Community | December 19, 2008 | 4 comments

`Obama Effect’ Highlights Racism in Cuba

source: http://www.caribbeanworldnews.com/middle_top_news_detail.php?mid=1839

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freeforall2008
The European Union recently dispatched anthropologists to study racism in Cuba. Their findings were shocking: Not only was racism alive and well in the workers’ paradise, but it was systemic and institutional. Blacks were systematically excluded from positions that involved coming in contact with foreign tourists (where they could earn tips in hard currencies), they were relegated to poor housing, complained of the longest waits for healthcare, were excluded from managerial positions, received the lowest remittances from relatives abroad, and were five times more likely to be imprisoned.

The report, `Race and Inequality in Cuba Today,` by Rodrigo Espina and Pablo Rodriguez Ruiz, published in the anthropological journal TEMAS in 2006, infuriated Cuban officials.

But the findings were irrefutable, and they reflected an acceleration of racism in the 1990s. The collapse of the Soviet Union only exacerbated the problem, particularly as Cuba now competed with Cancun and San Juan for European vacationers. As Democracy Now! reported in 2000, Cuban officials continued to exclude blacks from tourist-related industries.
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4 comments // `Obama Effect’ Highlights Racism in Cuba

  • Zurama
    • 0
      Zurama  

    • This is nothing new to Cubans. For fifty years, the Castro's have told the people of Cuba that the United States is a racist government. What are they going to tell them now.

      In Cuba white's are a majority, yet more Afro-Cubans have died in foreign wars than whites and the 581 or so prisons, built by the communist regime are 90% black. Most of then prisoners of conscience.

      They were tricked fifty years ago and they stayed only to find out, all the promises of a better tomorrow were just that.......promises, empty promises, that they never intended to keep.

      On the other hand, I do recall that as far as people are concerned, there is a bond among Cubans, in spite of the different races, that I have never found anywhere in the world. All Cuban regardless of the color of their skin......carry a little bit of Africa with them and wherever we are in the world, Cuba is with us. No dictator can change that.

      The Castro regime, will not be able to use the race card again.

      Free Cuba! Long live Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet!!!

    • 3 years ago
  • Cynic2
  • Zurama
  • Cynic2
    • 0
      Cynic2  
    • Zurama:

      It ain't--when I say "Afro-Cuban is redundant" I mean that there are NO white Cubans : all of them carry SOME SANGRE AFRICANO, though some more than others, even those descended by Spaniards (but then again, Spain is 9 miles from Africa and used to be joined to the African continent}. Comprende ahora? You said it, yo'sef--they all carry a bit of Africa with 'em. You may or may not agree w/Fidel, but he was right when he said "Africa is our mother".

    • 3 years ago
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