IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 6 ENGLISH | Page 32

Racism in the Twilight of the Cuban
Revolution] attempts to call attention to
the absurd and embarrassing fact that
Cuban, anti-racist activists are now
divided into two opposite, and
sometimes hostile, groups. This is the
result of a political strategy by those in
power; they are bent on not
acknowledging and even persecuting and
harassing those who have resolved to
carry out their work at the margin of,
and even in opposition to, the regime’s
structures. There has even been the
extreme case of these anti-discriminatory
activists being discriminated against, on
account of their political sympathies or
dislikes. Unfortunately, and much to our
surprise, we would actually find the
greatest evidence of this at the LASA
conference, through the treatment that
was specially designed for us.
Something else that ended up being quite
lamentable, although even more so for
us (out of basic decency and professional
solidarity) was that our panel’s Puerto
Rican professors were innocent victims
of the very same treatment, which is
even worse because they didn’t even
totally embrace our political positions,
and their papers, “Guaynabo City es un
País” [Guaynabo is a Country], by
Rebollo-Gil, and “Esa Tipa es una #Yal:
La Mujer Negra y la Violencia Lúdica
del ‘Buen Racismo” [That Woman is a
#Yal: Black Women and the Playful
Violence of “Good Racism”], by
Godreau Aubert, were very focused on
the problems of inequality in Puerto
Rico.

They will both have to learn not to mix
with bad company at the next
conference. Meanwhile, to those Cubans
who are not familiar with or are against
the tactics the Cuba Section imposes at
LASA, all we can do is confide that
LASA makes the most of its very wel