Thread: African-American Group Challenges Cuba on Race

The Miami Herald
Posted on Tue, Dec. 01, 2009

African-American group challenges Cuba on race

BY JUAN O. TAMAYO
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com

A group of prominent African Americans, traditionally sympathetic to the Cuban revolution, have for the first time condemned Cuba, demanding Havana stop its ``callous disregard'' for black Cubans and declaring that ``racism in Cuba . . . must be confronted.''
``We know first-hand the experiences and consequences of denying civil freedoms on the basis of race,'' the group declared in a statement. ``For that reason, we are even more obligated to voice our opinion on what is happening to our Cuban brethren.''

Among the 60 signers were Princeton professor Cornel West, actress Ruby Dee Davis, film director Melvin Van Peebles, former South Florida congresswoman Carrie Meek, Dr. Jeremiah Wright, former pastor of President Barack Obama's church in Chicago, and Susan Taylor, former editor in chief of Essence magazine.

NEW VOICES

The declaration, issued Monday, adds powerful new voices to the chorus pushing for change on the island, where Afro-Cubans make up at least 62 percent of the 11.4 million people yet are only thinly represented in the top leadership, scientific, academic and other ranks.

``This is historic,'' said Enrique Patterson, an Afro-Cuban Miami author. Although predominantly white Cuban exiles ``tried to approach these people before, they lacked credibility. Now [African Americans] are listening.''

A news release accompanying the statement acknowledged that ``traditionally African Americans have sided with the Castro regime and condemned the United States' policies, which explicitly work to topple the Cuban government.''

But more African Americans traveling to Cuba have been able ``to see the situation for themselves,'' said David Covin, one of the statement's organizers and former president of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists.

The growing number of Afro-Cuban activists complaining about racial discrimination and casting their struggle as an issue of ``civil rights,'' rather than ``human rights,'' has helped to draw the attention of African Americans, said Victoria Ruiz-Labrit, Miami spokesperson for the Cuba-based Citizens' Committee for Racial Integration.

``The human rights issue did not make a point of the race issue, and now we have an evolution,'' she added.

``Cuban blacks moved closer to the term `civil rights' because those are the rights that the movement here in the U.S. made a point of -- the race issues.''

Alberto González, spokesman for Cuba's diplomatic mission in Washington, said it was ``absurd'' to accuse of racism a Cuban government that ``has done more for black Cubans than any other in all areas, including health, education and welfare.''

The African Americans' statement was ``part of a campaign of subversion against Cuba,'' he added, designed to impact the administration of the first African-American president of the United States.

`HARASSMENT'

The four-page statement demands that Raúl Castro end ``the unwarranted and brutal harassment of black citizens in Cuba who are defending their civil rights. . . . We cannot be silent in the face of increased violations of civil and human rights for those black activists in Cuba who dare raise their voices against the island's racial system.''

The statement also demanded the immediate release of Darsi Ferrer, a well-known Afro-Cuban physician and activist jailed since July while under investigation on charges of illegal possession of two sacks of cement. The statement called Ferrer a political prisoner.

While the African American signers support Cuba's right to sovereignty ``and unhesitatingly repudiate any attempt at curtailing such a right,'' the statement added they ``cannot sit idly by and allow for peaceful, dedicated civil rights activists in Cuba, and the black population as a whole, to be treated with callous disregard.''

``Racism in Cuba, and anywhere else in the world, is unacceptable and must be confronted,'' their statement declared.

A ``briefing sheet'' issued with the statement noted that Afro-Cubans make up 85 percent of the prison population and 60 of the 200 political prisoners, but only 20 percent of the Havana University professors.

AUTHOR'S CRUSADE

The statement was largely driven by Carlos Moore, a highly regarded Cuban author and black rights activist living in Brazil who has long criticized racial discrimination in Cuba.

Moore persuaded Abdias Nascimiento, a founder of Brazil's black movement and longtime Castro supporter, to send Raúl Castro a letter earlier this year denouncing racism in Cuba, then appealed to friends and contacts in the African-American community to add their support.

Jamaican-Nigerian author Lindsay Barret, who confessed he had been ``an almost uncritical supporter'' of the Cuban government, also added his voice to the chorus of attacks on Cuba with a column he wrote for Nigeria's The Sun newspaper.

``It is . . . both disappointing and distressing for me at this point to have to acknowledge that . . . Carlos Moore's challenging assertions are beginning to ring true fifty years after we allowed ourselves to be enchanted by the glamour and courage of the Cuban insurgency,'' Barret wrote.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/america ... 60990.html

Well, good luck with that one. Apparently, these African-Americans don't understand the nature of a Communist regime. They couldn't care less about anyone's "rights," civil or otherwise.

Cuba Blasts U.S. Black Leaders for Racism Hit

Friday, December 4, 2009 12:21 AM

Cuba hit back Thursday at 60 prominent U.S. black leaders who challenged its race record, with island writers, artists and official journalists calling the criticism an attack on their country's national identity.

The five-page signed statement, distributed by Cuban government press officials in an e-mail, defended Cuba's progress in providing social and personal opportunities for blacks and people of mixed race.

But it focused more on Cuba's past than the racial inequalities of contemporary Cuban society that came under criticism from Americans such as Princeton University professor Cornel West; Jeremiah Wright, former pastor of President Barack Obama's Chicago church; and Susan Taylor, former editor of Essence magazine.

Cuba's response said the country has proven its racial credentials by sending troops to Angola and Ethiopia during the 1970s and offering free education through exchange programs and medical schooling to youngsters from Africa. It also recycled past Fidel Castro comments on race and noted that the 1959 revolution his bearded rebels "dismantled the institutional and judicial bases of a racist society."

It also accused the signers of the U.S. statement, which was released Tuesday, of being unaware that Cuba offered to send medical assistance after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans -- a gesture the U.S. State Department turned down.

"To say that among us exists a 'callus disregard' for black Cubans, that their civil liberties are restricted 'for reasons of race,' and to demand an end to 'the unwarranted and brutal harassment of black citizens in Cuba who are defending their civil rights' would seem a delusional farce," Cuba's response read.

It accused the U.S. black leaders of being part of a campaign "that is attempting to suffocate our sovereignty and national identity."

The reponse was signed by, among others, Miguel Barnet, a renowned author on race who heads the Union of Cuban Writers and Artists.

Many artists and leaders in the U.S. black community have traditionally supported Castro's government, but this week's statement said that "racism in Cuba ... must be confronted."

It also called for the release of Darsi Ferrer, a black physician and political opposition leader who is celebrated in the U.S. but virtually unknown on the island.

Ferrer was arrested in July for obtaining black-market building materials to repair his home in a country where the state controls nearly all construction. Human rights activists say officials prosecuted Ferrer for a crime they often overlook in order to silence him.

Government statistics put the island's black or mixed-race population at about 35 percent, though some U.S. academics believe it is far higher.

While blacks hold many seats in Cuba's rubber-stamp parliament, there is virtually no Afro-Cuban representation at the highest levels of the communist government.

The Cuban statement said the island is not a racist society, saying blacks have opportunities "like never before in our country."

Source: Associated Press

http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/cb_c ... 94200.html