Fidel Castro's Racist Legacy

[ericson00]

Seeing people here mourn this monster is sickening. Of course, it's probably because some here reflexively side with any cause considered "to the left." If Castro were considered "to the right," and his economic policy were similar (say, like many European rightist populists, who are also anti-capitalists) no one here would be mourning him. Please stop the left/right stuff; sometimes, it is not the salient debate. In the case of Castro, Stalin, etc., there is simply moral and immoral. And no, not the Biblical definition of those terms, but the human definition of those terms.

This man jailed and murdered his political opponents, was a warmonger across the globe, if there was ever one, mortally hated and threatened the country for which all people here (minus the sub-18 and foreigners) just voted in, continued and expanded the inequality between the government class and the non-government class as well as corruption, and yes, continued to oversee a harsh racist society in Cuba too.

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.
....

An important first step would be to finally get an accurate official count of Afro-Cubans. The black population in Cuba is far larger than the spurious numbers of the most recent censuses. The number of blacks on the street undermines, in the most obvious way, the numerical fraud that puts [Black Cubans] at less than one-fifth of the population. Many people forget that in Cuba, a drop of white blood can — if only on paper — make a mestizo, or white person, out of someone who in social reality falls into neither of those categories. Here, the nuances governing skin color are a tragicomedy that hides longstanding racial conflicts.

More communist racism:

Cuba is no more postracial than anywhere else. Many Afro-Cubans here and abroad have been quick to point out that the presence of Mr. Obama, the first black president of the United States, only highlights that the Cuban government does not reflect the demographics of their country.

On an island that is around two-thirds black and mixed race, according to a 2007 study by the Cuban economist Esteban Morales Domínguez, the civil and public leadership is about 70 percent white. He also found that most scientists, technicians and university professors, up to 80 percent in some fields, were white.

“The images of the meetings, the agreements, they’re all shameful for many black Cubans — I’m including myself in this — because it’s difficult to feel represented,” said Odette Casamayor-Cisneros, an associate professor of Latin American and Caribbean literatures and cultures at the University of Connecticut and a scholar at Harvard University.

In this society the Castro regimes sells as "post-racial," black peoples' hair is called "bad hair":

The Castro government has long treated racism as an issue solved by the revolution, which promised equality for all. But despite the Castros' early and overt denunciation of racism, it continues to be a pernicious presence in Cuban daily life. Sawyer offered one example, noting that kinky black hair is commonly referred to as pelo malo, or "bad hair."

There's a lot of good documentation about the evil of the Castro Regime on many levels, especially their racism. Seeing defense of these monsters is sickening. Just the fact that a man was leader of a country for almost 60 years, vs 4-8 here, is sad.

[stonecutter357]

1. K&R!

[mfcorey1]

2. Truth and those who migrate to Miami are often discriminated against

by Cubans in Miami. I lived there and witnessed it. Black Cubans are not embraced in South Florida.

[ericson00]

3. its sad; tho I doubt such racist feelings originated in Miami; it was existent in Cuba

before the revolution, and existent and persistent afterwards.

[mfcorey1]

8. An my point is when Cubans migrate to America, they bring those

prejudices with them. The objectors are also the participants in discrimination.

[Ligyron]

9. Yes, the older ones from the first wave late 1950's especially.

I grew up with their kids.

The parents made a big deal about how much "Castilian" blood was in one's genetics. That was the dividing line.

Of course, history has shown that plenty of North African/Moorish genes were introduce into the Spanish and hence the Castilian's precious blood before El Cid drove them out. That was before the Conquistadors even got to the western hemisphere to be mixed with Native American blood as well

It improved things IMO.

[bravenak]

4. Very good information here, thank you

[Grey Lemercier]

5. yep, all hagiographic veneration by wilfully mislead people aside,

PoC got the hard fucking shaft under Castro and the Communists, just like we do under pretty much every form of government. My fellow LGBTQ got locked up in rotting prisons as well. Just because US imperialism is horrific doesnt mean Fidel was good. Both are evil, fuck Castro.

[bravenak]

7. Yep. Us being wrong dont make him right

My sisters grandad fled cuba in the fifties, was glad to get out of there too

[secondwind]

6. K&R !!!! this man died and his net worth is just short of a BILLION, while his people starved.

[Ligyron]

10. Yes and he let Meyer Lansky live there until he died too.

[annabanana]

11. So Angela Davis was only welcomed

as a cause celebre?

[hack89]

13. She was a sharp stick in the eye to America

nothing more.

[annabanana]

14. wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angela_Davis

After her acquittal, Davis visited Cuba. She followed the precedents set by her fellow activists Robert F. Williams, Huey Newton, Stokely Carmichael, and Assata Shakur. Her reception by Afro-Cubans at a mass rally was so enthusiastic that she was reportedly barely able to speak.[37] Davis perceived Cuba to be a racism-free country, which led her to believe that "only under socialism could the fight against racism be successfully executed." When she returned to the United States, her socialist leanings increasingly influenced her understanding of race struggles.[38]

[hack89]

16. Who to believe - Angela Davis or an actual Cuban.

I will go with the actual Cuban, not a wanna-be revolutionary.

[yardwork]

12. Russian disinformation is obvious in many posts here today.

It's disappointing but not surprising to see how gullible people can be.

[Uponthegears]

15. Interesting that you left out some facts

in your effort to portray Cuba as some sort of racist hell hole in a sea of glorious global capitalist color blindness.

First, the author of your first link made it perfectly clear that his point was that ending racism in Cuba was still a work in PROGRESS, NOT that racism was a government policy.

This was affirmed by the subject of the article in your second link, our President, who not only acknowledged that ending racism in Cuba was a fork in PROGRESS, but also that we in this country have a long way to go in that area as well.

We have tens of thousands of us in prison, and/or will carry the social and political disenfranchisement that comes from being in prison, as a result of laws passed to achieve that very end. We have entire community structures destroyed because of those laws. They are shooting our brothers down in the streets and NOT BEING PROSECUTED. We are a majority of the inmates on federal death row.

And you come on here and call Castro the "racist?"

[HAB911]

17. The Mafia would have been much better. n/t

[dembotoz]

18. To compare him to our government he comes out lacking but compared to the banana

Republics in central America he comes out better.


So how do u compare prisons to death squads....