Black PresidentWhite HouseBlack Cuba



In 1961, at the height of the contentious racial climate of the Civil Rights Era, Carlos Moore made the decision to leave America and settle back in his homeland, Cuba for the promise of racial equality under Fidel Castro'ss newly established regime. Incidentally, that was the same year that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii.

Forty-seven years later, in the wake of Obama being elected the forty-fourth President of the United States--the first black man ever to hold the country'ss chief executive title-- Dr. Moore returns to the United States with Pichon: Race and Revolution in Castro'ss Cuba, his personal memoir chronicling the Cuban revolution from the perspective of the 'spichones,'s a racial epithet in Cuba for someone of Haitian or Caribbean decent. With a new sense of empowerment among racial minorities in the U.S., Dr. Moore'ss book is an urgent call for social and economic change in post-Fidel Castro Cuba, and empowerment for the nation'ss Black majority.

An ethnologist and political scientist with two doctorates from the University of Paris-7, Dr. Moore has devoted the past thirty years to researching the impact of race and ethnicity on domestic politics and inter-state affairs. Pichon, delineates the broad issues that constitute the core of the Cuban racial dilemma, and poses an important question as Cuba moves into a new phase of its social and political evolution: How will the post-Fidel leadership in Cuba, the Cuban-American elite in the U.S., and ultimately, the U.S. government handle the explosive demographic reality created by Castro'ss advent to power and the flight of nearly one million White Cubans to the US

Cuba is at least 62 percent Black, and the Cuban-American community that wants to play a dominant role in Cuba is 90 percent White, states Dr. Moore. The U.S. needs to have a better understanding of what the majority of the Black Cuban populations want, rather than being stuck with the old policy of reacting solely to what the predominantly white Cuban-American community wants.

Believing strongly that President-Elect Barak Obama has a clearer, more rational vision than his predecessors of how race and politics affect U.S.--Cuban relations, Dr. Moore looks forward to the U.S. engaging Cuba in a principled dialogue that will bring an end to the 46-year U.S. embargo. However, he warns that there are two embargos working against Cuba: America'ss economic embargo, and an internal embargo that Castro'ss regime has enforced on its Black population. In order to write a new page, he says, both embargoes must be lifted simultaneously.

In an opinion piece, published by the Miami Herald in 2007, then Democratic Presidential contender Barack Obama stated:

I will use aggressive and principled diplomacy to send an important message: If a post-Fidel government begins opening Cuba to democratic change, the United States (the president working with Congress) is prepared to take steps to normalize relations and ease the embargo that has governed relations between our countries for the last five decades. That message coming from my administration in bilateral talks would be the best means of promoting Cuban freedom.

Pichon'ss release, coincidentally, fell on the eve of one of the most momentous elections in U.S. history. Three days after its November 1st release, Obama, the young, Black, Democratic junior senator won a landslide victory over the Republican Party'ss more traditional nominee, Caucasian senior statesman and war veteran John McCain. Signaling a new chapter on race and politics in Cuba, Dr. Moore is confident that America'ss decision is a vote for change in Cuba'ss post-Castro evolution.

For more information about Dr. Carlos Moore and Pichon: Race and Revolution in Castro'ss Cuba, visit www.drcarlosmoore.com.

Pichon: Race and Revolution in Castro'ss Cuba is currently available for sale at www.amazon.com.

For media requests, contact the Caribbean Readers Project at 347-492-3977 or caribbeanreaders@msraineinc.com.





Black PresidentWhite HouseBlack Cuba




Last 1000 Articles Submitted XML FEEDS FOR ORGANIZED NEWS