if you care about cuba like i do, the information compiled by the council on foreign policy on some of the basic facts of our doings with cuba will probably be deeply disturbing.
some of these things i knew tangentially, without specifics, but now that i've learned the specifics i'm pissed. ignorance is bliss, after all. excerpts of some of the most disturbing stuff below, and the full article can be found here.
What is the status of U.S.-Cuba relations?
-U.S.-Cuban relations are virtually nonexistent. There is a U.S. mission in Havana, Cuba's capital, but it has minimal communication with the Cuban government. Since 1961, the official U.S. policy towards Cuba has been two-pronged: economic embargo and diplomatic isolation. The Bush administration has strongly enforced the embargo and strengthened travel restrictions. Americans with immediate family may visit once every three years for a maximum of two weeks, while the total amount of family remittances an authorized traveler may carry to Cuba is $300, reduced from $3,000 in 2004.
-A small but vocal contingent of hard-line Cuban exiles, many of them based in Florida, do not want to resume relations with Cuba until Castro and his sympathizers are gone, says Julia E. Sweig, CFR senior fellow for Latin American Studies. (havestrength note: i know these people's children, and most of them suck.)
-Why is Cuba on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list?
According to the State Department, Cuba remains on the list because it opposes the global war on terrorism, supports members of two Colombia insurgent groups, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN), and provides safe haven to several Basque ETA members from Spain. But some experts say there is little evidence to support the State Department's allegations.
Showing posts with label cuba. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cuba. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Friday, February 22, 2008
one more link
women in hip-hop in cuba!
if you want some cuban hip-hop sounds, hit me up. papa humbertico, epg&b, anonimo consejo, hermanos de causa...
i'm your hookup.
if you want some cuban hip-hop sounds, hit me up. papa humbertico, epg&b, anonimo consejo, hermanos de causa...
i'm your hookup.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
one ferry, three men, lots of anger
**sorry, long post!**
i took the staten island ferry and to and from SI today for work. both trips started calmly, with my head buried in reading material, and both ended with me in the midst of a good amount of anger. the first time (on the way there), i scribbled a poem in the back of the book i'm reading, almost running into the two men that inspired its writing (it needs revision, badly); the second time (on the way back), i wrote a blog post angrily on the margins of a piece of paper i found in my bag. i'm going to share both pieces here.
i don't know what's up with me and anger lately. there's something, though, about constantly feeling like me and mine are being openly dismissed/used/abused by others that just makes my blood boil a little bit. i bite my tongue, i don't fight, but my silence doesn't erase my anger.
i write my anger, and hope that it will resolve itself.
(there)
tears of rage, or
my brother always says i cry too easy
90 miles,
they say
two white(?) men.
the Staten Island ferry.
90 miles?
yeah, yeah
90 miles from Miami to
Coo-ba
yeah.
so close, they get
here
and their feet are
still
wet!
yuk, yuk.
90 miles.
as a tear of rage
seeped out of my eye,
i neglected to share
that cuba is 90 miles from
key west,
not
miami,
and when they
shouted out
the aryan nation
as the only
"solution"
to miami's
"problem,"
i didn't say
that the problem is
ignorant bigots like them,
wearing 9.11.01 tee shirts.
i didn't say that
i'd prefer
wet feet
over
ignorance and hatred
any
day.
i didn't say
that our country
was built with
wet feet,
or that
it would seem that
along with
drying feet
come
shrinking brains and narrowing
minds.
i didn't insult the
man's
accent or
intelligence,
i didn't make
sweeping generalizations
about the group of
people
i believe he most resembles.
i didn't blame him and
his "kind"
for my lack of
comprehensive health insurance
or my
$60,000 in
student loans.
.
.
.
.
i didn't expect him
to understand
my tears
or my
language.
///
there are just so. many. things. i
didn't say.
*****
(back)
why is it that black middle aged men so often consider my body their property? at least once a week i am confronted with men old enough to be my father commenting on/trying to touch/eyeing my black female body.
there is something in their attention, too, that is about my youth. the way they comment and gesture suggests that i am, at once, their daughter and their concubine, simultaneously innocent and deviant.
today, one man decided that his avenue to interaction with me would be schooling me on manners. after he sat next to me, staring at me for a number of minutes, i yawned without covering my mouth. i felt warmth near my cheek, and i realized he had raised his hand to almost touch my face! "cover your mouth when you yawn," he said. "you're so pretty!"
i gave him the stinkeye and went back to reading. after assuring me that he wasn't "trying to teach me anything," he decided to model the correct yawning "procedure" with his newspaper. i asked him to leave me alone and promptly called my mother, telling her loudly that there was a crazy man next to me. he continued to stare openly and smile creepily throughout the (too long) SI ferry ride, and to place his coffee cup as near my thigh as possible without actually touching me. he protested when i rose to move away.
why do men, black men who are supposed to be supports in my community, alternately ignore and abuse this idea of me? i can't get the attention of an educated black man under 35 for my life, but granddaddies are in large supply for the position of fetishist.
i don't understand what is both so alluring and off-putting about me. is it my independence? my unwillingness, as one friend put it a few weeks ago, to "pretend to be weak"? is it my personality? my expectations? because none of those things are on display. i don't know how to erase myself enough to lose the attention i don't want and to gain that which i so desire. to be honest, it depresses me to think that i will never be fully attractive to the men that are most attractive to me as myself. it depresses me to think that in order to find a life partner i have to deny parts of myself. it depresses me to think that i either have to give up on finding love, or be willing to define love as old men touching my face without permission on a ferry, or young men cheating on me and refusing to call what they feel love. youth breeds man-boys unready for relationships, and age breeds man-boys who want 25 year olds like the woman i am now, "ripe and fresh."
ugh. what a freaking day.
i took the staten island ferry and to and from SI today for work. both trips started calmly, with my head buried in reading material, and both ended with me in the midst of a good amount of anger. the first time (on the way there), i scribbled a poem in the back of the book i'm reading, almost running into the two men that inspired its writing (it needs revision, badly); the second time (on the way back), i wrote a blog post angrily on the margins of a piece of paper i found in my bag. i'm going to share both pieces here.
i don't know what's up with me and anger lately. there's something, though, about constantly feeling like me and mine are being openly dismissed/used/abused by others that just makes my blood boil a little bit. i bite my tongue, i don't fight, but my silence doesn't erase my anger.
i write my anger, and hope that it will resolve itself.
(there)
tears of rage, or
my brother always says i cry too easy
90 miles,
they say
two white(?) men.
the Staten Island ferry.
90 miles?
yeah, yeah
90 miles from Miami to
Coo-ba
yeah.
so close, they get
here
and their feet are
still
wet!
yuk, yuk.
90 miles.
as a tear of rage
seeped out of my eye,
i neglected to share
that cuba is 90 miles from
key west,
not
miami,
and when they
shouted out
the aryan nation
as the only
"solution"
to miami's
"problem,"
i didn't say
that the problem is
ignorant bigots like them,
wearing 9.11.01 tee shirts.
i didn't say that
i'd prefer
wet feet
over
ignorance and hatred
any
day.
i didn't say
that our country
was built with
wet feet,
or that
it would seem that
along with
drying feet
come
shrinking brains and narrowing
minds.
i didn't insult the
man's
accent or
intelligence,
i didn't make
sweeping generalizations
about the group of
people
i believe he most resembles.
i didn't blame him and
his "kind"
for my lack of
comprehensive health insurance
or my
$60,000 in
student loans.
.
.
.
.
i didn't expect him
to understand
my tears
or my
language.
///
there are just so. many. things. i
didn't say.
*****
(back)
why is it that black middle aged men so often consider my body their property? at least once a week i am confronted with men old enough to be my father commenting on/trying to touch/eyeing my black female body.
there is something in their attention, too, that is about my youth. the way they comment and gesture suggests that i am, at once, their daughter and their concubine, simultaneously innocent and deviant.
today, one man decided that his avenue to interaction with me would be schooling me on manners. after he sat next to me, staring at me for a number of minutes, i yawned without covering my mouth. i felt warmth near my cheek, and i realized he had raised his hand to almost touch my face! "cover your mouth when you yawn," he said. "you're so pretty!"
i gave him the stinkeye and went back to reading. after assuring me that he wasn't "trying to teach me anything," he decided to model the correct yawning "procedure" with his newspaper. i asked him to leave me alone and promptly called my mother, telling her loudly that there was a crazy man next to me. he continued to stare openly and smile creepily throughout the (too long) SI ferry ride, and to place his coffee cup as near my thigh as possible without actually touching me. he protested when i rose to move away.
why do men, black men who are supposed to be supports in my community, alternately ignore and abuse this idea of me? i can't get the attention of an educated black man under 35 for my life, but granddaddies are in large supply for the position of fetishist.
i don't understand what is both so alluring and off-putting about me. is it my independence? my unwillingness, as one friend put it a few weeks ago, to "pretend to be weak"? is it my personality? my expectations? because none of those things are on display. i don't know how to erase myself enough to lose the attention i don't want and to gain that which i so desire. to be honest, it depresses me to think that i will never be fully attractive to the men that are most attractive to me as myself. it depresses me to think that in order to find a life partner i have to deny parts of myself. it depresses me to think that i either have to give up on finding love, or be willing to define love as old men touching my face without permission on a ferry, or young men cheating on me and refusing to call what they feel love. youth breeds man-boys unready for relationships, and age breeds man-boys who want 25 year olds like the woman i am now, "ripe and fresh."
ugh. what a freaking day.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
a few thoughts on cuba (kinda)
i grew up in miami, florida in a section of town called carol city. carol city was mostly black. some caribbean, but lots of african-americans too. carol city sat right next to opa-locka and hialeah. opa-locka was mostly black as well, while hialeah was known to be largely latino (i didn't know the term latino at the time, and the assumption, at least in my family, was that most, if not all, latinos were cuban, so we said hialeah was cuban. i have no idea if that is actually true.)
i went to school in two major areas, neither of which was my own neighborhood. i went to school first in aventura, a section of north miami beach about 20 minutes from my house. the school i attended had a gifted program. in order to get permission to attend the school, i took an i.q. test at the age of four and then had to go in for a one-on-one interview. i had to prove my worth to a very kind woman named ms. hagan, who told me i was very bright and helpful, and buzzed around like a little bee. that interview sealed my fate. if i had not impressed ms. hagan, i don't think i would be where i am today.
i then went on to win a scholarship to a prestigious private school in 6th grade. throughout my middle school and high school years, i was surrounded by the cuban privileged, people who chanted "castro no, cuba si!" in p.e. i heard stories of houses seized and midnight flights to new york city from havana, tales of jewels left behind.
it wasn't until i was in college that i realized that cubans could be black, too. this was not from a lack of understanding of the caribbean, mind you. but there was something about the way that cuban rafters were always allowed to stay, and haitian rafters were always sent back, that suggested to me that cubans were always lighter and "righter" than people like me. my family was lucky-- our relatives lived in the bahamas, and coming to america always seemed easy enough, as long as they went back to nassau eventually and only spent their time here scrubbing floors/laying concrete/curling hair. my cousins would come through for year or two, sleep in an extra room, on the couch, convert the garage, while they made some money, and then they would head back, never to really be seen again.
i went to college in california. it was there that i learned that all latinos are not cuban or brasilian or ecuadorian or puerto rican or colombian. not all latinos ate black beans and white rice and danced samba and merengue and hicieron lechones in the backyard. it was in california that i ate my first tortilla and had homemade salsa for the first time. these were not things "we" did. it was in california that i got the crazy (according to my family and friends back home) idea to study abroad in cuba. i decided to see if things were really as bad as everyone said they were.
what i learned in cuba changed my way of seeing. i don't agree with everything fidel castro has done, or, even, the length of his rule. there is also something to be said about the people that remain in a country that has been neglected by the rest of the world for so long as a result of our american bullying. there was structural inequity in the capitalist cuban state that, as a matter of course, transferred into the revolutionary state in certain ways. there was no mistake about who was left behind to suffer at the hands of a capitalist, cold-war usa. i will only say that more current cuban nationals look like me than did any of the kids i knew back in miami.
i wrote my grandma a postcard from havana. it pictured three cuban girls in school uniforms. i told my grandma that i couldn't believe what i saw.
i went to school in two major areas, neither of which was my own neighborhood. i went to school first in aventura, a section of north miami beach about 20 minutes from my house. the school i attended had a gifted program. in order to get permission to attend the school, i took an i.q. test at the age of four and then had to go in for a one-on-one interview. i had to prove my worth to a very kind woman named ms. hagan, who told me i was very bright and helpful, and buzzed around like a little bee. that interview sealed my fate. if i had not impressed ms. hagan, i don't think i would be where i am today.
i then went on to win a scholarship to a prestigious private school in 6th grade. throughout my middle school and high school years, i was surrounded by the cuban privileged, people who chanted "castro no, cuba si!" in p.e. i heard stories of houses seized and midnight flights to new york city from havana, tales of jewels left behind.
it wasn't until i was in college that i realized that cubans could be black, too. this was not from a lack of understanding of the caribbean, mind you. but there was something about the way that cuban rafters were always allowed to stay, and haitian rafters were always sent back, that suggested to me that cubans were always lighter and "righter" than people like me. my family was lucky-- our relatives lived in the bahamas, and coming to america always seemed easy enough, as long as they went back to nassau eventually and only spent their time here scrubbing floors/laying concrete/curling hair. my cousins would come through for year or two, sleep in an extra room, on the couch, convert the garage, while they made some money, and then they would head back, never to really be seen again.
i went to college in california. it was there that i learned that all latinos are not cuban or brasilian or ecuadorian or puerto rican or colombian. not all latinos ate black beans and white rice and danced samba and merengue and hicieron lechones in the backyard. it was in california that i ate my first tortilla and had homemade salsa for the first time. these were not things "we" did. it was in california that i got the crazy (according to my family and friends back home) idea to study abroad in cuba. i decided to see if things were really as bad as everyone said they were.
what i learned in cuba changed my way of seeing. i don't agree with everything fidel castro has done, or, even, the length of his rule. there is also something to be said about the people that remain in a country that has been neglected by the rest of the world for so long as a result of our american bullying. there was structural inequity in the capitalist cuban state that, as a matter of course, transferred into the revolutionary state in certain ways. there was no mistake about who was left behind to suffer at the hands of a capitalist, cold-war usa. i will only say that more current cuban nationals look like me than did any of the kids i knew back in miami.
i wrote my grandma a postcard from havana. it pictured three cuban girls in school uniforms. i told my grandma that i couldn't believe what i saw.
"cuba could be our country, grandma," i said. "i see you and me all around."
cuba could my country. and for that reason more than any other, i hope this transfer of power is simple and sound. i hope my friend yordis is released from prison, and that the embargo is lifted. i hope that the capitalist world will not take advantage of a country of young people that are so naive in so many ways. i hope those people who could be my people survive.
si se puede?
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