IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 7 ENGLISH | Page 101

A redefinition of abstinence, prejudices,
and racial conflicts, as well as fear of
blacks, travel from the voice of axioms
regarding sexual behavior, stereotypes,
the problem of race, Afro-Cuban religiosity, and folklore. Suddenly, we have a
sublime, tropical swimming space in a
place in which lasciviousness, morbidity,

and unbridled sexual appetites are also a
way an unreal and non-conformist subject negates or annihilates with him or
herself and his or her own nature. History’s textuality has taken care of considerably reducing its volume and frequency.

René Peña. Communications at times of war. Photograph
The legitimate practice of the consumption of the trivialization of human reality
by the production and reproduction of
standardizes,
Manichean,
pseudofolkloric, and mimetic forms, is intended
to ensure marketing and the enjoyment
with which negotiators and businessmen
engaged in the cultural industry have
proposed to sell at hegemonic centers of
art. Crafts and designs have displaced
art’s prominence and importance. Fairs
certify legal categories like ‘selfemployed,’ a pejorative term for any
independent initiative that empowers a
supposed popular specialist to take control of a commercial reproductive, distributional, and consumer space. Cubans,
despite their misfortune and daily short-

ages, find a way to innovate (this is the
so-called struggle) using the same humor
and irreverence that characterizes them
as part of an eccentricity that tries to
formulate and answer to problems or
avoid them. Humor can appear to be
appropriate or most solemn thing in the
face of the greatest tragedy. It has allowed survival strategies to remain useful. These are always thinking of a more
random island for all Cubans; a better
future that is awaited that is coming nigh
and distancing itself; a more open and
plural dialogue between the “ones over
there” and the “ones here”; a needed
exchange of information and experience
when facing closure and supervision;
objective hope for a tendency to an

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