In Cuba, historically there have been important intellectuals who have fought against racism and have unraveled its true essence.
The Cuban national hero José Martí was one of the fighters for equality and against racism and stated that:
“… The man does not have any special right because he belongs to one race or another: say man, and all rights are said. The black being black is not inferior or superior to any other man: Sins as redundant the white man that says “my race”, as well as the Negro who says: “my race” sins as redundant. Everything that divides men, everything that specifies them, separates or corners, is a sin against humanity … “
“… Man is more than white, more than mulatto, more than black …”
“… There are no races: there are no various modifications of man, in the details of habits and forms that do not change what is identical and essential, according to the climatic and historical conditions in which he lives …”
His ideas were followed by many great thinkers. One of those greats has been Dr. Don Fernando Ortiz (1881-1969), who from his earliest youth, developed an active and tireless fight against racism, that scourge that has overshadowed, over the centuries, the history of humanity and that still, unfortunately, lacerates the contemporary world. His essay “The deception of the races” is one of those core essays related to a subject that concerned him, and occupied, during his long and fruitful intellectual exercise, which make him an essential figure in studies related to the identity of the Cuban nation. There are, however, other lesser-known investigations, essays and articles, signed by Fernando Ortiz before and after the aforementioned work, in which his reflections on the myth of races and on the various ways in which the races are manifested are also presented. racism. Many of these reflections later appeared in the book named “Fernando Ortiz against the race and racisms”. The author supports an essential thesis, extremely topical, because he makes a diagnosis and a prognosis, talks about the phases that the issue of racism has had because of skin color in Cuba, “and says that we have to continue fighting the battle for move on to what he called the fifth phase of the problem ”, and then he explained that this will be the moment in which the colors and other physical attributes of people become elements of undifferentiation, which is essential to be able to fight a battle against racism.
It is even known that the anthropological, medical, genetic arguments that existed more than sixty years ago are now outdated, “there is new scientific evidence that ensures that races do not exist, but since that idea continues to exist in people’s minds, then we must move on to an active struggle because we reach the phase of indifference, in which nobody cares about people’s colors … “
For more than half a century, Fernando Ortiz carried out a broad campaign of research, propaganda and action in favor of the anti-racist cause, like an energetic apostolate in favor of science and against the terrible myth of “races.” He tried to persuade to convince, to teach to open the understanding about the unity of the human species, regardless of the multiple physical and cultural variations as a result of the wide adaptive and transformative capacity of the ecosystem.
One of the collected studies, entitled “Martí and the races”, reproduces the lecture given by the author of “Los Negros Brujos”, in 1941, in a cycle organized by the Cuban Society for Historical and International Studies in homage to the National Hero. Substantial and revealing investigation in which it is stated: “The Cuban José Martí, like every man, was but a drop of blood, of the blood shed on all the crosses where couples in love nailed their eternal humanity, and, furthermore, as every genius carried in his mind the essence of all the crossbreeding of ideas, which are engendered in the embraces of the world’s cultures. May all Cubans always be inspired by the teachings and emotions of José Martí in the face of the dangerous problems of racism! No wonder his people call him Apostle “
The scholar also notes the close relationship between racism and colonialism, or their veiled attempt. He analyzes the imperialist background of the so-called pan-Hispanicism and its racist connotations. He denounces the attempts at “quiet re-Hispanicization” or “meek neo-imperialism” as two strategies to penetrate the continent and Cuba.
The fight for a better world, with equal rights and opportunities, without discrimination of any kind is one of the essential principles of the Cuban revolution that triumphed in January 1959, giving the Cuban people the dignity and equality they deserve.
(Embacuba Grecia-Ecured)
