Antiracism in Cuba: The Unfinished Revolution by Devyn Spence Benson (review)

In the first month of the Cuban Revolution, the magazine Revolución printed a headline over photographs of inhabitants of one of Havana’s most marginalized neighborhoods: “Negros no . . . ¡Ciudadanos!” The idea that the Revolution would turn blacks into citizens expressed well the grand hopes of the Cuban Revolution and the utter racism of some of its revolutionaries. Devyn Spence Benson’s brilliant book opens with this anecdote to demonstrate the blindness of white Cuban revolutionaries even as they sought to champion the cause of black Cubans. The idea that they could either be black or revolutionary citizens was a Faustian bargain that few black Cubans were willing to make.

This book advances our understanding of racism in Cuba by exploring debates within the Cuban black community, both on the island and in exile, as it negotiated its place in revolutionary Cuban society. Although the myth of racial democracy has been debated endlessly, Spence Benson goes further, showing that some blacks agreed with the raceless ideology, others used the rhetoric of racelessness to make demands, and a third group found the idea of racelessness paternalistic. Most importantly, she places black Cuban intellectuals at the center of her analysis.

Black Cubans found themselves in a difficult position during the anti-Batista struggle. Revolutionaries blamed blacks for supporting Batista, who was a mulatto, and others blamed black Cubans for participating in the Communist party, one of the few to have an explicitly antiracist platform. Fidel Castro’s 26 of July Movement did not have a concrete antiracist platform during the guerilla struggle, but, once the Revolution triumphed, Fidel proclaimed the it to be antiracist and even desegregated public parks and beaches.

Spence Benson traces the long and distinguished history of efforts against racism made by Cuba’s black intellectuals, focusing on luminaries such as Rafael Serra and Ángel César Pinto from the early to mid twentieth century and Juan René Betancourt, Walterio Carbonell, and Carlos Moore from the revolutionary era. Some of them, such as Serra, clung to José Martí’s idea of racelessness, while others, like Betancourt, promoted the idea of black Cubans organizing. Betancourt rose to become president of the National Federation of Black Societies in early 1959, before Fidel closed down all of the black clubs. After going into exile in 1961, Betancourt criticized the fact that the leadership of the revolutionary government was mostly white. Other black intellectuals, like the poet Nicolás Guillén, stayed on the island and accommodated to the revolution even as they pushed for black consciousness from the inside.

In addition to paying keen attention to struggles on the island, Spence Benson also employs a transnational lens. One chapter examines how both Castro and exiles in the US painted their opponents as racists and used the plight of black Cubans to advance their causes. Another chapter explores how African Americans saw Cuba as an escape from racism at home but at the same time suffered discrimination in restaurants and hotels in Cuba.

The final chapter focuses on the story of Conrado Benítez, a poor black teacher killed by counterrevolutionaries during the literacy campaign in 1961. Benitez became a hero of the Revolution at the very same time that antiracist campaigns in Cuba were dying out. His life and death thus exemplify both the possibilities and limitations of antiracism in revolutionary Cuba.

One of Spence Benson’s takeaways is that discrimination never really ended in Cuba after the Revolution. Thus, the idea that it “re-emerged” during the 1990s Special Period is ahistorical. The “revolution within the Revolution” that she traces so elegantly in this book is still very much present in today’s decidedly nonrevolutionary Cuba.