CUBA: Raising Awareness about Racial
Discrimination
By Patricia
Grogg
HAVANA (IPS) - Intellectuals and
artists concerned about continued racial
discrimination in Cuba are attempting to
revive the Cofradía de la Negritud (CONEG),
a "brotherhood" or association of black
people aimed at raising awareness of the
problem.
The email message announcing the revival of
CONEG says no progress can be made against
"the growing problem" of racial inequality
in Cuba without the implementation of "a
social policy that takes into account the
historical disadvantages faced by the black
population."
The aim of CONEG is to generate awareness
among officials and civil society, and
"ensure that effective attention is paid to
defending respect for the rights of black
people in Cuba."
The letter that was recently recirculated by
email carries its original date, July 1998,
when CONEG was first launched by engineer
Norberto Mesa Carbonell, as the first "cófrade"
or member of the "brotherhood." The updated
version of the letter also carries the
signatures of "cófrades" Tomás Fernández and
Tato Quiñones – academic researchers whose
expertise is the question of racial
discrimination.
"There is an explicit desire to revitalise
the Cofradía and make it visible, this time
on the part of intellectuals and artists,
myself included," Quiñones told IPS. He said
the group includes "veterans of the struggle
for the elimination of racism in Cuba and
younger people who are just now joining in."
He said that while CONEG does not take part
in political activity as such, he is aware
of the complexity and implications of the
effort that it means to undertake, "which
could at times make some of its actions
appear to be somewhat political."
The document underscores "the great deal
that the Cuban revolution has done to
eliminate racial inequality."
However, "reality shows that there is still
a long way to go, because the underlying
issues have not really changed."
The letter says the accumulation of
disadvantages historically faced by blacks
in Cuba was aggravated by the severe
economic crisis of the 1990s, as seen in
social life in general and in the daily
lives of Cubans.
Several studies on the question show that
the economic recession that followed the
collapse of the Soviet Union and East
European socialist bloc - Cuba's main aid
and trade partners - widened the gap between
those who were already socially
disadvantaged and the rest of the
population.
The recession "reproduced and accentuated
social, and in consequence, racial
inequalities, given the links that have
historically existed between race and
class," says a study by University of Havana
researcher María del Carmen Caño published
in 1996 by Temas magazine.
"As I see it, these last 20 years have been
devastating for the nation in all spheres of
social life," said Quiñones.
He also said there was "subliminal racism"
among most of Cuba's 11.2 million people.
In his view, racism in Cuba is seen as
"embarrassing," and people do not admit to
their racial prejudice.
But at the same time, he said, racial
discrimination is getting more and more
blatant, in the form of exclusion and
segregation.
Quiñones agrees that it will be impossible
to fight racial discrimination "unless
national awareness about the problem is
fomented, by means of a range of actions
targeting the racial prejudice held by a
large part of the Cuban population."
The latest census, from 2002, indicates that
out of the 11.18 million Cuban nationals
living in the country at that time, 7.2
million were classified as white, 1.13
million as black, and 2.78 as mixed-race,
based on self-identification.
However, scholars estimate that the Cuban
population is actually around 60 to 70
percent black or mixed-race.
After Fidel Castro took power in the 1959
revolution, discrimination on the basis of
race, sex or place of origin was prohibited
and made punishable by law. Article 41 of
the constitution establishes that "the
institutions of the state educate everyone,
from the earliest years, in the principle of
equality."
"It took us a while to discover…that
marginalisation, and along with it racial
discrimination, is in fact something that
cannot be suppressed by law or by 10 laws,
and even in 40 years we have not been able
to totally suppress it," Castro himself
admitted in a September 2000 speech in
Harlem, New York.
Quiñones said Castro's remarks were "in and
of themselves" a major stride "in the long
and probably tortuous road that the Cuban
nation must still traverse to finally
eliminate this complex problem."
"It must be understood that in Cuba, the
question of racism was considered taboo for
decades, because public exposure of it could
give rise to 'fissures' in the sense of
unity that was indispensable for facing the
aggression from outside," said the academic,
who specialises in Afro-Cuban culture and
religion.
He also said that until the mid-1980s, a
theoretical concept – which in the long-term
proved "erroneous" - prevailed: that once
social classes had disappeared and the
people had built a "new society," the
process would automatically do away with
racial prejudice and discrimination.
But Quiñones said that in recent years there
have been significant changes with respect
to efforts to acknowledge the problem. He
pointed out that the issue of racism was
discussed in 1998 at a congress of the Union
of Cuban Writers and Artists (UNEAC), and a
year later at a meeting of UNEAC's National
Board.
More recently, committees have been set up
by UNEAC and the National Library to study
the question, the issue is present in the
work of Cuban hip hop artists, and the
government Anthropology Institute carried
out a study on the current state of things.
Among other actions, a group of
intellectuals and artists have begun to hold
screenings of a documentary called "Raza"
(Race) by young Cuban filmmaker Eric
Corvalán in Havana and Santa Clara, a city
in central Cuba, with discussions after the
film, which "addresses the problem in a
lucid, bold and coherent manner," according
to Quiñones.
"In the face of this phenomenon, we can't
sit back with our arms crossed. Some voices
of alert are being heard. Because 'the
problem of blacks,' it has been said wisely,
is actually a 'problem of the whites'," said
the academic. |
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