Racist Practices and Behaviors Make a Comeback

Mackandal – Manuel Aguirre Lavarrere, 
Social and racial equality in Cuba was grossly embezzled and supplanted

by the greed of political power. To understand the achievements and

chimeras of this equality that is nothing but virtual, it is essential

to submerge ourselves in the discourse of Fidel Castro during the

"Second Declaration of Havana", in 1962, where he talked, among other

things, about ending unemployment, gambling, vices, and corruption,

which are all present in Cuba, today. Castro also alluded that racism

was settled in Cuba. After more than fifty years, this has been proven

one of the most distressing lies for the Cuban regime.
While the existing laws contained in the Labor Code, which were

consequently included in the Constitution of February 24, 1976 and later

amended in 1992, take the right to work, social security, welfare, and

others, to the constitutional level, establishing in Article 3 that "all

citizens able to work regardless of race, color, sex, religion, public

opinion or national or social origin, have the opportunity to get a job

with which they can contribute towards the goals of society and the

fulfillment of their needs", the day-to-day practices in Cuban society

show that opportunities are limited for Afro-Cubans.
The "Second Declaration of Havana" synthesizes the history of the

struggle against racial discrimination during much of the Republic, the

efforts made by the former Socialist Party (PSP) and the way in which it

understood the issue of discrimination and its solution to this problem

in Cuba. There are some fundamental points such as the integration of

public spaces and the nationalization of education into one single

system, administered by the State, where racial equality is established.

However, this is a complicated phenomenon: words will be useless without

first taking into account the training of workers, which conflicted with

the organizational structures of the unions. All these measures,

plausible at the time, unfortunately vanished because they were not

enforced in a country willing to whiten its society and to refuse

opportunities to blacks.
This political irresponsibility brought consequences: within education,

the workplace and public spaces, the political illusions of the

Revolution, which was most concentrated in exporting its ideology,

assumed that racism had been struck a deathblow. But it lost sight of

this issue in relation to private spaces, interpersonal relations, and

public opinion. Consequently these areas were kept outside the vision

of an inclusive logic, turning the characters implied into puppets of

the desires of others, whether it is the State, Ministry of Labor or any

other entity. As a result of this political recklessness, the stigmas

that perpetuate racist practices and behaviors in schools, the

workplace, and public spaces are very alive and continue to dominate our

entire society.