and Lineage of Walterio Carbonell:
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs1911.html

Esteban Morales: Malcolm X – An Unyielding Revolutionary:
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs1389.html

Fernando Martinez Heredia: Malcolm X Still Speaks to Us
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs2430.html

Fernando Martinez Heredia: The Meaning of a Centennial
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs2127.html

Fernando Martinez Heredia:
Social diversity is not a weakness of the nation,
but a very important element of its wealth.
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs1769.html

Alberto N. Jones: Unmasking the Promotors of Racial War in Cuba
http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs1533.html

There are many, many more, but these are a few to get an interested reader started.

Finally, Makani Themba-Nixon of the Praxis Project, one of the sixties signatories to the letter, has publicly withdrawn her signature. She issued a detailed explanation of why she did that which anyone following these issues should carefully read.

Thanks.