Colour-blind praxis in Havana: interrogating Cuban teacher discourses of race and racelessness

Abstract

Despite massive gains in racial equality over the past 50 years, racism persists in twenty-first century Cuba. One of the key tools for the preservation and maintenance of racism is the discourse of racelessness through which the relevance of race is denied and silenced. Paradoxically, the racelessness frame has also been a guiding anti-racist force for over a century; an effective tool for challenging racism on the island since the late eighteenth century. Based on interviews with 41 Cuban teachers conducted in the Havana area, this article investigates teacher understandings of race and racelessness in Cuban society generally, and with regard to the schooling context in particular. Conversations with teachers reveal a paradoxical formation in which teachers using the racelessness approach, are indeed doing race work in their classrooms following an anti-racism derived from the larger Cuban race narrative as well as from their own experiences with race and racism.

Keywords:

• education
• Cuba
• racelessness
• racism
• anti-racism
• colour-blindness
• Cuban teachers
• international and comparative education

Notes

1. Some scholars, including Fordham (1996 and 1988), as well as Harris and Marsh (2010), take up racelessness as a strategic and performative act on the part of racialized individuals and communities in an attempt to increase chances of success in a racist society

2. Quoted in Lockwood (1967, 128).

3. Pseudonyms were used for all respondents.