Mr T, I agree with you. I do not believe the Castro brothers are racist.  Fidel Castro's father Angel Castro's first wife María Argota y Reyes was a Mulatto woman.  That means his five half brothers and sisters are part African.  Nevertheless, there are some white racist Cubans out there.  Look no further than Florida and you will find several of them. 

These racist so called white Cubans should spend two weeks in Mississippi to cure their racist attitudes.  When they encounter the real Southern American redneck white racist and he yells at them. "Hey you boy go grab that bag there and go pick that cotton"  That would instantly cure them of any racism that they had.

Carlos Pichon in born in Cuba of Jamaican parents. Returned to Cuba in the earluy days of the Castro dictatorship, after living in the USA, but soon was forced to leave when he began to question continued racism against blacks in Cuba under Castro.

One must remember that Castro is a son of the plantation elite, as are many of the people who lead Castro.  The Miami/Havana fight is one between brothers.  One brother fled to Miami, and the other remained in Cuba.

Cuba is about 60% nonwhite.  Out of 15 members of the central committee only two are black.  WHY?

Using general practice in latin America Castro is WHITE!  He looks white so he is white.  He carries all the prejudices against blacks that Cuban men of hus age from elite backgrounds have.

Out of 15 members of the central committee only TWO are black.

Indeed Castro makes Jagdeo look like a close friend of black people, and we know full well that he isn't.

If you knew more of the South you would know that there are southern planters with ties to the old Cuba aristocracy.  Yes the SAME group to which Fidel Castro belongs. 

So neither the elites of Miami, nor the elites of Havana (the SAME people)will be picking any cotton.

Indeed looking at the faces of many of Cuba's leaders you know that their grand daddies cracked some serious whip.

Are you suggesting a quota system of government where the central committee racial make up is along the same percentage as that of the general population? Tell me, which country has such a quota system?

And what about the distribution of positions along male/female lines? And what about along age groups?

T, yours is a one dimensional narrative. The word myopia comes to mind. Ever heard of the phrase "Institutional Racism"?

A true Anglo Saxon Southern redneck racist will never accept a white Cuban as his or her equal.  They will always remain a bunch of half breeds in the minds of many these Southern racist folk. Just wait for the election campaigns of Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio in the South to illustrate my point.  Like Giuliani, they will get a rude awakening. 

Are you suggesting that the PPP implement a quota system for blacks in Guyana.  No you aren't.  So why because this is Fidel Castro you excuse his racism when you deplored Jagdeo's.

Maybe if Cuba was a democracy and the Cuban people, and not a bunch of white geriatric sons of Cuba's old plantocracy (few of them being under 70, many being over 80), selected who Cuba's leaders should be then there wouldn't be that problem.

Raul and Fidel select people who they feel comfortable with. Old white men from Cuba's old elite who, for their own reasons, decided not to join the rest of their families in Miami.  Because the rest of the world has noticed this racism they stick on token blacks.  Just like Jagdeo did.

And to further answer you.  There are no females and almost all were born before 1950, 11 out of 15.  Indeed 8 out of the 15 were born before 1940!So the middle aged are also under represented.

Really.  So who do you think ran New Orleans prior to the end of Jim Crow?  They included many people who had Cuban ancestry, as indeed more than a few of those who fought for the Confederates in the Civil War.

In any case why pick on the Cuban exiles when there are many in Cuba who are equally racist.  Starting with the Castro brothers.

And just remember that the same rednecks were ready to vote for that black pizza man, when few of the rest of us would have.

If the Castro brothers were racist then Guyana would not have benefited from the immense help that they gave to the country over many years.  Let me remind you that the country of Guyana is made up mostly of non-white people.

So what is the point about Cubans fighting in the confederate army. Several American indian tribes such as the Cherokee and the Choctaw fought for the confederate states as a way of fighting the American Federal Government and its genocidal policies against American Indians.  

On your point about New Orleans.  Spain at one time ruled louisiana.  The last hispanic Governor of Lousiana was in 1803.  New Orleans has never elected a Hispanic or Cuban American Mayor.

The PPP and the Guyanese people paid a heavy price for being too close with Cuba and the socialist world in the early sixties. The PNC's leader, LFS Burnham, felt his regime was impregnable to anything when he nationalized foreign corporations, supported Cuban involvement in Angola, and moved the nation on the leftist course. The economy collapsed and the average Guyanese lost hope and began to flee in droves. The cold war ended much to the benefit of the Guyanese people and the PPP. Why would they want to repeat their mistakes now? The U.S. can easily push them out of office.  

Ram, the PPP, PNC and WPA parties are left wing parties that to a large extent support the working people of Guyana.  I suggest you contact the United Force Party.  They may urgently need your help. 

Guyana is paying for the doctors and the scholarships are so that the PPP can bray this nonsense in international forums.

I just realize what an ignorant man you are.  You have no idea about the long ties between New Orleans and Cuba, and that it was a Spanish city for a while.  So you have no idea that within its elites are people of Spanish descent, many of whom trace their ties to Cuba.

You also don't understand that Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz, both Cubans, got loads of redneck votes in their states so are senators.  They must have gotten loads of redneck votes because they definitely aren't Democrats.  And that about the only people who love Ted Cruz now are rednecks, certainly when the mainstream GOP condemned his stunts last year.

Continue to read your West on Trial and don't engage in debates beyond your understanding.

The WPA is dead and both the PPP and the PNC are now neoliberal parties.  Clearly this is what Guyanese prefer because they buried the unrepentantly left wing WPA.

You are calling me an ignorant man.  Look here Sir.  I am telling you that New Orleans never elected a Hispanic Mayor in about over 200 years.  Go look it up and you will see.  The state was under Spanish control and its last Spanish Governor was in 1803. Since then most of its Governors and elected officials have been French. These are historical facts that I am telling you.  

As for Cuba. I have been there several times.  I have seen black Cuban Generals, black Cuban Ambassadors, black Cuban Judges, Black Cuban Doctors, black Cuban lawyers etc. I even met a black Cuban cosmonaut. This bull that you have of Fidel hating blacks is not reality on the ground.

You also don't understand that Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz, both Cubans, got loads of redneck votes in their states so are senators.

A major factor in those two Cuban Americans being elected is because the whites they ran against split up a lot of the white vote between the Democratic, Libertarian and Green Parties.  Plus, these guys did not introduce race into the election.  But with Cruz thinking about running for President, the race campaign against him has begun with people on the internet calling him a half breed who hate white people.

No major African American leader from Jesse to Farrakhan has ever accused Fidel of being personally racist to black Cubans.  Nevertheless, the Cuban society has its share of white Cubans who are racist and there are many in Florida who are also racist.  But to put the Castro brothers into this pile of filth is just not right.

It looks like this Caribny may be a United Force old timer out to divide the left with his remaining pasture days.

Brainless chatter from a mediocre intellect.  What happened after was a complex mix of geo-political rivalry where the USA expected Cuba to continue as before but under new management.  When they chose a different path, every attempt was made at subverting and snuffing out their aspiration.  This drew a reaction and the USSR exploited it to forward their strategic agenda.  Action and reaction led to where things went.  The US is more to blame for the Cuban drift into the bear hug and everything else is history.

Castro did many things that were not admirable however, this always happens in revolutions.  The issue is how far does external forces got to sow and exploit divisions.  In places like Cuba, the US took extreme measures and Cuba sought refuge in the USSR camp.  I doubt even Castro wanted what resulted.

The time has come however, where Cuba should move to an opening up driven from within.

        'sup BaseBoard! Van de creek in Suriname

You are an ignorant man for reasons that I disclosed.  You asserted that rednecks wouldn't vote for a Cuban.  I told you TWO who they voted for.  Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. 

You don't know the history of New Orleans and the fact that many of their white elites are of Spanish extraction with ties to Cuba. They are fully accepted as whites by those of French and of Anglo ancestry.  Hispanic in New Orleans means Mexican or Central American.  Your comment was whether Cuban exile elites will be accepted.  I am telling you that they have been so accepted that they have FULLY blended into NO white establishment over the generations.

The Cubans who will NOT be accepted are those blacks and mulattos who have fled Cuba and who now happily live in the USA.  Virtually all of them having fled since Castro was firmly installed.

And then you tell me that in a country where black and mixed people are 60% of the population that it is not a sign of racism when almost 90% of the leadership are white.  And these are people selected by the Castros.

Do yourself a favor and read Pichon by Carlos Moore.  This is a man who was a die hard Castro supporter until he fell victim to that man's racism.

Now go and celebrate a nation where  the state celebrates the PEOPLE, but yet retails cars at prices only the very rich can afford.   And don't babble nonsense about the embargo because you know full well that there are loads of non US vehicles available.

And you are truly funny man.  I am sure that you will consider the USA to be racist, and yet you will find blacks in all the categories mentioned.

I will let you into a secret.  The rich Cuban exiles are as white as any white American and enjoy all the privileges that white people overall have.

I find this weird coming from a man who thinks that Obama is a socialist.

Every single country in the world, INCLUDING the USA trades with Cuba.  The USA doesn't import from Cuba, but then what does Cuba produce that the USA wants.  But every other nation can freely import rom Cuba.  The USA is the LARGEST supplier of food to Cuba.  Cuba has the SECOND largest tourist industry in the Caribbean, behind the DR, so restrictions on US travel haven't hurt either.

What amazes me is that you curse Burnham like a dog, yet Castro behaved as bad, if not worse (at least Burnham let most of us who wanted to leave depart).  The results are what you would expect.  Square pegs in round holes, rule by a megalomaniac tyrant, and 100% state control always ends badly.  It did in Guyana and it now does in Cuba.  You wound cry if you see the conditions that many Cubans live under.

And it is beyond credibility that any leader is so good that he should be allowed to rule for 55 years!  The central committee consists of people whose average age is over 70.  How can a country be run when younger people with fresh ideas aren't allowed to contribute.  I will also let you know that there are no females in top leadership in Cuba.

No.  I am not a hypocrite like you.  Praising an ageing racist yet refusing to live in the country that he destroyed.

Do you think that most people in Guyana want Castro type communism. NO!!!  Which is why all the parties except the WPA fled from that left wing orientation, and we know what happened to the WPA.  Every single political party in the English speaking Caribbean has a centrist orientation because Caribbean people fully well know what Burnham did, and wat Castro is doing and they want no part of it.

Look at Jamaica.  90 miles from Cuba and yet the only way to get their is by a rickety old Cuban plane a few days a week, yet from Kingston there are 7 or more flights per day into south Florida.  And that will be mainly Jamaicans traveling as the tourists fly to MoBay.

how you guys feel indians will fare there i have some ppp indians to send to live there i am thinking of a colony with all these guyanese ppp indians  maybe Gburd for mayor 

All of those who are praising Castro will be the first to scream "LET ME OUT".   Ask them about Burnham and they wail about the shortages, yet the think that a nation where a shirt costs US$20 and yet the average Cubans makes $30/month is a nice place.

That country is one where privilege is rubbed into the faces of the ordinary people, as we can see with this car sale. The Cuban gov't knows full well that 99% of the population will never be able to buy those cars.

I guess your love for Castro has made your brain soft.

1. Red necks do not vote Democratic for  Federal elections.

2.  Candidates are selected in the primaries and these were the ones who people voted for.

3.  They won in the general election because of redneck support. Most educated whites think that Ted Cruz is a lunatic, and even Boehner shares that view.

4. What's your babble about race.  People see their last names so know what they are, but also know that they aren't Mexican, or Puerto Rican.

Bottom line is that rednecks went out to vote for two Cubans, and its the rednecks who are now screaming that Ted Cruz should be president, forgetting of course that he was allegedly born in Canada.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03...asnt-begun.html?_r=0

This guy got fired for making these comments, as benign as they are.  "Who the hell is some black man to think that he can talk about racism", Raul Castro probably squealed.

You see in Cuba only white men, especially those over 80, are allowed to talk about racism.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/...a.us.race/index.html

So spare me nonsense that prominent black Americans don't discuss racism in Cuba.

Do you know why Darsi Ferrer was arrested?  Because he purchased cement to fix his house in the underground economy because state owned stores do not have sufficient quantities.  That ought to remind you about Guyana in the 1980s, a period that you would deplore.  Of course the REAL reason was that he is a doctor who said that the quality of healthcare available to ordinary Cubans had badly deteriorated, and that Cuban had a problem of racism.

And yes the reason why Fidel Castro spent so much time trying to kill Carlos Moore, a Cuban black who has frequently spoken out about racism in that country is because he equated the Cuban racism among the Havana elite with that which can be found among Miami's Cuban exile elites.  THEY BOTH HATE HIM< as they both like to pretend that racism is of minimal impact.  Read his book Pichon and then get back to me about whether Castro isn't a racist.

And yes Cuba went to Ethiopia to support a bloodthirsty dictator called Mengistu, not to help Ethiopians, but out of the Cold War geopolitics as the Somali dictator, decided to drop the Russians and switch to the US.   Needless to say that both Ethiopians and Somalis suffered tremendously under the hands of these tyrants.  Cuba was as every bit willing to support dictators as was the US for geopolitical Cold War concerns.

CaribJ's posts are right on the money. On a Government mission to Cuba in 1982 I coulda have me some fun for $1 all night - so desperate we're the women.

And that was then.  Its worse now.  You can even get a female doctor now, and I don't mean to check your blood pressure.

Raul Castro should meet with Carlos Moore and hear what solutions he has on improving race relations in Cuba. This can only help not hurt. Moore, like the Castro brothers, also fought his own revolution and endured many sacrifices to make his country a better place.

It is shocking how Carib is only interested in how much it cost to have sex in Cuba with a black woman. 

Like T jus fall pon he head 

Why is it shocking?? Is Caribj we talkin bout Bannas.

Not everybody likes prostitutes like you.

What is shocking is how a man who will claim to be proud to be black is happy to have massa and his ageing WHITE cohorts lead a nation which has a population that is mainly mixed or black.

I remember that there was another country like that, until Mandela became president.