Cubans' Racist Attitudes Towards Blacks

Cubans' Racist Attitudes Towards Blacks

Racism played different roles before, and throughout the the Spanish American War when Cuba finally became an independent state. Theories argue that there was very little racism in Cuba, that racism was brought by the Americans; Aline Helg begged to differ in her book, Our Rightful Share, and so will the following argument.

When slavery was abolished in 1886 discrimination against blacks did not disappear. Helg argues:

Cuban society remained divided along racial lines, when a child was born the first thing they had to state at registration was his or her skin color.? (Helg 25)

Many places in Cuba simply refused to serve Afro-Cubans. On the other hand they now received wages for their hard work and certainly did enjoy some independence. Remarkably the Afro-Cubans maintained their pride. Even though they needed to accomplish more than whites in order to be rewarded, the Afro-Cubans did not sit still. Many leaders arose from the African descendants who shared their voices with the rest of Cuba. They created newspapers, La Igualdad, that joined the Liberation forces to ascend themselves, etc. The white Cuban society had a different view of these advancements; society feared that they would rebel like the Haitians, their solution was to repress more and more. Not physically, but as time went by there were less places for Afro-Cubans to inter-mix with the white society. Cubans launched the war for independence on February 24th of 1895. Each region rebelled independently: Matanzas, Camaguey, Oriente all rebelled by the end of 1895.

This war of independence brought whites and blacks together.

In general, the war against Spain brought men of completely different social backgrounds together. Blacks and whites, poor and rich joined forces to free Cuba. The Liberation army was an integrated body in the sense that there were no distinct black or white battalions. Some claimed that it was color-blind.?(Helg 59)

The United States was interested in attaining Cuba for economic purposes and eventually they did. This created chaos between Cuban elites/whites and Americans. Americans brought back the Cubans that had been in exile in .America to rule the country. Their policies discriminated against the Afro-Cubans. In a way all Cubans were discriminated against by the Americans.

?After 1898, Cubans were affected not only by the socioeconomic and political impact of the US occupation but also by the racist contempt many North Americans felt for all Cubans, whether black or not.