In the comments section, tulio, referring to a propagandistic Miami Herald article on Blacks in Cuba, disagrees with me about the Cuban treatment of Blacks.
But it’s a strict meritocracy.
That sounds like Castro propaganda. There are no strict meritocracies anywhere on earth. I have no reason to think one exists in Cuba, especially in was is still by western standards a corrupt Latin American nation. Things like bribing officials are still standard fare as is common the Latin countries.
You don’t see so many Blacks and mulattos in the top positions probably because their IQ’s are lower and they can’t cut the tests, etc. Cuban education is extremely competitive and if you can’t cut it, you’re gone. Cuba has no US style affirmative action.
There’s discrimination across the board, even lucrative jobs like tourist service and driving cabs. They don’t take high IQ and these jobs mostly go to white Cubans. So I don’t thing it’s just a matter of IQ. I don’t know what the average IQ of black vs. white Cubans is anyway.
Well, whether it’s a meritocracy or not, that’s what the WN’s on American Renaissance say it is. They all hate Communism and Castro, and they hate Blacks. If there was discrimination, they would openly admit it.
But as I can see in the article, there is indeed still racism and discrimination in Cuba. But it’s not true that if you bring it up, you go to jail. Lots of Black revolutionary Cubans have been talking about this for a long time. For the tourist industry, I guess they figure that the tourists would rather deal with a White person than a Black person. Cynical thinking there.
Cuba has the lowest poverty rate in Latin America at 1%. It may not be paradise, but for Caribbean Blacks, it looks pretty good. In fact, Eastern Cuba is now flooded with Black Haitians and Jamaicans who have fled their capitalist paradises to come to Cuba. The Cubans don’t throw them out and let them stay. These Haitians and Jamaicans like Cuba much better than the capitalist paradises they fled. To them, Cuba is awesome.
As far as jobs requiring a good education, it’s well known that the Blacks and mulattos do poorly in school, get poor grades, etc. Further, they commit a wildly disproportionate amount of street crime, so that’s why the cops harass them. Black Cubans work in the worst jobs because they have the least education.
There is also a certain amount of ghetto type behaviors that started in the Special Period. The government would build brand new housing for Cubans, a bunch of Blacks would move in and in a few months, it would be ruined as they took apart everything they could unscrew to sell it on the Black market. It’s widely acknowledged that Cuban Whites would not have fouled their own nests like that.
Contrary to this lying article, there has been a huge debate in Cuba for many years about the Blacks and their elevated rates of various pathologies. Cuba has many sociologists, and they debate this all the time in their journals and publications. The current fashionable theory is Oscar Lewis’ “The Culture of Poverty” theory. So it’s not true that the regime doesn’t care about race or never talks about it.
The educational system is a meritocracy. There’s no affirmative action in the schools. The Blacks and mulattos do poorly in the schools and on tests. The Cubans test you all the time, and the educational system is very competitive. There’s no passing people along. A lot of the Blacks just can’t cut it academically, and Cuba doesn’t have educational affirmative action to inflate their numbers at the colleges.
However, I think that Raul should take an anti-racist stand and encourage the Blacks to form civil rights organizations. I don’t think he should worry it’s going to bring down the state.
That article seems wrong about other stuff. I’m not aware that Internet is illegal in Cuba. I thought it was legal. There are lots of Cuban bloggers, some anti-government, openly blogging and no one does anything.
I’m also not aware that satellite TV is illegal. If you go to the richer parts of Havana, you will see those dishes everywhere. If they’re illegal, no one is doing anything about it.
The Cuban dissidents, unlike the dissidents in Eastern Europe, simply have no support. Or very little support. That’s why they’re not popular.
There are ~2,500 dissident organizations on the island and ~500 political prisoners. You do the math. Most of dissidents, the government just leaves alone and ignores them.
But some of the dissidents are working with the US government and the CIA to bring down the government. They are working hand in hand with the US Interests Section (We have no Embassy). They go there, get money, advice, plans, etc. That’s illegal in Cuba. That’s what most of those arrests are for.
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