A Tale Of Two Fidels

PHOTO COURTESY OF MSN.COM

Fidel Castro is dead. The man, who overthrew the American-backed Batista regime and became “El Comandante”, is no more. Cubans abroad and on the island are emotional. This shit is complicated. It’s black and white. The poor and the rich. What Cuba was and what it is today.

Fidel Castro was not a perfect man nor leader by any means. But what leader is? When he came into power initially, he improved the lives of the people who looked like me and my family. La gente negra. The black citizens of Cuba suffered immensely under Batista’s reign. Slavery ended in Cuba on Oct. 7, 1886, but life for blacks was still oppressive as hell. For the most part- they were uneducated, didn’t own property and were the heels of white Cubans and white Americans alike. Under Castro’s reign, black people became doctors, lawyers, teachers and engineers and education of Cuba’s citizens was mandatory and everyone had property. In fact, the first home Fidel confiscated under the new dictatorship was his parents.

I am not so naive to believe that Castro’s inclusion of black diasporans and Africans was because of his overwhelming love for people of color. Let’s be honest here. However, he was intelligent enough to realize that creating an alliance with the most marginalized people in the world would be beneficial to him. It was a win-win situation for the most…