By Rann Miller
Bernie Sanders went on 60 minutes and said that while he disapproved of the Cuban government’s “authoritarian nature,” it is “unfair to simply say everything is bad… When Fidel Castro came to office, you know what he did? He had a massive literacy program. Is that a bad thing? Even though Fidel Castro did it?”
Democrats in Congress have condemned Sanders take, as many of his democratic rivals already have, but Cuban history and the role the United States has had in it is complex to parse; even if a segment of the population says otherwise. President Obama praised Cuba for its educational system and healthcare system, as Sanders did. However, Obama had no more elections to run. What I continue to find fascinating is the lack of introspection by “concerned” politicians and the ignorance of the american public on history in general.
However, it is no surprise that detractors of Castro’s regime tend to be white people. They are more upset about the atrocities of Fidel Castro’s Cuba than those of the United States, with its own history of racist ridden policies and activities.
Cuba became Spain’s largest importer of Africans to be enslaved, Fray Bartolome de las Casas is to thank. Yet tales of horror from French refugees of the Haitian revolution affirmed whiteness in Cuba. “Remember Haiti” was the rally cry to remind white Cubans that if they broke from Mother Spain, they would be unprotected from Afro Cubans who would threaten their properties, security and white women.
After the Spanish-American War, Cuba became a business venture for American capitalists; a feather in the cap of American imperialists. Since the 1890’s the U.S. maintained economic interests in Cuba. All of the most valuable commodities were owned by U.S. corporations. Through the Platt Amendment and the Treaty of Relations, the U.S. intervened in the political and economic affairs of Cuba.
The U.S. influenced Cuban policy under the threat of military intervention, which it did; occupying Cuba from 1906 to 1909, 1912 and from 1917-1933. William Taft warned Cuba that it was absolutely out of the question that the island should be independent if its citizens persisted in their “insurrectionary habit.”
Sanders’ detractors seem to forget, or omit, the fact that the United States played a paternally exploitative roll in Cuba, as they did in Haiti, Dominican Republic, and throughout Latin America. The United States also took its anti-Blackness beyond their borders.
According to the Spanish criminal code, which was up held by the United States, African ancestry was an “aggravating circumstance.” Racial pseudoscience was a thing and the Cuban government encouraged Spanish immigration to whiten the population as well as banning non-white immigration.
The United States was also complicit in the oppression, repression and extermination of Afro-Cubans. For example, in 1908, Afro-Cubans, created the Partido Independiente de Color (Independent Party of Color) to fight against racist policies and racist ideas. However, it was outlawed by the political elite as a result of a politically orchestrated propaganda campaign against it.
An armed protest by the Independientes to regain the party’s legal status was labeled a race war. They were massacred by the Cuban government and white Cuban volunteers for two months; anywhere from 2,000 to 6,000 Afro-Cubans were murdered as the U.S. chose to protect property over human life.
America’s history of anti-Blackness digs deep. But there’s more that gets glossed over with respect to America’s role in Cuba. Under the U.S. backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, the Cuban people endured poverty, particularly in rural areas and the widespread corruption of public officials. The mob was given the green light to create a criminal empire, with the help of Batista, in Cuba on the island whereby they could profit from its illegal activities within its hotels, restaurants and other businesses.
It has been said that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. That sort of clarity is necessary during an election cycle. However, such clarity seems to be demonized when challenging American status quo foreign policy; whereby we acknowledge the wrongs of all others while omitting our own.
Fidel Castro argued that the racism problems of Cuba were answered with the revolution. There is a debate as to whether or not that is true. What is not up for debate is that under Castro’s rule, the Cuban people did experience economic hardships and faced persecution in the forms of survellance, detention centers, beatings, and torture when vocal against Castro’s government.
It’s also true that under the rule of Fidel Castro, thousands of people were jailed and killed. However, one cannot condemn Cuba as a repressive regime and then say that the United States, as Ronald Reagan claimed, is a city on a hill. The hypocrisy is a glaring reminder that seeks not to learn from history; only impose its will upon it.
The vast majority of Cubans that fled persecution in Cuba were white. During the first and second waves, Cuban immigrants were predominately white, well-educated, middle-class and mostly business professionals and tradesmen. Even Cubans arriving from Port Mariel were majority white. At the same time as white Cuban arrived, Black people were jailed and killed in the United States, dating back to emancipation. Most of those murderers are never prosecuted. It is no surprise that 85% of Cubans today self-identify as white.
At the same time Cuban immigrants were grafted into whiteness, Black people continued to fight against racist policies such as restrictive house via redlining and blockbusting, segregation in public schooling, voter suppression and gerrymandering. These racist policies continue to be waged against today in addition to the school to prison pipeline and mass incarceration.
The United States government is responsible for the surveillance and sabotage of civil rights groups and leaders including Malcolm X and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. They are also responsible for the deaths of Fred Hampton, Patrice Lumumba and other assassinations internationally. It’s true that the United States sought to kill Castro numerous times, in addition to the failed attempt at instigating an uprising. It is also true that to justify removing Castro, dead or alive, the United States considered killing Cubans on their way to Florida.
It’s also true that while the United States was slow to condemn Apartheid in South Africa and the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela, Fidel Castro both condemned Apartheid and sent aid to Mandela and his cause. It’s no coincidence that Mandela was on the U.S. terror list until 2008.
You can’t call out Cuba and Fidel Castro, without taking a hard look at the whole of Cuban history and the civil rights injustices happening in America at the same time white Cubans, who escaped much of these injustices, arrived. Conversations about Cuba without discussing what precipitated the rise and rule of Fidel Castro and his achievements as ruler are incomplete at best; incendiary at worst.
If we want to be taken serious when having discussions such as these, we must make a serious effort when discussing them; which means telling the whole truth.
Reading Recommendations:
The Color Question of Two Americas, Bernardo Ruiz Suarez (1923)
Slave Emancipation in Cuba: The Transition to Free Labor, 1860-1899, Rebecca Scott (2000)
Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, Stephen Kinzer (2006)
An African American and Latinx History of the United States, Paul Ortiz (2018)
