Identidades in English No 4, December 2014 | Page 30

negative racial stereotypes are constantly recreated and reproduced.
Both the so-called liberal triennium (1821-1823)
and the convulsion that shook Oriente province in
1912 took place in Santiago de Cuba. Yet our historiography does not describe either with requisite responsibility nor chronicle the leading role
of the black and mestizo population. This fortifies
the false racial equality proclaimed by the Cuban
Revolution; it is a surreptitious way to cover up
the State’s or government’s own racist practices.
The liberal triennium (among other ramifications)
shed light upon a very impassioned discussion
about the exclusion of Africans and their descendants as well as citizens’ rights codified in
the 1812 Spanish Constitution. The convulsion
that took place in Oriente was a black and mestizo
social movement aimed at achieving social equality without favoring Afro-descendants over other
groups.
The Cuban government
keeps any debate about the
issue of race off its agenda.
In facing racial or social demands, it resorts to an ‘assumed’ nationalism, in order
to dissolve any sense of individual consciousness on the
part of Afro-descendants or
the national consciousness,
as a way to manipulate and
control this population group
and - in general - all of society.
There are those who claim
that we Afro-descendants
have a most faithful ally in
the Cuban State. Yet, there is
no consequent depth in
Cuba, in its education or culture, regarding the reality that Cuba has a multiracial society. This is evidenced by the constant
gratitude to the State expressed by a growing
number of Afro-descendants for the fact that there
are 11 blacks, 31 mestizos and 30 whites on the
Communist Party’s Executive Board in Santiago
de Cuba. This majority presence of Afro-descendants does not reveal the levels of poverty,
marginalization, and despair experienced by this
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population group. Indigence and poverty are of a
certain color here. Rummaging is the option for
Afro-descendants as an economic alternative to
meeting their needs; we do not participate in all
of the Cuban economies’ dimensions.
Living conditions in Santiago are quite precarious. Before Hurricane Sandy, the housing budget
was already 80% too low. The situation got much
worse with the hurricane; many people were affected. Given the lack of political will and delay
on the part of the authorities to deal with immediate needs, many built shelters in inhospitable
places through their own efforts and using their
limited resources. This led to an increase in the
number of “informal” (unofficial) neighborhoods
and marginal settlements. Other people - less daring victims - continue being housed in overcrowded conditions inside abandoned high
schools.

We Afro-descendants continue to be at the lowest
level on the social scale and in the so-called
emerging economy, which is the viable alternative to achieving a better situation. This leaves us
in the same position as the people they brought to
the Americas against their will: we are excluded,
have no capital, and lack any possibility of earning it in a society that offers unemployment for a
future and the challenge of despair.