The Issue of Race in Cuban Society Today: The Letter and Spirit 321
Having to do with governmental discourse, the strategy developed by
the leader of the Revolution, Fidel Castro, takes first place as a vital
factor in the process of endowing the most needy in the population
with self-respect, particularly after the overthrow of the pseudo-
republican dictatorship during which being black, poor or a woman
meant lower educational and cultural levels and poorer health care.
Fidel Castro, in defense of these elements, said:
“The problem of racial discrimination is, unfortunately, one of the
most complex and difficult that the Revolution has to approach. The
problem of social discrimination is not the problem of the rent, of
expensive drugs, it is not the problem of the telephone company and
not even that of latifundia, which is one of the serious problems we
have to face...“And I ask myself what is the difference between one injustice and
another injustice, what difference there is between a peasant with no
land and a person who is not given the chance to work. Doesn’t a black
who does not work starve to death just as a peasant with no land does?
And why must the Revolution be compelled to solve other injustices
and not to solve this one?”^1 (1)Around the hurricane transforming Cuban reality a strong synergy
of ideas and actions joined together between the political leadership
and society favoring growing equality between men and women,
blacks and whites, workers and peasants, and thus creating a process
of broad popular and intellectual scope. It was necessary to study the
life and work of advanced thinkers to understand the roots and
expression which characterized the evolution of this subject. Three of
the most important thinkers to be studied are Fernando Ortiz, Jose
Luciano Franco and Nicolas Guillen, in the fields of anthropology,
history and literature.- Fidel Castro, TV appearance on March 25, 1959. Source: Granma newspaper. Inter-
net. http://www.granma.cu