The Discourse on Racism in Anti-Castro Publications, 2008-2009
The Obama Factor

Here we track issues of race and identity among the anti-Castro groups based primarily out of Miami and US related dissidents in Cuba as well as responses from Cuba and abroad.

* Afro-Cuban Alliance, Miami, NED funded, 2005, 2007 ($70,150), publishes Islas

* Asociación Encuentro de la Cultura Cubana, Madrid, Spain,  NED funded, 2005, 2007 ($215,000), publishes web site Cuba Encuentro

* Carlos Moore, Brazil

* Enrique Patterson, Miami

* Proyecto de Relaciones Raciales, Mississipi: Ramón Colás, Founder and Director of Independent Libraries for Cuba [See Library Juice, 3/01], 
   NED funded, 2007 ($143,166)

NED (National Endowment for Democracy) is a controversial US program which grew out of CIA efforts to fund dissidents around the world, at least in place whose government they wanted to modify or overthrow. After many revelations concerning covert funding, Ronald Reagan and Congress implemented NED where funding is transparent and known to all, at least for the initial recipients.  Congressional Black Caucus member Gregory Meeks sits on the NED Board.

Carlos Moore letter to Raúl Castro  12/31/2008 Miami Herald 

El 'apoliticismo' de los negros cubanos por Enrique Patterson  12/12/2008 Analitica: "La posición de Sarduy --que por extraña coincidencia aparece en Miami en el momento de la presentación del libro del Dr. Moore-- pareciera congruente con los rumores que, según fuentes del movimiento negro interno en Cuba, lo relacionan con la destrucción de Walterio Carbonell." This can be seen in the context of Pedro Pérez-Sarduy's own account in Convergencia y Elegia para Tomás y Walterio, 1/09, which was not written in response to Patterson's piece but covers the ground well.

'Premio Tolerancia Plus 2008' para la actriz Elvira 'Tita' Cervera  12/21/2008 Encuentro: "Reconoció, asimismo, el modo en que Elvira Cervera ha conducido el debate, "evitando la politización de la lucha por la igualdad racial, sin sucumbir a las tentaciones y el manejo estrechamente político de este tema". Tita Cervera nació en Sagua la Grande, el 4 de enero de 1923. Es doctora en Pedagogía, profesora de Arte Dramático y actriz de larga trayectoria en cine, radio y televisión. Actuó en las películas Tres veces dos (2004), Santa Camila de La Habana Vieja (2002), Miel para Oshún (2001), Raíces de mi corazón (2001), Un Paraíso bajo las estrellas (2000) Operación Fangio (1999), En tres y dos (1985) y Cumbite (1964)."

Why Cuba's white leaders feel threatened by Obama  12/18/2008 Carlos Moore 

Barack Obama y la última barrera  11/6/2008 Miami Herald Enrique Patterson

AfroCuban Dissidents in Cuba

Manuel Cuesta Morúa, a descendant of Martín Morúa Delgado, an Afrocuban leader after whom was named the Ley Morúa, which outlawed the Independents of Color. Cuesta Morúa is well known for his frequenting the US Interest Section in Havana.

Dissidents and Race, 2001

Ulises Cabrera

Oscar Elías Biscet

Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antúnez", an ally of the Miami Mafia

Response from Cuba and elsewhere

El tema racial y la subversión anticubana  9/8/2007 Jiribilla: by Esteban Morales Dominguez - "Los negros de Cuba luchan todos los días en los espacios abiertos, que ya son muchos, sin dejarse engañar por aquellos, que lo primero que tendrían que hacer sería superar la republiqueta racista, modelada a imagen y semejanza de los años cincuenta en Cuba, que le han construido a los negros cubanos de Miami, la extrema derecha cubano-americana. Dejando prácticamente a la inmensa mayoría de los negros que allá viven, en el mismo lugar que ocuparon en la Cuba neorrepublicana, solo que casi 50 años después. Y ni siquiera hablar de que puedan los negros prosperar en cuanto al acceso al poder. El poder allá, es sólo para los blancos ricos, como lo fue en Cuba antes del triunfo de la revolución."

James Early: Carlos Moore's Outcast Vision and Dangerous Deceit  12/28/2008 CubaNews: "As I've previously mencioned, Moore and others are part of a recent trend to claim that Obama's election is some kind of threat to Cuba because Obama is Black and because, supposedly, this means that Cuban government can no longer say that the United States is racist. As I've mentioned more than once before, Cuba DOES continue to have racial problems, but they are both nothing compared to the racial problem which are widespread in the United States. Their origins and nature are quite different and it's extraordinarly disingenuous to try to conflate them as the group of people such as Carlos Moore, the Miami Herald, and others, all of whom have a long history of hostility toward the revolutionary government in Cuba, have been trying to do."  James Early is on the Board of Directors of TransAfrica Forum.  This response quotes a letter in full from Esteban Morales Dominguez, a prominent Afro-Cuban scholar.

The Race Card: their last bastion in a lost war, 1/31/09 by Alberto Jones, a member of the West Indian Welfare Society in Guantanamo, Cuba, now living in Florida.

Norman Girvan reprints the 1990 "Open Letter to Carlos Moore from Pedro Perez Sarduy" and gets some beautiful comments. 3/09 This letter was an early indication that Carlos Moore had problems telling the truth. We published it on AfroCubaWeb. 

Some Quick Comments on Carlos Moore's PICHÓN by Walterio Lord Garnés and David González López  2/15/2009 Walter Lipmann: ""Walterio Lord Garnés and David González López are collaborators attached to the Centro de Estudios de África y Medio Oriente in Havana and to the University of Havana’s Cátedra “Amílcar Cabral” de Estudios Africanos. They have written dissertations at home and abroad and published works about African and Afro-Cuban cultures in Cuban and foreign publications."

A Sincere and Painful Apology to the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus  5/20/2009 Black Agenda Report: "None of the Afro-Cubans who are attempting to earn world prominence by opposing the Cuban government have ever offered an aspirin to our group or others engaged in similar humanitarian endeavors, which makes their purported platform questionable at best… These are the real battles for justice, equality and the future of our nation, that all Cubans and Afro-Cubans especially should be waging, not siding with those who castrated our independence in 1898 or those who enabled this [1912] massacre and kept us segregated, impoverished, ignorant until 1959 and today, are shamefully relying on the dark skin of some, willing to sell their intellect and soul to the highest bidder, by attempting to intimidate, blackmail or create a negative political scene against members of the CBC [Congressional Black Caucus], who have courageously stood by their brothers in Cuba for the past 25 years. " -- Alberto Jones, also posted on Norman Girvan and on AfroCubaWeb's Alberto Jones Column

Invoking MLK and Rosa Parks in Cuban Exile Politics, Claude Betancourt, 5/30/09: Cuban Exiles Invoke US Civil Rights Struggle:
Brothers to the Rescue, Florida's MLK Institute for Nonviolence, and manipulating Cuban dissidents

Finally, Lisa Brock and Otis Cunningham's "Race and the Cuban Revolution: A Critique of Carlos Moore's "Castro, the Blacks, and Africa" (1991) is well worth another read.


The Obama Factor

The election of President Obama has lead to some interesting developments in the discourse on race in Cuba and Miami.

L'élection de M. Obama ravive le débat racial à La Havane  1/2/2009 Le Monde: "Alors que les Etats-Unis ont élu un Noir à la présidence, quarante ans après l'assassinat de Martin Luther King, qu'a fait Cuba en cinquante ans de révolution ?" demande M. Cuesta Morua. "Les Noirs américains sont une minorité, alors qu'à Cuba nous sommes majoritaires", ajoute-t-il. Les Caraïbes et le Brésil ont une population largement marquée par l'esclavage africain. Lors du recensement de 2002, 11 % des Cubains se sont déclarés noirs. Selon l'université de Miami, ils seraient plutôt 62 %."

Why Cuba's white leaders feel threatened by Obama  12/18/2008 Carlos Moore 

‘Obama Effect’ Highlights Racism in Cuba  12/15/2008 New America Media: "Cuban authorities offered statistical analysis to bolster their view, which revealed the lengths to which Havana was prepared to deceive others even as it deceived itself. Of Cuba’s population of 11.2 million people in 2002, officials declared, 65 percent were white, 10 percent were black, and 25 percent were mulatto. This racial breakdown matched exactly the breakdown of members of Cuba’s parliament: 65 percent white and 35 percent people of color. The implication was as obvious as it was ridiculous: Cuba had achieved “perfect” racial representation between the people and their representatives. Europeans scoffed at such claims. In fact, most independent census reports of the Cuban nation puts the number of “whites” at anywhere from 20 to 35 percent; everyone else is black or mulatto."

Why Castro regime fears Obama administration  12/1/2008 Miami Herald: "...reports from inside Cuba have reinforced my suspicion that, contrary to the sentiments of the streets, the Cuban regime is experiencing great discomfort with the turn of events in the United States. Anthropologist Maria Ileana Faguagua Iglesias reports a racist outburst toward Obama by a Communist Party official and former military officer: ''He will be the worst ever American president,'' said this apparatchik, ``because he is a Negro, and they are worse than the whites!'' What is eating away at Cuba's leaders? Very little makes sense without knowledge of Cuba's demographic metamorphosis from a white to a black majority in the space of half a century. The black population was 35-45 percent of the total Cuban population when Castro triumphed 50 years ago. Four years later, the panicky flight of some 15-20 percent of the island's white population, fearing the new regime's sweeping socialist reforms, left Castro at the head of a country with a de facto black majority. For the next five decades, the darkening shade of Cubans would increase steadily and create unanticipated problems for the social reformers who launched the Revolution."

Barack Obama y la última barrera  11/6/2008 Miami Herald Enrique Patterson