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ABSTRACT
Any exploration of Fidel Castro racist views toward negro/as, or lack thereof, remains problematic if Cuban history is ignored; specifically, how negra/o identity was constructed differently than U.S. Black identity. As long as we keep the focus on the individual Fidel, we ignore the continuous structural racism faced by Cuban negra/os. Fidel, like most White Cubans, was influenced and shaped by how negro/as been historically seen, and by how bodies with darker hues continue to be constructed by the Revolution. Fidel, along with White Cubans, are part of a habitus which has taught us how to see, how to gaze upon negro/as. The question with which we should wrestle is how aware we Cubans who possess light-skin pigmentation are about our complicity with racist structures in Cuba? How has Cuban history and the construction of negro/a identity continued to manifest itself during the Fidel years.
Acknowledgement
The author wishes to acknowledge grant support from the Louisville Institute.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Miguel A. De La Torre’s academic pursuit is social ethics within the contemporary U.S. thought, specifically how religion affects race, class, and gender oppression. He has authored over 100 articles and published 33 books. He presently serves as Professor of Social Ethics and Latinx Studies at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver. He is the co-founder and former executive director of the Society of Race, Ethnicity, and Religion and the founding editor of the Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Religion. A scholar-activist, Dr De La Torre has written numerous articles in popular media and has served on several civic organizations. Recently, he wrote the screenplay for a documentary on immigration, Trails of Hope and Terror the Movie, which has screened in over 18 film festivals, winning over seven film awards. Email: [email protected]
Notes
* Naming is always an act of power. What to call Cubans from African descent is complex. I debated which label would faithfully express the Cuban experience. Do I impose the English term “Black” or use the Spanish word “negro”? Aware of the similarity to the English word “Negro,” and the preference of U.S. Blacks for “African-Americans,” or simply “Blacks”; I, nonetheless, chose the term normatively employed by both Black and White Cubans: negros (which I italicized to distinguish my usage of Spanish). Writing with a Cuban voice, I rejected “African-American” because the word America, which supposedly encompasses all countries in the Amerícas (including Cuba), had been hijacked by one country for self-reference. I thought of using the term “Afro-Cuban” for those with West African ancestry but decided not because the term is uttered in the language of the colonizer. And while afrocubano was a possibility, I rejected its usage because there exists no term like eurocubano to distinguish Whites, thus making all cubanos White unless otherwise noted. Nonetheless, leaning toward using “negro” fails to eliminate other concerns, specifically the word’s masculine gender and its reinforcement of a neat male/female dichotomy. Although I thought of using the word negrx (as in Latinx) making room for gender fluidity; my concern is that few scholarly sources – especially among Cuban Blacks – employ negrxs. It was not my place to begin imposing this term. Hence, in spite of its limitations, I decided to use negro/as.
1 Clayton, Bartolomé de las Casas, 420–8.
2 Although African culture was introduced to Cuba through slavery, it must be remembered African roots impacted Spanish-based cultures since 711 CE when the Moors invaded Spain.
3 I should note that in my 1999 dissertation, I argued against the usage of the word mulato/a (a Caribbean equivalent to mestiza/o), popular at the time among White Latinx religious scholars, because of its racists roots. My debunking of the term cost me a dissertation grant from a Latinx-based initiative due to objections voiced from the then large White Cuban contingency on the granting panel. One of the judges, during an academic conference (AAR), challenged my insistence of Cuban racism by publicly arguing any racism that existed in Cuba was learned during U.S. occupations. She quoted the Venezuelan proverb “Aquí todos somos café con leche; unos más café, otros más leche” (Here we are all coffee and milk; some more coffee, other more milk). Thus, ignoring how leche is normally privileged while café is usually relegated to disenfranchisement. Nevertheless, as problematic as the term might be, I employ it here to be historically accurate on how it continues to be used among Cubans.
4 Ferrer, Insurgent Cuba, 93.
5 Montejo, The Autobiography of a Runaway Slave, 96.
6 The name for Cuba’s war for independence became known as the Spanish-American War, a war between a declining and emerging empire which excluded the name of the country upon which imperial global struggle occurred.
7 Aline Helg, Our Rightful Share, 49–56, 80–9.
8 Scott, Slave Emancipation in Cuba, 112.
9 Pérez, Between Reform and Revolution, 125.
10 Ferrer, Insurgent Cuba, 122.
11 Martí, Obra Completas, 3:27.
12 Helg, Our Rightful Share, 16, 105–6, 120.
13 Mambises, from the African word mambi, is the offspring of an ape and vulture, a derogatory term given to revolutionaries (regardless of skin colour) by the Spaniards. Yet, this slur became a name of honour. Today in Miami, one of the most popular radio stations is called Radio Mambí.
14 The first Black slave revolt occurred in 1532 at a gold mine in Jobabó (near Bayamo). Once the rebellion was crushed, the heads of the leaders were displayed on spikes outside the town. A further rebellion occurred in 1538. Since the start of slavery, Whites lived in fear of Blacks – a fear leading to frequent massacres over real and alleged negra/o revolts and conspiracies throughout Cuban history, specifically in 1792, 1793, 1795, 1814, 1844 and 1912.
15 Suárez, Color Question in the Two Americas, 43.
16 An urban African cultural club sponsored by the Catholic Church for the purpose of proselytizing which, nonetheless, created a space which accommodated and preserved African customs and worship.
17 Paquette, Sugar Is Made with Blood, 107.
18 Bozales between the ages of 6 and 14 were referred to as muleques. Those between the ages of 14 and 18 were called mulecones.
19 Ibid., 111.
20 Martinez-Alier, Marriage, Class and Color, 1–99.
21 McGarrity and Cárdenas, “Cuba,” 77.
22 Suárez, Color Question in the Two Americas, 1–35.
23 Foner, Spanish-Cuban-American War, 450.
24 Montejo, Autobiography, 217.
25 Casal, “Race Relations in Contemporary Cuba,” 477.
26 Thomas, Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom, 293.
27 Helg, Our Rightful Share, 3.
28 Knight, The Caribbean, 156 and Martinez-Alier, Marriage, Class and Color, 91–9.
29 de la Fuente, “Recreating Racism,” 178.
30 Moore, Castro, the Blacks, and Africa, 47.
31 Mörner, Race Mixture in the History of Latin America, 67–8.
32 Originally, limpieza de sangre referred to religious contamination, specifically from Judaism and Islam, see Paquette, Sugar, 112.
33 Martinez-Alier, Marriage, Class and Color, 15–19.
34 Corbitt, Study of the Chinese in Cuba, 2.
35 Gott, Cuba: A New History, 53.
36 Even though I am considered White among Cubans, those in the U.S. see and treat me as brown.
37 Moore, Castro, the Blacks, and Africa, 37.
38 The legacy of feudal Spain developed into the encomiendas with a patrón (protector)/ward relationship. The protector paternalistically civilized the wards entrusted to him. This relationship transferred to the plantation where the slave childlike identity was constructed through her/his relationship to the patrón. The abolition of slavery did not abolish this father/child (macho/non-macho) relationship.
39 “More than being White, more than being mulatto, more than being Black.” See Martí, Obra Completas, 2:299.
40 Helg, Our Rightful Share, 16, 106.
41 Martí, Obra Completas, 2:299.
42 Castro, “We Will Never Return,” 46–9.
43 Moore, Castro, the Blacks, and Africa, 333–5; and Sawyer, “Cuban Revolution and the African Diaspora,” 349.
44 Gott, Cuba, 175.
45 Damien Cave, “Cuba Says It Has Solved Racism. Obama Isn’t So Sure,” New York Times, March 23, 2016.
46 de la Fuente, “Recreating Racism,” 320.
47 Ronald Segal, Black Diaspora, 235.
48 Moore, Castro, the Blacks, and Africa, 303.
49 Ibid., 187.
50 Castro, “We Will Never Return,” 37.
51 Santería was criminalized before and during the Castro regime. Until 1940 this African-based religion was punishable as a crime and a source of ridicule among the general populace. “Santería” originated as a pejorative term used by Catholic clerics to denote what they considered a heretical mixture of African religious practices with the veneration of the saints. This term became popular during the 1940s, although few of the older practitioners during this time accepted or used the term for self-description purposes. To break with the name imposed on the religion by White Christians, some have rejected the term and instead have used the terms Lucumí (Friendship), Regla de Ocha (Rule of Ocha), or Ayoba. However, the average person today who participates in or is familiar with this religion knows it as Santería, and so I – although problematic – will use this term for this article.
52 Throughout Cuba’s history, Santería faced religious persecution. African based religions were portrayed as the principal cause for Cuba’s social problems. Slavery was considered a curse, not because of Africans mistreatment; but due to Whites contaminated by barbarism. Prostitution, laziness, superstition, and criminality all supposedly originated within Cuba’s Black religion. In 1919 (seven years after the 1912 race massacres), a brujo (witch doctor) craze swept the island. Mass lynchings occurred, fuelled by rumours of negro/as kidnapping White children in order to use their blood and entrails in religious practices. One newspaper praised the lynchings as a “step forward that we take toward civilization.” Some middle and upper class negro/as abandoned Santería, while disassociating themselves from the lower class masses in order to assimilate into the White mainstream. See Helg, Our Rightful Share, 238–45. Fernando Ortiz’s ethnographic research, conducted under the rubric of racial theorizing, was an attempt to prove the moral inferiority of Blacks to Whites. The assumption of Blacks’ malefaction is evident in the title of his 1917(?) book (complete with police mug shots): Los negros brujos: Apuntes para un estudio de etnología criminal translated as The Black Witches: Notes for a Study on Criminal Ethnology. He insisted African immorality was “in the mass of the blood of Black Africans,” a contamination affecting lower-class Whites. The fetishism of Santería had to be eliminated, and so he suggested the lifelong isolation of its leaders. The movement from African fetishism (and its White form, i.e. palm-reading and spiritualism) to Western scientific reasoning could be accomplished by providing a solid scientific education for all Blacks and low-income Whites. Expressions of African culture (i.e. African festival dances) had to be heavily policed to prevent the incitement of lust and immorality, or the stereotypical “Black rapist.” As a negro congressman, Morúa Delgado proposed legislation during the 1919 brujo craze against what he deemed superstitious and antisocial practices. During the presidency of Alfredo Zayas (1920–1924), all Santería ceremonies, including playing drums and dancing during the gathering, were strictly prohibited by law. Both the 1912 massacre and the 1919 brujo craze succeeded in eliminating any future Black resistance to White supremacy during the twentieth century.
53 Moore, Castro, the Blacks, and Africa, 100–2.
54 The Ooni is the spiritual authority of the Yoruba of Nigeria and all who worship the orishas in the Americas.
55 De La Torre, “[N]either the [M]Other of All Cubans,” 844.
56 Aguilera, Testimony at the UN.
57 Nora Gámez Torres, “Cuban Activists Fighting Racism Weigh their Fragile Relationship with the Government,” Miami Herald, April 30, 2017.
58 Randel C. Archibold, “Editor Who Wrote of Racism in Cuba Loses His Post, Colleagues Say,” New York Times, April 5, 2013.
59 Roberto Zurbano, “For Blacks in Cuba, the Revolution Hasn’t Begun,” New York Times, March 23, 2013.
60 “Graffitis racistas y esvásticas en La Habana,” Diario de Cuba, May 16, 2016.
61 Tomás Fernández Robaina, “Lucha contra el racism: avances o retrocesos,” Diario de Cuba, May 11, 2015.