Other lists of lists, including local phones

FBI Harrassment: 7/99

Cuba Solidarity Organizations

Although this is changing, most solidarity organizations have little participation from people of African descent. There are a number of reasons for this:

• The US media has had very little emphasis on the fact that over 70% of Cubans are of African origin and that Cuba is a storehouse of African cultural treasures.  Many African Americans are unaware of this.
• Cuban culture itself does not promote an awareness of how African Cuban culture is, for a variety of reasons. See Cuban resources on Race & Identity.
• There has historically been suspicion in some US leftist circles of "Black Nationalism." This was a topic of the '98 Black Radical Congress (www.blackradicalcongress.com), which brought together different points of view: "revolutionary nationalism, feminism and socialism." It has been a sore point at least since the 1961 exile to Cuba of Robert F. Williams, later the first president of the Republic of New Afrika.  In Cuba, he explained to an interested Che about how some of the old leftists then coming to Cuba were marginalizing black people in the US, saying they had no power and could do nothing.

As we move into an endgame on the embargo, it is more important than ever for US solidarity organizations to reach out to the African American community as a means of counteracting the pressures on AfroCubans noted below. There are signs that a number of them are doing that.  The embargo endgame can currently be characterized by:

• The continued development of Cuba's tourist sector as a predominantly white affair.   Eurotourist organizations from Europe and Latin America fund hotels and preferentially hire white Cubans.  As the tourism sector revenue is at about $1 billion, this has a disproportionate impact on the racial balance in Cuba, one which the government finds difficult to combat.
• Serious exploratory participation by major US corporations, who, once they are working in Cuba, may extend the preferential white hiring to other sectors.
• Continued participation of the largely white exiled Cubans in Cuba's economic life via family remittances.  These remittances are used to fund private enterprise in Cuba and currently are at about $800 million/year.
• The virtual absence of African American businesses in the ongoing widespread exploration of business opportunities in Cuba, with the exception of the recent visit by the Congressional Black Caucus, which had some businessmen in the entourage.
• The recent attempted pre-emption of the racial issue by Cuban Americans of the right who have a new-found concern for AfroCubans.  Curiously enough, this new concern is not mirrored in their in-country attitudes, as can attest many African Americans in South Florida who have complained bitterly for years about the high levels of racism they experience. This pre-emption even seems to be moving onto Radio Marti's agenda....

These trends will continue to exacerbate what has become a more delicate racial balance in Cuba, where white Cubans benefit from tourism and remittances from abroad while the government, with limited resources, is less able to support AfroCubans and they are left to hustle in the streets, often illegally. Consequently they wind up in disproportionate numbers in Cuban jails, a fact recently discussed by Fidel Castro on the occasion of TransAfrica's visit to Cuba in January '99.  And of course Miami is trying to take advantage of this.

TransAfrica's media campaign, which started with a presentation on BET Tonight, the talk show on Black Entertainment Television, is very supportive of Cuba and shows that much thought has gone into the positions taken.  The TransAfrica visit is a hopeful sign of the much needed mobilization of African Americans around the Cuba issue and may well stand as a watershed event. There are more than 30 million African Americans in the US and only 1 million Cuban Americans, whose political life has been hijacked by a wealthy, racist extreme right minority.  The TransAfrica visit has been followed by a February visit from a 6 member Congressional Black Caucus delegation, including the Chair, Vice Chair, and Whip.  TransAfrica has made available its Cuba Report on the disproportionate impact the embargo has had on AfroCubans.

For more discussion of the US based solidarity mouvements discourse on race, see the Smithsonian's James Early: TALKING RACE IN THE REVOLUTION