No to Racism, Regardless of the Source

Erasmo Calzadilla

Yes.  There’s racism in Cuba.  Blacks and mestizos are the majority in the jails, but the minority in the country’s best schools.  Much has changed since 1959, but the differences subsist – there’s no doubt.

It’s not enough to facilitate the admission of some black students or mestizos into the few schools that guarantee a decent future, because these institutions continue to be racist in their essence, culturally racist (negritude involves not only skin color).

Why?  Because these are centers of mental colonization where they teach — if not explicit racism — at least a good dose of thick-soled rationalism, positivism and vapid pragmatism; typical products of imperialistic and especially capitalist colonialism.  Such systems don’t have their own colors, but they dirty all of them.

Though people avoid raising it and it’s not popular to talk about the issue, there also exists racism against whites, as a skin color and as a culture.  Is that variety of racism common?  Perhaps not in the provincial capitals, but it is prevelant if we go deeper into the marginalized outer-ring neighborhoods, especially those around the country’s capital.  The proportions of color and forces change there, where racism against whites is becoming a serious matter.

The reggaeton musician Insurrecto says in one of his multi-award-winning songs, “Cerro Cerrao,” that in his neighborhood:

“The few whites there/are married to big black women”

This makes one wonder: Why don’t whites live there?  Did they ever?  Did they move or were they expelled?

It gives me the impression that he’s even saying it with pride…

Well, it’s better not to let one’s self be dragged along by Insurrecto. Racism has to go, no matter where it comes from, whether its aggressiveness comes from whites or blacks.