IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 5 ENGLISH | Page 40

majority who continue to see daily how
their possibilities in life and for personal
realization get dimmer and dimmer,
leaving them without voice or hope.

ways relegated to an inferior condition
in what was and is a kind of social caste
system in which they will never be
acknowledged or valued as first-rate
citizens, no matter how brilliant, capable, heroic or successful.

Beyond the dishonest and, unfortunate
frequently effective and distracting
shout outs by the Cuban authorities,
what concerns us deeply is the tremendous polarization and socio-economic
inequality that the bulk of Cuban people
endure. This factor does not seem to
enter into the power elite’s in terms of
what it should be taking on and addressing as it plans for the country’s immediate future.
What complicates matters further, in
addition to the fact that Cuban young
people see no future for themselves, a
growing number of single mothers suffer despair and abandonment, Cuba’s
aging population and a low birth rate
represent an enormous challenge, and
the island’s leaders are already well
known for their indolence and insensitivity (they do not seem concerned
about clearly increasing poverty,) is the
fact that there is now a group of people
in exile with strong economic interests.
Additionally, this group seems rather
unscrupulous and is seeking allies in
Havana with which to share what is left
of our suffering island, without considering the socio-economic traumas and
fractures that threaten us.
As is usually the case in Cuba, the worst
part of this heartbreaking and distressing scene will be for the island’s Afrodescendants, the historical victims of
racist models and the greatest inequality
and disadvantages. Despite their significant demographic presence and import
contributions to the nation’s culture and
political processes, this group was al-

What there is behind all the Revolution’s egalitarian and emancipatory
rhetoric is a very different reality. From
the very beginning, the high leadership
announced the end of racism and totally
suppressed any discussion of the subject. This was the first time in Cuban
history that we Afro-descendants lost
our voice in civil, legal, and media
spaces. For decades, speaking about
racism was an assault to national unity
and the Revolution. Afro-descendants
are missing from public images, from
commercial or corporate propaganda.
Fifty years after the triumph of the Revolution, the only place we have in the
public imaginary is as victims, perpetrators, or beneficiaries of colonialist paternalism, all of which makes us an object to be manipulated and people to be
eternally disdained. The Revolution did
away with all Afro-descendant civic
spaces and institutions. The fraternal,
cultural, and recreational societies that
had served as a platform for social improvement and emancipatory struggles
during the last century became a thing
of the past. We blacks and mestizos
were turned into the vulnerable objects
of a power elite that very obviously disdains us. The descendants of Spaniards,
Chinese, Arabs, and Jews still have their
fraternal associations. Only the Afrodescendants were deprived of theirs.
Early in the Revolution, prestigious,
anti-racist, and openly leftist leaders and

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