Racist Practices and Behaviors Make a Comeback

Racist Practices and Behaviors Make a Comeback / Mackandal – Manuel
Aguirre Lavarrere
Mackandal - Manuel Aguirre Lavarrere, Translator: Chabeli

Social and racial equality in Cuba was grossly embezzled and supplanted
by the greed of political power. To understand the achievements and
chimeras of this equality that is nothing but virtual, it is essential
to submerge ourselves in the discourse of Fidel Castro during the
"Second Declaration of Havana", in 1962, where he talked, among other
things, about ending unemployment, gambling, vices, and corruption,
which are all present in Cuba, today. Castro also alluded that racism
was settled in Cuba. After more than fifty years, this has been proven
one of the most distressing lies for the Cuban regime.

While the existing laws contained in the Labor Code, which were
consequently included in the Constitution of February 24, 1976 and later
amended in 1992, take the right to work, social security, welfare, and
others, to the constitutional level, establishing in Article 3 that "all
citizens able to work regardless of race, color, sex, religion, public
opinion or national or social origin, have the opportunity to get a job
with which they can contribute towards the goals of society and the
fulfillment of their needs", the day-to-day practices in Cuban society
show that opportunities are limited for Afro-Cubans.

The "Second Declaration of Havana" synthesizes the history of the
struggle against racial discrimination during much of the Republic, the
efforts made by the former Socialist Party (PSP) and the way in which it
understood the issue of discrimination and its solution to this problem
in Cuba. There are some fundamental points such as the integration of
public spaces and the nationalization of education into one single
system, administered by the State, where racial equality is established.
However, this is a complicated phenomenon: words will be useless without
first taking into account the training of workers, which conflicted with
the organizational structures of the unions. All these measures,
plausible at the time, unfortunately vanished because they were not
enforced in a country willing to whiten its society and to refuse
opportunities to blacks.

This political irresponsibility brought consequences: within education,
the workplace and public spaces, the political illusions of the
Revolution, which was most concentrated in exporting its ideology,
assumed that racism had been struck a deathblow. But it lost sight of
this issue in relation to private spaces, interpersonal relations, and
public opinion. Consequently these areas were kept outside the vision
of an inclusive logic, turning the characters implied into puppets of
the desires of others, whether it is the State, Ministry of Labor or any
other entity. As a result of this political recklessness, the stigmas
that perpetuate racist practices and behaviors in schools, the
workplace, and public spaces are very alive and continue to dominate our
entire society.

Published by Primavera Digital, July 19, 2012, Year No. 5
www.primaveradigital.org / Space for all / Made in Cuba

Translated by Chabeli

31 July 12012


http://translatingcuba.com/racist-practices-and-behaviors-make-a-comeback-mackandal-manuel-aguirre-lavarrere/