Cuba has racism too!

For those who aren´t familiar with the stats of Cuba, the cuban population consists of over 50% mestizo, or racially mixed persons. I kindof assumed, even after arriving here, that this enormous percentage indicated a population where race isn´t a separating factor, where people don´t judge even subconciously based on one´s race. THough it´s true that the population where race isn´t nearly as racially segregated as the US, it turnes out I was wrong about the lack of racism. First of all, Cuba has a fairly large amount of institutionalized racism. If an Afrocuban (a black cuban), or sometimes a mestizo cuban, is walking with a group of white foreigners, a police officr will often stop the group to question the cuban. In fact, I heard of an African American who came on business with white associates and he was OFTEN questioned by police. Granted, the police have reasons to be a little wary of cubans hanging around tourists. Apparently there is a problem with ¨jineteros¨, cubans who try to scam tourists out of their money, and one of the major roles of police here is to protect tourists. Of course, this doesn´t excuse the racial targeting. Last night I was with a couple cuban friends who starting speaking in English with my as we passed a police officer. It was really strange to feel like we need to be carely what we say in public. ANother example of this institutionalized racism is in teh tourist industry. THere are virtually no Afrocubans in the tourism. I don´t know what they are afraid of, or even if it´s a conscious decision, but it happens. On a more individual scale, many cubans have the same prejudices that we have in the US. For instance, it is more unusual for Afrocubans to go to University here. THe ones that can go, and decide to further their education in this way have an unofficioal title , a word that likens them to white people. Yet I´ve heard cubans explain the absence of afrocubans as a lack of motivation (sound familiar). As frustrating as this racism is, what´s worse is that no support network exists for Afrocuban rights. In the US, a fair amount of people are talking about racism and fighting for civil rights, but these groups are virtually nonexistent here. And the ones that do exist (I´ve only heard of one) are considered kind of soft and overly intellectual. I can´t really comprehend this stae in Cuba, when mixing of races is 100% normal, MUCH more so than in the US.

I know I just wrote to really serious and heavy entries, but these are the things that are sticking out in my mind right now. I´ll talk about fun stuff too. For instance, I´m taking an aerobics class a this cuban gym down the street from me and one of the teachers wears a fullbody orange spandex suit. Yowzah