Cuban travelogue—Cuba’s system examined—“racism, freedom of speech and homosexual rights”—Part 4

By SJ Otto

As I continue on with my trip to Cuba—we met with leaders of an Association of Writers and Artists. Fidel Castro founded this organization in 1961. This artists and writers’ organization have taken on the task of fighting against racism. Most of the discussion was lead by Rolando sol Rensol Medina and Pedro de la Hoz. The attitude the leadership took was that all countries have racism and Cuba is no different.

“Racism is a global issue,” one of the speakers said.

As the leaders of this group explained it, racism has to be fought against and the job is never really done. There are a lot of black persons in Cuba and racism there is not just a black and white issue, since there are people of different shades of black. In the US, traditionally, the classification for a black person is that they are black if they have any black blood in them. In some cases there have been black civil rights workers, in the US, who looked white, but had black blood in there ancestry. Things are a little different in Cuba. In any country there are problems that are specific only to that one place.

We were told that many Cubans have ancestors who came to the Island as slaves.
One way to fight racism is through education. They don’t just teach history from a European point of view. They teach history from the point of indigenous people and minorities also.
One of the speakers pointed out how subtle racism can be.
“A Big black guy works as a guard—a young blond girl works as a waitress,” the speaker said. He added that they try to make people more aware of these kinds of stereo types.
Towards the end of our session with this Association, the leaders talked about culture.
The Association supports freedom of expression for visual artist and writers. We were told that criticism is not only tolerated it is encouraged.
“You can’t really have art without criticism,” one of the leaders said.
Another problem the leaders brought up is that the blockade prevents cultural exchanges with the US. Cuba and US culture exchanges have been disrupted of many years.
This last item is one more example of the damage that blockade has had. Both US and Cuban artists have not been able to exchange ideas and infuences. That has hurt both cultures.
The protection of homosexuals was discussed with Andy Aquino Agüero, Specialist of the Department of Teaching and Research in the National Center of Sexual Education. He told me that discrimination against homosexuals was banned right after the revolutionary war, but government officials had a hard time enforcing that ban for many years, because of the attitude in Latin America call machismo, or “much a man/ manliness.” That cultural attitude has caused problems for women, since men have felt encouraged to marry one woman and then keep a mistress as well. The children of these mistresses have had problems, in many Latin American countries, being treated as full-fledged citizens. They have no inheritance rights for example.
Today in Cuba it was obvious to all of us that homosexuals are clearly protected. We saw the rainbow flag that is popular with the LGBT community in shops and various other places.
Aquino also discussed other aspects of Cuba’s sex education programs. In many ways it is not different from things done in the US. Along with opposing discrimination for homosexuals, the government also protects trans-sexuals. While it is legal for trans people to get sex changes, such procedures are expensive and at times, drugs and medical supplies are limited, once again, by the US blockade of the island.
The government works to stop domestic violence.
“If you love someone, you don’t hurt them,” Aquino said.
His department emphasized that sexuality is a human right. Other rights that are protected are the right to abortion and maternal leave from work, for women who become pregnant.
At one point we met with members of the National Assembly. One of the Carvanistas asked an assembly person their views on freedom of speech for journalists. We were told that they look at journalist more as communicators than the more western view of journalists. They also said that their focus is not so much as freedom of the press, as other countries do. They looked more at the reporter’s responsibility to the needs of the working people.

Here we see the contrast between examples of modern pop art and old traditional art, at the University of la Habana.

The picture above is of the Association of  Writers and Artists.

To be continued=>