PICHÓN: Race and Revolution in Castro´s Cuba, a Memoir by Carlos MOORE
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Toyin Falola
Jul 23, 2008, 7:58:32 AM7/23/08
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EXCERPTS
FROM
PICHÓN:
Race and Revolution
in Castro´s Cuba, a Memoir
Race and Revolution
in Castro´s Cuba, a Memoir
by Carlos
MOORE
(Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2008)
A COMPLEX, PAINFUL AND COMPELLING STORY TOLD BY A BLACK CUBAN ABOUT RACE AND THE REVOLUTION
Date of release: November 1st, 2008
ORDER THROUGH AMAZON BOOKS:
HYPERLINK "http://www.amazon.com/Pichon-Race-Revolution-Castros-Memoir/dp/1556527675/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216250777&sr=8-1" http://www.amazon.com/Pichon-Race-Revolution-Castros-Memoir/dp/1556527675/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216250777&sr=8-1
PICHÓN:
Race and Revolution
in Castro´s Cuba, a Memoir
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER 1
Growing up in Central Lugareño, the only place I had known since birth, made me feel as insignificant as a blade of grass in one of the towering canefields that spread beyond sight over the horizon. (Š) As early as the age of six I was aware that my dark skin color was disapproved of by Whites. By the time I was a teenager, I had had enough of the penury into which I was born and the contempt attached to my Blackness. I latched on to the idea that one day I would leave. (Š) I just wanted out of Cuba!
That was the frame of mind in which I arrived in America. I could not have even remotely suspected that that America I loved with such intensity would be the same country whose international policies and domestic racial order I would eventually come to oppose with equal fervor.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER 18
My growing involvement with the Left eroded my boyhood illusions about the USA. The Civil Rights Movement had become more than news to me by now, and I followed the situation in the southern states as attentively as I did the events in Cuba and the Congo. I embraced those three realities with such passion that they were enmeshed in my consciousness as the entangled roots of a tree.
(Š)
I saw Lumumba and Castro as representatives of what revolutionaries truly were about, and in that summer of 1960 I began understanding how serious it all was. That summer, many things converged at once: the situation in the Congo, the Revolution in Cuba, the fire-and-brimstone speeches of Malcolm X, and Marxism. Revolution became a magic word to me; I would follow its headwind in the direction of the dignity I had yearned for since childhood. (Š) I would return to Cuba.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER 21
I had no regrets at having forsaken imperial America for revolutionary Cuba - on the contrary. I felt secure as I stepped on Cuban soil again, experiencing the tranquil sensation of being home. Any anxiety about the unknown was quickly overwhelmed by my bubbling enthusiasm. (Š) But I knew racial condescension when I saw it. I had grown up with it as a child in Cuba. I had experienced it in the USA. (Š) There was no question about it: racism was not only alive and well in Communist Cuba, it was receiving a new ideological legitimacy.
(Š)
It was hard not to notice that the people in positions of authority were Whites, with the exception of Juan Almeida, Head of the Army. There was a defining pattern in the attitude of White revolutionaries: they felt we Blacks should be grateful to them. It was there in their eyes, in the way they looked at you, as if to say, Who the hell does this negrito think he is, coming here demanding a job? It was in their tone of voice, in the irked, robotic way they spoke.
No, I was not making mountains out of molehills. There was no mistaking it. I detected the cacophonous music of racism getting louder, as my reactions to it translated into defiant responses.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2008)
A COMPLEX, PAINFUL AND COMPELLING STORY TOLD BY A BLACK CUBAN ABOUT RACE AND THE REVOLUTION
Date of release: November 1st, 2008
ORDER THROUGH AMAZON BOOKS:
HYPERLINK "http://www.amazon.com/Pichon-Race-Revolution-Castros-Memoir/dp/1556527675/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216250777&sr=8-1" http://www.amazon.com/Pichon-Race-Revolution-Castros-Memoir/dp/1556527675/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216250777&sr=8-1
PICHÓN:
Race and Revolution
in Castro´s Cuba, a Memoir
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER 1
Growing up in Central Lugareño, the only place I had known since birth, made me feel as insignificant as a blade of grass in one of the towering canefields that spread beyond sight over the horizon. (Š) As early as the age of six I was aware that my dark skin color was disapproved of by Whites. By the time I was a teenager, I had had enough of the penury into which I was born and the contempt attached to my Blackness. I latched on to the idea that one day I would leave. (Š) I just wanted out of Cuba!
That was the frame of mind in which I arrived in America. I could not have even remotely suspected that that America I loved with such intensity would be the same country whose international policies and domestic racial order I would eventually come to oppose with equal fervor.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER 18
My growing involvement with the Left eroded my boyhood illusions about the USA. The Civil Rights Movement had become more than news to me by now, and I followed the situation in the southern states as attentively as I did the events in Cuba and the Congo. I embraced those three realities with such passion that they were enmeshed in my consciousness as the entangled roots of a tree.
(Š)
I saw Lumumba and Castro as representatives of what revolutionaries truly were about, and in that summer of 1960 I began understanding how serious it all was. That summer, many things converged at once: the situation in the Congo, the Revolution in Cuba, the fire-and-brimstone speeches of Malcolm X, and Marxism. Revolution became a magic word to me; I would follow its headwind in the direction of the dignity I had yearned for since childhood. (Š) I would return to Cuba.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER 21
I had no regrets at having forsaken imperial America for revolutionary Cuba - on the contrary. I felt secure as I stepped on Cuban soil again, experiencing the tranquil sensation of being home. Any anxiety about the unknown was quickly overwhelmed by my bubbling enthusiasm. (Š) But I knew racial condescension when I saw it. I had grown up with it as a child in Cuba. I had experienced it in the USA. (Š) There was no question about it: racism was not only alive and well in Communist Cuba, it was receiving a new ideological legitimacy.
(Š)
It was hard not to notice that the people in positions of authority were Whites, with the exception of Juan Almeida, Head of the Army. There was a defining pattern in the attitude of White revolutionaries: they felt we Blacks should be grateful to them. It was there in their eyes, in the way they looked at you, as if to say, Who the hell does this negrito think he is, coming here demanding a job? It was in their tone of voice, in the irked, robotic way they spoke.
No, I was not making mountains out of molehills. There was no mistaking it. I detected the cacophonous music of racism getting louder, as my reactions to it translated into defiant responses.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER
25
I got up the next morning with the distinct sensation of danger. The feeling circled me, more and more reducing my space to act and think cogently. Yet I was satisfied with myself for having taken the protest letter to Fidel. At least now we would know what was what.
I went downstairs for breakfast and tried to put the previous night's anxiety behind me. As I was eating, a neatly uniformed man entered the breakfast room. I noticed everyone's eyes lowered to their plates in trepidation.
"Carlos Moore?"
"Yes."
"I am from the Ministry of National Security," he said, politely. "I have instructions to take you to meet with the Minister."
(Š)
At the Ministry of the Interior, I was led to a second-level waiting-room, then finally ushered into a huge meeting room where a number of officers were standing. Already seated at a very long wodden mahogany table, away from me, were the two friends who had accompanied me the day before to the Prime Minister's office. Both avoided looking at me, faces grim. Instantly, I felt a strange sensation of apprehension. Then the red-bearded Minister of Interior, Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, the most feared man in Cuba, entered. He sat down, stroking his pointed beard and fumbling through the files that were placed before him. (Š) Behind him walked in three government officials whom my protest letter had singled out as being racists. They sat on either side of Valdes. That was a shock and an ominous sign.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER 32
The Cuban Revolution had been the most powerful and beautiful experience of my youth. It impacted me heavily, precisely because I grew up in and was forged by those realities it had intended to change. I had never reneged on the quest for justice that fueled it, and would not have made the mistake of colluding with its enemies. In three decades that regime had accomplished more on behalf of the poorest layers of Cuban populace than had any other regime since independence.
(Š)
But I came to the conclusion that the revolutionary government that assumed power in 1959 was not prepared to concede anything resembling a democratic arrangement for racial power-sharing in Cuba. On the issues of race, gender and sexual orientation that became dominant in the latter part of the twentieth century, the opinions of Fidel Castro and his colleagues - shaped essentially by the "universalistic" and "republican" ideas of the French Revolution - were crude, prejudiced, and frankly reactionary.
Those who did not share the regime's perspective on those realities were accused of "taking orders" and being "in the pay" of America's CIA, or being "in collusion" with the pro-US, White exile opposition in Miami. However, the regime knew very well that it lied in concocting those charges, and my discovery of that fact created a crisis of confidence.
(Š)
We loved Fidel Castro as we did because, among other things, we felt he represented the most noble that was in each of us. He had demonstrated a profound sensibility to the plight of those who had been historically crushed underfoot, even though he was from the upper classes. We trusted him and prayed that on our behalf he would go the full length, to end forever racial tyranny in all its forms, shapes and expressions in Cuba.
(Š)
I got up the next morning with the distinct sensation of danger. The feeling circled me, more and more reducing my space to act and think cogently. Yet I was satisfied with myself for having taken the protest letter to Fidel. At least now we would know what was what.
I went downstairs for breakfast and tried to put the previous night's anxiety behind me. As I was eating, a neatly uniformed man entered the breakfast room. I noticed everyone's eyes lowered to their plates in trepidation.
"Carlos Moore?"
"Yes."
"I am from the Ministry of National Security," he said, politely. "I have instructions to take you to meet with the Minister."
(Š)
At the Ministry of the Interior, I was led to a second-level waiting-room, then finally ushered into a huge meeting room where a number of officers were standing. Already seated at a very long wodden mahogany table, away from me, were the two friends who had accompanied me the day before to the Prime Minister's office. Both avoided looking at me, faces grim. Instantly, I felt a strange sensation of apprehension. Then the red-bearded Minister of Interior, Ramiro Valdés Menéndez, the most feared man in Cuba, entered. He sat down, stroking his pointed beard and fumbling through the files that were placed before him. (Š) Behind him walked in three government officials whom my protest letter had singled out as being racists. They sat on either side of Valdes. That was a shock and an ominous sign.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER 32
The Cuban Revolution had been the most powerful and beautiful experience of my youth. It impacted me heavily, precisely because I grew up in and was forged by those realities it had intended to change. I had never reneged on the quest for justice that fueled it, and would not have made the mistake of colluding with its enemies. In three decades that regime had accomplished more on behalf of the poorest layers of Cuban populace than had any other regime since independence.
(Š)
But I came to the conclusion that the revolutionary government that assumed power in 1959 was not prepared to concede anything resembling a democratic arrangement for racial power-sharing in Cuba. On the issues of race, gender and sexual orientation that became dominant in the latter part of the twentieth century, the opinions of Fidel Castro and his colleagues - shaped essentially by the "universalistic" and "republican" ideas of the French Revolution - were crude, prejudiced, and frankly reactionary.
Those who did not share the regime's perspective on those realities were accused of "taking orders" and being "in the pay" of America's CIA, or being "in collusion" with the pro-US, White exile opposition in Miami. However, the regime knew very well that it lied in concocting those charges, and my discovery of that fact created a crisis of confidence.
(Š)
We loved Fidel Castro as we did because, among other things, we felt he represented the most noble that was in each of us. He had demonstrated a profound sensibility to the plight of those who had been historically crushed underfoot, even though he was from the upper classes. We trusted him and prayed that on our behalf he would go the full length, to end forever racial tyranny in all its forms, shapes and expressions in Cuba.
(Š)
All this
speaks to the fact that the quirks, prejudices and phobias that affect
common mortals also affect the best of social reformers. History is
basically made by real people who go about transforming society, but
always within parameters that are defined, to a great extent, by their
individual makeup and limitations. It is to Castro's credit that he
broke out of the class prejudices and privileges into which he was
born. But he was less successful in his attempt to shed the racial
vision he inherited from Cuban society.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station
Austin, TX 78712-0220
USA
512 475 7224
512 475 7222 (fax)
www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa
Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station
Austin, TX 78712-0220
USA
512 475 7224
512 475 7222 (fax)
www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa
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