IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 5 ENGLISH | Page 44

Words Given, Words Taken
Away: Black Voices in the
Cuban Anti-Slave Novel and its
Reflection in Cuba’s Official
Rhetoric on Race Today1
Kenya C. Dworkin y Méndez
Professor, Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Cuban. Resident of the United States

W

hy compare the nineteenthcentury, Cuban novel with
official government rhetoric
on racism in Cuba today? And I am not
including among those novels the book
Sab, by Gómez de Avellaneda, because
she and the novel are both unique (for
reasons that could only be explored in a
much lengthier article). In both cases,
the ‘authors’ have spoken out in an editorializing fashion against anti-black
racism, or slavery (in the nineteenthcentury case) and discrimination (on the
contemporary one). It is also important
to note that I have not called them ‘proabolition,’ ‘pro-equality,’ or ‘proaffirmative action,’ which would make
them different. I am making a comparison between the mediated ‘intentionality’ of those who controlled the words of
their black characters that were later
published in books labeled as ‘abolition’ novels, and those of the current

Cuban government, and the control it
has over those who speak about the subject of race, either in its name, or publicly and independently. In either case,
what is revealed is their authors’ lack of
political and moral will, and their desire
to protect their own socio-economic
positions.

Slave punishment (bozal)2

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