Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Subject: Re: Racists oppose Afro-Cuban appointee to State Dept.
Keywords: Mario Baeza, Assistant Secretary of State for Latin-American Affairs
From: galan@netlink.cts.com (Greg Gross)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 18:05:57 PST
Organization: NetLink Online Communications, San Diego CA

kautaj@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (The Wise Man from the East) writes:

> In article <084yXB1w165w@netlink.cts.com> galan@netlink.cts.com (Greg Gross) 
> 
> 
> >Next time you see film or video of one of Fidel Castro's speeches, take a 
> >look around the podium at all the black faces sitting up there with him 
> >representing the Cuban leadership.
> > 
> >Odds are, there won't be any.  There scarcely ever have been since Fidel 
> >came down from the mountains 30-plus years ago.
> > 
> >It's true that the old-line wealthy right-wing families who owned Cuba 
> >when Bautista<sp?> ran it often treated black Cubans as second-class 
> >citizens and still do today in Miami, but revolutionary Cuba under Castro 
> >really hasn't been much better.
> >
> >Amazing how that happened...
> >G.
> 
> I doubt if this statement is true. I believe the speaker of the house
> (or an equivalent position) is blak. And the status of blaks there is in no
> doubt the highest in the Americas in terms of self-esteem, health-care, level
> of education etc... Unfortunately, due to the 30 year embargo (or otherwise),
> Cuba is not a rich country. This explains the constant immigration to Miami, 
> with promises of $25,000 in gold per defector (remember the Pan-Am games in
> Indy?)
> 
> The amount of anti-Castro propaganda in the US media is amazing. A legacy of
> folx here being brought up fighting the cold war. To judge Cuba, one has 
> only to compare her with the rest of Latin America. Her standard of living is
> much better! And it does not require much imagination to deduce that she woul
> have been much better without the embargo. Not only can she not trade with th
> US, but the US passes laws that prohibit any company dealing with her (the US
> from dealing with Cuba. Think about that for a moment...So she has to get her
> oil (at market price) from Russia instead of Venezuela, a US puppet..
> 
> Er..I could go on. But I have to run..
> 
> kauta.
> 
> 


You forgot to mention that they also made excellent cannon fodder in 
Angola...
 
In a nation whose population is 60 percent black, there's one leading 
political figure...one...in a rubber-stamp legislature? Please...

I don't doubt that cuba would be much better off econoically today 
without the longstanding U.S. economic embargo (how *much* better is 
purely a matter of conjecture).  I also know that Cuba has done a fairly 
good job of extending basic services to the masses. As to whether they've 
done a better job of it than, say, Venezuela, that's debatable, but they 
should be credited with doing a much better job than Batista did.

But then, a blind three-legged dog probably would've done better than 
Batista did...

Even so, I stand by the original statement. The government of Fidel 
Castro is no more representative of the Cuban population as a whole than 
was that of the dictator who preceded him.
G.

--
Gregory Alan Gross      Welcome to life, where no good deed goes unpunished.
San Diego Union-Tribune         (619) 293-1270 (voice)
P.O. Box 191                    (619) 293-1896 (fax)
San Diego, CA 92112-4106        galan@netlink.cts.com (Internet)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american