Racism from the culture

BY MANUEL AGUIRRE LAVARRERE (Mackandal)

 Trim the mule ears, it does not make a horse. José Martí. The issue of racism at last came to the debates that followed  during December in the Cuban parliament. Several MPs, including president of the National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada, have referred to racist practices and discrimination still exist in the actions and consciousness of an overwhelming number of people held to be white. As raised Gustavo E. Urrutia, in Cuba is white who does not seem to be black.

 

Culture plays a fundamental role in the fight against discrimination. But speaking culture without taking into account that it is precisely in the culture where it germinates and increases rejection of the black and mestizo in Cuba.

 

This rejection is present today in the history taught in schools in the country, where blacks are invisible or are always second sons. In the contempt with which it is assumed, even by scholars, Afro-Cuban religion and black-themed literature. It is present in the armed forces and the State Council in education often do the children of some officials, who can be called children well, though his parents are white collar criminals.

 

The same goes for the media. In the case of television, would suffice to just click on the Small Champions serial, a racist set, where he had to prevail as the multiracial concept, as they are in reality the sport and the Cuban nation, excluded black and mixed race children, and presented only white boys.

 

These actions of producers and directors of the media, the Central Committee's Ideological Department of the Communist Party in the lead, has made the Cuban audiovisual in a powerfull pamphlet tool of a disgusting egocentrism 

 

Those who are called revolutionary leaders, many MPs invested, thanks to that double standard that characterizes dictatorships and in which they are experts, followed by a retinue population that, despite being components of what Ortiz Cuban ajiaco renamed it, throw the black out of the pot.

 

For many years, the black was a tireless fighter for their rights. He knew, from the instruction and recreation centers and from the black societies, speak out against the impropriety of public governments. Today, that struggle involves inherited from our predecessors deserved recognition to the contribution of blacks and mestizos in all fields of national life. It is an encouragement to keep going, doing your best, engaged in this battle against a government that continues to discriminate, and to demonstrate to the present and future generations only through struggle and claim our rights we achieve equality and taken into account.