The Effects of Discrimination and Racism in Skin Pigmentocracy

Colorism can be defined by a practice of discrimination by which those with lighter skin

In order to understand the complex relationship that Cuba has with the United States and the nature of Cuban American immigrant communities that exist in South Florida, it is necessary to first understand the unique circumstances that led to the large influx of Cuban immigrants.

This problem is called Colorism. Colorism is racial bias, both intra and interracial, based on the tone of one’s skin. This can be as minor as social interactions, and as major as segregation. Colorism is a real and relevant problem; According to Shankar Vedantam, a writer for the New York Times, we have a way of thinking based off of “culture and history,” which tends to subconsciously privilege those who have lighter skinned as opposed to darker skin.

In 1940 to 1944, communist Fulgencio Batista withheld power as the president of Cuba and then from 1952 to 1959, United States backed dictator until fleeing Cuba because of Fidel Castro’s 26th of July Movement. Socialist Fidel Castro governed the Republic of Cuba as Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976 and then as President from 1976 to 2008. Fidel Castro’s intent was to provide Cuba with an honest democratic government by diminishing the corrupt way in which the country was run, the large role the United States played in the running of Cuba as well as the poor treatment & the living conditions of the lower class.

Castro’s revolution was a complete turnaround for the government of Cuba. Under Batista (Cuba's leader at the time), four thousand workers' retirement funds were embezzled. In 1959, when he was overthrown, Castro began implementing various methods of socialist reform. “We will eventually give you what you need, but rather - Here you have it, fight for it with all your might so that liberty and happiness may be yours!” (Carey, Jr. 37). His main goal in his regime was to establish a socialist society in Cuba. At first, he wanted

For more than 50 years following its independence, Cuba was governed by a succession of elected and authoritarian leaders, culminating with rule of Fulgencio Batista, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1952. Batista ruled as a brutal dictator and was overthrown by resistance groups led by Fidel Castro on January 1, 1959. Castro began his more than 45 years as Cuba’s leader by promising democratic rule, but he quickly began to stifle dissent often by imprisoning or executing opponents. Relations between Castro and the U.S. deteriorated quickly in 1959 and 1960 as he courted the Soviet Union, the U.S.’s adversary in the Cold War, and began confiscating Cuban property owned by U.S. corporations and citizens.

These extravagant women were revered by their generation, and according to the Cuban foreign minister in 1958, Andrés Vargas Gómez, "She was a sacred creature and it was her right to have precedence in all things." While the number of professional women in Cuba grew throughout the first half of the twentieth century (lawyers, doctors, businesswomen, journalists, teachers, and musicians), the huge discrepancy between them and the average Cuban woman was not shrinking. The view of women as pura o putas existed, and equality was a long way away. According to Lois M. Smith and Alfred Padula, the long-term deficit of women in times of slavery played a significant role in the construction of sexual relations in Cuba (p 9). During slavery in Cuba, there were very few slave women, and white women only represented ten percent of the Cuban population.

For many Cubans the Batista government was simply a puppet regime with the puppet masters being wealthy Americans. This was because his economic policies favoured foreign investors and did little for the development of domestic industries, which resulted in the wealth of the country being concentrated in the hands of a wealthy whtite minority. Consequently, in the 1950s, this harsh regime caused political resistance to reach to its boiling point. In response to these high levels of frustration, Fidel Castro and a small rebel group led a successful revolutionary army into Havana in 1959. This was the first step on the road to a new era in the lives of many Cubans.

Colorism is a form of discrimination based on the color of someone’s skin tone. Colorism has the greatest impact on the African American culture and community. It is sad that we have to face discrimination within our own ethnic group, Along with every other ethnic group in the United States. Colorism has been passed down generation after generation. It is dated all the way back to the slavery dates. The idea of light skin being better than dark skin has been deeply rooted in our culture. We see colorism in our everyday life on social network, in our workplace, school, and relationship. We don’t even recognize it because we are unfamiliar of the word colorism and its meaning. So we ignore the fact that people are

Earlier this week President Obama made history by being the first American president in 90 years to visit Cuba. This visit will not only mark the monumental progress made in the American-Cuban relationship but it also began to shed light on the racial inequalities present in Cuba. While Americans haven’t been allowed to travel to Cuba and many embargos were placed on the country, it hasn’t been completely isolated from the western world. With almost all western cultures racial/ethnic inequalities are very much present throughout the society. Cuba is no exception. What makes Cuba special however, is the amount of effort put in to create a post-racial society. While after the revolution they tried incredibly hard to eradicate racial/ethnic inequality they “fell short” according to a recent NPR broadcast. With the Cubans relationship with the Americans growing, Cuban racial inequality is being slowly brought to the American spotlight.

Cuba. Early white Cuban’s and Cuban politicians denied racism in the country as a whole, calling Cuba a nation of Racial Democracy, but the entire social, economical, and political classes were setup with a type of “caste” system based off of racial profiling. Cuba’s desire for being considered elite among nations during the time period led to Cuba losing a lot of its true culture tied to Africa and African culture.

During Dr. Castro’s addressment to the Pedagogia 99 Congress on February 99, he states, "We thought that to decree absolute equality and civil rights would have been sufficient to wipe out these traces. However, today we still observe that poorest sectors are still those descendants of slaves. Before the triumph of the Revolution, there existed on the island a culture of poverty and wealth, where the middle class was fundamentally white and were better prepared and had better material conditions. People with a better educational level influenced their children because they taught them, they looked over their homework, and they demanded of them. In the same way, poverty was transmitted. For all that everyone was made equal under the law, for all that assistance was rendered, the best grades came from those

In 1959, the leader of a revolution,Castro, overthrew the Cuban President, Fulgencio Batista. Castro hated the amount of control America had on Cuba, The mining industry, sugar cane farms, and more. After declaring himself Prime Minister, He sought to limit American influence. The U.S then started to train Cuban exiles who fled from their homeland after Castro took power. In May, of 1960

The Cuban revolution was the spark that ignited the flame of communism in Cuba. The developing nation gained independence only as recently as 1898, and was already filled with an atmosphere of distrust and resentment towards the United States. In July of 1953, a revolution began in Cuba between the United States backed President Batista and Fidel Castro. Fidel and his brother Raul Castro lead a series of guerilla warfare battles against the forces of President Batista. “I am Fidel Castro and we have come to liberate Cuba,” stated Fidel Castro. In January of 1959, Fidel Castro became the President of Cuba. With the regime of Fidel Castro, Cuba would fall to communism.

In 1959, Fidel Castro led a group of rebel forces to end and overthrow Fulgencio Batista’s regime in an effort to free the Cuban people from his tyrannous rule. For very many different political reasons this has been portrayed as an act of great injustice and hypocrisy in the modern world. A lot of this has of course been advocated primarily by the US due to the high level of political tension between the two nations that developed in the mid 1950s. Believing this conventional wisdom that Castro was simply an evil communist who oppressed his people and stripped them of their human rights is very dangerous because it