BLM controversial statement about Cuban Unrest

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Black Lives Matter is facing fierce criticism on social media for defending the Cuban government and blaming the antigovernment protests on the U.S.

On Wednesday night, Black Lives Matter issued a statement saying Cuba's troubles were a result of the U.S. embargo, calling it "a cruel and inhumane policy" that was "instituted with the explicit intention of destabilizing the country and undermining Cubans' right to choose their own government."

The organization has also been critical of a double standard when it comes to enforcing Florida's new "anti-riot" law, which was passed in response to last summer's demonstrations following the death of George Floyd.

Many have questioned why the law wasn't applied to demonstrators in South Florida who protested in solidarity with protesters on the island.

However, two men arrested in the Tampa area during an antigovernment protest are being held on charges related to the state's new anti-riot law.

The organization's statement also implies that Cuba always helped African freedom fighters and civil rights movements.

“Cuba has historically demonstrated solidarity with oppressed peoples of African descent, from protecting Black revolutionaries like Assata Shakur through granting her asylum, to supporting Black liberation struggled in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau and South Africa,” the statement reads.

Shakur, a former Black Liberation Army member who is still wanted by the FBI, escaped from prison in 1979 and fled the U.S. after she was convicted for the murder a New Jersey state trooper.

The organization cited the U.S. embargo as the reason why the Cuban government was unable to handle the COVID-19 pandemic and is calling on President Joe Biden to lift sanctions.

Black Lives Matter under fire for controversial statement defending Cuban regime. [...]

On Wednesday night, Black Lives Matter issued a statement saying Cuba's troubles were a result of the U.S. embargo, calling it "a cruel and inhumane policy" that was "instituted with the explicit intention of destabilizing the country and undermining Cubans' right to choose their own government."

The organization's statement also implies that Cuba always helped African freedom fighters and civil rights movements.

“Cuba has historically demonstrated solidarity with oppressed peoples of African descent, from protecting Black revolutionaries like Assata Shakur through granting her asylum, to supporting Black liberation struggled in Angola, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau and South Africa,” the statement reads.

Shakur, a former Black Liberation Army member who is still wanted by the FBI, escaped from prison in 1979 and fled the U.S. after she was convicted for the murder a New Jersey state trooper.

How exactly is that inaccurate?



Again, this is also accurate.

Didn’t we end the embargo?

Make no mistake about it - this is a bad statement by BLM which compromises their credibility. I think for many people this will be the straw that causes them to say “I think black lives matter but I don’t support Black Lives Matter”.

I don't think so. I think Obama eased it off a little, and then Trump put it back much the way it was. I don't know if Biden has done anything one way or the other. I suspect he's done very little.

In a podcast, 1619 project writer Nicole Hannah Jones said she believed that Cuba was the most equal country in the Western Hemisphere and could serve as a model for its integrated agenda.

In a 2019 podcast by Vox’s Ezra Klein and The New York Times, Hannah-Jones was asked if there were any candidates or places she thought had a “feasible and sufficiently ambitious integration agenda.” ..

Hannah Jones, who is not an international racial expert, believes that the most “equal” and “multi-ethnic” country in the Western Hemisphere is Cuba, arguing that it is due to socialism.

“The most equal multi-ethnic country in our hemisphere, it would be Cuba,” Hannah Jones said as reported by the publication. “Cuba actually has the least inequality between blacks and whites anywhere in the hemisphere, which means that the Caribbean, most of the Caribbean, counts because the population of many whites in these countries is very small. Difficult. These countries are run by blacks, but in places that are truly interracial countries, Cuba is actually the least inequality, and it is largely due to socialism. I’m sure no one wants to hear it. “

As reported by the National Pulse, Hannah Jones also wrote an editorial published by The Oregonian posted in 2008, where she was often overlooked in countries with very high literacy rates, low HIV. The infection rate and the “model” universal health insurance system said it had some success.

In the article, she also wrote that the Cuban Revolution led to the “end of systematic racism” and provided access to universal education and work for black Cubans.

According to Voyages – The Transatlantic Slave Trade Database, about 900,000 Africans were brought to Cuba as slaves. To compare, some 470,000 Africans were brought to what is now the United States, and 5,500,000 to the much vaster region of what is now Brazil.

As slavery was abolished or restricted in other areas of the Americas during the 19th century, the Cuban slave trade grew dramatically. Just between 1790 and 1820, 325,000 Africans were brought to Cuba, quadruple the number from the people brought in the last 30 years.The abolition of slavery was a gradual process that began during the first war for independence.

The revolution of 1959 changed race relations drastically. Institutionally speaking, Cubans of Color benefited disproportionately from revolutionary reform. After the overthrow of the Batista regime, Fidel Castro established racism as one of the central battles of the revolution.Though Cuba never had formal, state sanctioned segregation, privatization disenfranchised Cubans of color specifically. Previously white only private pools, beaches, and schools were made public, free, and opened up to Cubans of all races and classes. Because much of the Afro-Cuban population on the island was impoverished before the revolution, they benefited widely from the policies for affordable housing, the literacy program, universal free education in general, and healthcare. But above all, Castro insisted that the greatest obstacle for Cubans of color was access to employment. By the mid 1980s racial inequality on paper was virtually nonexistent. Cubans of color graduated at the same (or higher) rate as white Cubans. The races had an equal life expectancy and were equally represented in the professional arena.

There is heavy debate today on how the 1959 revolution impacted race relations on the island. Overall, the debate of racism in Cuba typically takes one of two extremes. Either the revolution ended racism, or it exacerbated or even created racial tension on the island. Many scholars of race in Cuba take a far more qualifying position that while the revolution helped Afro-Cubans, it also halted any further racial progress beyond institutionalization.

Typically the proponents of the elimination of racism position are close to the revolutionary government, supportive of the revolution in total, and/or come from an older generation of Cubans that are more familiar with pre-revolutionary racism. They argue that the dismantling of economic class through socialism destroyed the material perpetuation of racism.In 1966, Castro himself said that, “Discrimination disappeared when class privileges disappeared."Castro also often compared the anti-racism of Cuba to the United States' segregation, and labeled Cuba as a "Afro-Latin" nation when justifying anti-imperial support to liberation fronts in Africa.

Many who argue that Cuba is not racist base their claims on the idea of Latin American Exceptionalism. According to this argument, a social history of intermarriage and mixing of the races is unique to Latin America. The large mestizo populations that result from high levels of interracial union common to the region are often linked to racial democracy. For many Cubans this translates into an argument of "racial harmony," often referred to as racial democracy. According to Mark Q. Sawyer, in the case of Cuba, ideas of Latin American Exceptionalism have delayed the progress of true racial harmony.

While many opponents of the revolution, such as Cuban emigrants, argue that Castro created race problems on the island, the most common claim for the exacerbation of racism is the revolution's inability to accept Afro-Cubans who want to claim a black identity.After 1961, it was simply taboo to talk about race at all. Antiracist Cuban activists who rejected a raceless approach and wanted to show pride in their blackness such as Walterio Carbonell and Juan René Betancourt in the 1960s, were punished with exile or imprisonment.

Esteban Morales Domínguez, a professor in the University of Havana, believes that "the absence of the debate on the racial problem already threatens {...} the revolution's social project." Carlos Moore, who has written extensively on the issue, says that "there is an unstated threat, blacks in Cuba know that whenever you raise race in Cuba, you go to jail. Therefore the struggle in Cuba is different. There cannot be a civil rights movement. You will have instantly 10,000 black people dead." He says that a new generation of black Cubans are looking at politics in another way. Cuban rap groups of today are fighting against this censorship; Hermanos de Causa explains the problem best by saying, "Don’t you tell me that there isn’t any [racism], because I have seen it/ don’t tell me that it doesn’t exist, because I have lived it."