Saturday 30 January 2010 Afro-Cuban or Cuban Black? Written by Rafael Carela Ramos Santiago de Cuba, January 12.- During the past few weeks I've read a word, written perhaps by authors who copy a foreign way of saying things, that is infrequently heard among us: the term Afro-Cuban. The prefix Afro, followed by "American", is indeed common in the United States, bearing perhaps -who knows?- the hidden purpose of marking a separation, a differentiation. I am perfectly aware of the fact that this word exists in our language, and that it has to do with an ethnic origin. However, in the social order, here in Cuba, Black is Black and mulato is mulato, and not Afro-Cuban. Dr. Fernando Ortiz, the prominent Cuban ethnologist and anthropologist, one of the Cuban scientists who has referred to this topic more at length, calls Blacks Blacks� in most of his works. I dwell on this because a debate raged last month around the publication, in Miami�s New Herald, of a Declaration by Afro-Americans in support of the struggle for civil rights in Cuba, in which our country was accused of being today a racist society. The document referred to a purported increase in the number violations of civil and human rights of activists on the island who have the courage to raise their voices against this racial system, ignoring that those activists stand trial essentially for their actions and not for the color of their skin. In a message to Afro-American intellectuals and artists who signed that document, concocted by Carlos Moore, an individual of Cuban origin who has for some time presented himself as a specialist on racial topics and does no more than misrepresent Cuban reality, a group of Cuban intellectuals expressed �via the national Cuban media� that �if today�s Cuban felt contempt vis-à-vis Blacks, 35 000 young Africans would not have been trained in our schools during the past 40 years, nor would there be some 2 800 youths from that region studying in our universities at this very time.� Obviously, a racist people would not have collaborated in the training of doctors nor worked with human resources in the area of health in Medical faculties and in programs of assistance in the field of sanitation in various territories of Latin America and the Caribbean. As in any other country of the world, there are all types of racists of every sort: racists vis-à-vis Blacks, racially mixed people, indigenous peoples, peoples of Asian origin and also vis-à-vis whites. But this country�s policy against any sort of discrimination and in favour of equality bears constitutional backing as expressed in the Constitution of the Republic, several chapters of which refer to the State�s political, social and economic foundations and to the rights, duties and guarantees of their citizens. I am not saying that those who resort to this term are doing so with the same intention of some thoroughly racist people in the US who use it, but the term Afro-Cuba has no tradition among the people living in this nation. It is time for a debate around this topic, between confused Black US intellectual leaders and Cuban intellectuals of all races. But let us be careful, to avoid being accused of being racists. The enemies of Cuba take advantage of every opportunity to demonize this country..
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