full meaning .” 18 Although Cuban journalists and officials who attacked the U . S . President should know that Obama became president with the popular vote in a country that they have been demonizing for decades , they could not hide their surprise when Obama stood for the essential American values . Somehow they were expecting from him the same devotion they expect from the black population on the island , because the revolutionary racism — like any other one — consists in liking the skin color with certain attitude . In this case , they expected at least some complicity of Obama on behalf of the alleged advantages granted by the Revolution to the black race . Both the stupor and the viciousness of the attacks in the official Cuban press went beyond the mere political antagonism . They denote a poorly controlled rage toward a phenomenon that is not fully understood , because it was never understood : that blacks were not grateful for the sleepless efforts done by the Revolution to turn them into human beings . This revolutionary racism patronizes those rendering obedience and brutally represses those who do not . Such racism should not be a surprise for anyone , because it was always there . It always relied , like any other variant of racism , on failing to recognize a particular group on an equal footing . We do not notice it better now because the aged revolutionary avant-garde altered the standard . What has changed is actually the world around it in almost six decades of Castroit power . Nothing like the presence of the first black American president in Havana accentuated the contrast and the absurd anachronism represented by octogenarians still pretending to be liberators . Now the revolutionary racism must take a step forward in its evolution facing the new challenges without losing their own notion of essential superiority . For example , it could adapt the old phrase by Martí : " The imperialist enemy is more than white , more than mulatto , more than black .” 19 Thusly the revolutionary racism could remind us that , beyond its atavism and superstition , the " revolutionary " variant of racism is primarily part of a system of domination over the entire society . Notes : 1-Thomas , Hugh . Cuba or the Pursuit of Freedom . New York : Da Capo Press , 1998 , 1120 . 2-Castro , Fidel . " Speech delivered on 22 . March . 1959 ". http :// www . cuba . cu / gobierno / discursos / 1959 / esp / f220359e . html 3-Castro , Fidel . " Second Declaration of Havana ". http :// www . cuba . cu / gobierno / discursos / 1962 / esp / f040262e . html 4- The scholar Alejandro de la Fuente asserts in a fundamental text on racial issues in Cuba : " The initial campaign against discrimination declined after 1962 , leading to a growing public silence around the issue except to highlight the success of Cuba in this area ." Cf .: Fuente , Alejandro de la . A nation for all . Race , inequality and politics in Cuba . 1900-2000 . Madrid : Editorial Hummingbird , 2000 , 383 . 5-Ibidem 6-See " Report by the UNEAC and the AHS to the intellectuals and artists in the . world " ( http :// mesaredonda . cubadebate . cu / notic ias / 2010 / 03 / 16 / a-los-intelectuales-yartistas-del-mundo-pronunciamiento-dela-uneac-y-la-ahs /) or the article " For whom death is useful ?", by Enrique Ubieta ( http :// www . cubadebate . cu / opinion / 201 0 / 02 / 26 / orlando-zapata-tamayo-lamuerte-util-de-lacontrarrevolucion /#. VxpGTDArIdU ) 7-Valls , Jorge . Twenty and forty days . Madrid :. Encuentro ,. 1988 ,. 51 . 8- " The press released by Fidel on April 16 . and . 17 ,. 1961 ": https :// verbiclara . wordpress . com / 2009 / 0
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