Liana
Guru
Joined: 30 Nov 2004
{Posts: 352 }
|
 Posted: Sat 09 Jul 2005 00:51 Post subject: Cuba Racism Article |
 |
|
This article floors me - esp the ending part where it says,
| Quote: | | "But the information obtained during the national survey was not totally trustworthy, according to Guanche. The classification as white, black, racially mixed or white depended on the opinion of the surveyor, in terms of the color of the skin of the person, without taking into account ancestors. " |
That is clearly an American perspective. In Latin America, you are racially defined by how you look - not by ancestors. We have discussed this at length here, so I won't add a blow to the dead horse.
Anyway - passing this along. BTW it is not translated well - sorry - the translation was done by my translator - (computer) but it is readable
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cuba: Colors that mark (one)
The image of a white woman that strolls down a central a street in Havana hand in hand with a black man becomes more common each day in Cuba, but interracial unions are still not well-seen by a society that has already declared an official end to racial inequality almost a half a century ago.
Some loves are simply never admitted openly. Others require a great deal of courage to maintain and to face the stereotypes and discrimination that mark the differences in this island of the Caribbean as of the color of the skin and that are seen as much in the white population as in the black one or the racially mixed one.
I always felt looked at and rejected. People saw us pass on the street and followed us, staring at us. Some friends began to treat me with coldness or to stopped going out with me. My family went days without speaking to me and I knew that people said that I was somehow “dirty” says Madelys Rivers, professional, 38 years of age. The prejudices that still surround a white person having a relationship with a black or racially mixed person is considered by specialists as one of the indications that points up how discriminación persists in Cuba.
Friendship yes, family no.
A study carried out in the mid-nineties, by specialists of the Department of Etnología of the Center of Anthropology of the Department of Science, Technology and Medium Environment, found that only the 55.2 percent of 116 persons interviewed in three neighborhoods of City of Havana considered interracial unions to be a good thing. Interracial marriages were disapproved of by 68 percent of white persons, 29.4 percent of racially mixed persons, and 25 percent of black persons. Generally, the norm is to be perfectly ok with friendship with blacks, but when it comes to making a family with a black peerson, NO.
Although the size of the sample does not permit definite conclusions for a country with 11.2 million inhabitants, the study is in a country where the statistical information is very scarce and it is not known what th4e percentage is of racially mixed unions.
"There are people that believe that if a black woman marries a white man she is improving the race. I strongly dislike seeing my granddaughter with a white guy. We are black and we are proud of that. We have our culture, our saints, and our customs", said Josefa Martínez, a santera of 72 years.
In agreement with the investigator Juan Antonio Alvarado, racism, during the colonial period, was an ideology that supported the slave state by whites of Hispanic origin against black Hispanics and their descendants.
"The persistency of racism after the abolition of slavery and subsequently in the neocolonial Republic was expressed through a complexity of ideas and discriminatory practices that guaranteed the exploitation and segregation of the non- white sectors of the population", he says.
The persistence of discrimination
The end of the racial discrimination racial was one of the main objectives of the Cuban Revolution, since its triumph in 1959. But the elimination of the institutionalized racism and of the legal mechanisms that were obstcales to the enjoyment of rights by the black or racially mixed population did not signify the erradicación of the racism.
Neither did it happen with the “Constitution of the Republica,” in force since 1976. According to Article 41 of this letter, "discriminación on the basis of race, color, sex or national origin is banned and sancioned by law".
"It was naively thought that if the institutions that promoted the practice of racial discrimination and its in the education and in the routine day to day life, automatically the roots of racism and racial prejudices could be eliminated", thought Jesús Guanche Pérez, author of various studies upon the theme.
Thus, public places that had previously been closed to racially mixed and black population (beaches, casinos, clubs, hotels and others, disappeared . The possibility was opened to learn freely, for students of all levelsin the fields of health, sports and culture and in the workplace and positiosn of power.
But the deep and divers barrier for blacks was not revolutionized. to This barrier reproduces and multiplies on a horizontal level and includes elements of the personal self-esteem and psychological complexes that are inherited and transmitted that condicion one’s self-image and that give some groups a supposed “racial ownership” of negative traits", assures Guanche.
Evan today, popular Cuban speech includes phrases such a, "It must have been a black person who did it," or "He’s so good that he looks white.". The tendency to not recognize the persistence of racism facilitated the writing of articles such as "Racial discriminación racial in Cuba will never return", an article published by José F. Carneado in 1962, or "The racial problem in Cuba and its final solution", the text of Pedro Serviat, which appeared in 1986.
Acentuación of the inequality
As judgment of the research done María of the Carmen Cano, "the nexus existing among racial themes and their repercussion on the ideological political level" favored minimization of the problem for decades. Then, after the economic crisis of the nineties, she estimates, recognition of the phenomenon went to the extremes.
An important contribution in the analysis of the racial question in Cuba is the publication by the magazine “Temas” in 1996, of a special dossier special on ethnicidad and race. Nine years have passed since the appearance last January, of a special number of the magazine “The Gazette” of Cuba on "Nation, race and culture". The publication by the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) recognized that, in spite of official efforts to eradicate racial discrimination, reality has shown that "its root is so deep that neither legal nor political procedures suffice", and not even nine decades can eliminate it.
In Cuba,"The racial question is before anything the question fo racism against blacks, discrimination and prejudice against non-whites and the opposition to them", assures the essay written by historian Fernando Martínez Heredia, published in the special volume of The Gazette of Cuba.
Local specialists recognize, likewise, the existence of elements of self-discriminación among the black population and deformations in their socio-cultural identity, that reproduce themselves in the process of socialization of racial relations in school, in the family and in mass media.
María Carmen Cano considers among these deformations the passive acceptance of criticism of their culture, "deficient self-perception as a social group and its participation, conscious or not, in the promulgation of racial stereotypes by being an oral disseminator of these".
In agreement with her, "the crisis (started in 1990) has been a factor in reinforcing social inequality and, consequently, racial inequality, given the historic nexus that has existed beetween race and class".
There is not available any current data on how the racially mixed and black population lives in Cuba. According to the Census of 1981, at that time, theere were 6.4 million white persons, 1.1 black, 2.1 racially mixed and some 14.000 Chinese.
But the information obtained during the national survey was not totally trustworthy, according to Guanche. The classification as white, black, racially mixed or white depended on the opinion of the surveyor, in terms of the color of the skin of the person, without taking into account ancestors.
The real base of the racism in Cuba "is not epitheleal" but "a great deal deeper" and is associates with the division of society into classes, groups and layers, in relation to porperty ownership which affect family structure and hierarchy, social and individual psychology, and the full development of one’s capacities, estimates Guanche.
Province White Black Asian Mestizos
Pinar del Río 78.3 14.3 0 7.4
La Habana 82.2 9.5 0.1 8.2
Ciudad Hab. 63 16.4 0.2 20.4
Matanzas 76 12.7 0.1 11.2
Villa Clara 82.5 6.9 0.1 10.5
Cienfuegos 76.6 9.6 0.1 13.7
S. Spíritus 84.1 7.4 0 8.5
C. de Ávila 80.8 9.5 0.1 9.6
Camagüey 77 11 0.1 11.9
Las Tunas 74.4 7.2 0.1 18.3
Holguín 78.8 6.1 0.2 14.9
Granma 42.7 4.4 0.2 52.7
Stgo. de Cuba 30.2 22.2 0.3 47.3
Guantánamo 26.3 18.8 0.4 54.5
Isla de Pinos 66.8 10.9 0.2 22.1
Total 66 12 0.1 21.9
[/quote] |
|
'
FAQ
Search
Register
Log in
