The Cuban psychologist Raidel Martínez, residing in Stockholm and author of the book "4x4: A Contrapuntal Compass. Memories of the Cuban Hip Hop Movement," posed a question that encapsulates decades of structural exclusion: “Who will address this historical debt to Afro-descendant Cubans?” This inquiry arose during an interview with Tania Costa, in CiberCuba, while reflecting on what would happen with racial inequalities in a potential process of democratic transition on the island.
Martínez was straightforward in outlining the map of inequality. "In Cuba, we are all generally poor, aside from the government's elite, but poverty has a color, and fundamentally, it is a black color."
To illustrate the depth of the problem, the researcher drew on his direct experience. During his participation in population censuses in Cuba, he observed that individuals who were visibly Black or mixed-race described themselves as "not Black." Behind that response, he explained, lies a psychological factor: Blackness has historically been associated with poverty, crime, and marginalization.
Martínez outlined a timeline of the problem that begins with slavery. Afro-descendants arrived in Cuba stripped of their lands of origin and, in his words, "subsequently did not have access to generating capital." The Cuban Constitution of 1940 addressed racial discrimination in its articles 10 and 20, but did not resolve the underlying historical issues.
The definitive blow to the debate came with the Revolution. "When Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, he decreed almost in 1960 that racial discrimination was a topic already resolved, without having provided a real solution," Martínez noted. The result was that "this issue was swept under the rug and racial discrimination was never mentioned again in Cuba until the 1990s, when all these differences emerged."
It was precisely during that crisis of the nineties when Cuban hip hop emerged as a space for protest. "Hip hop serves as an excuse through which society can be denounced," stated Martínez, linking that legacy to Decree 349 of 2018—which expanded state control over independent art—and to the emergence of the San Isidro Movement, organized by artists and activists in rejection of that regulation.
The rapper Maykel Osorbo, co-author of Patria y Vida and a member of that movement, has been imprisoned since May 2021 and was sentenced to nine years in prison. For Martínez, his case exemplifies how the regime represses those who use this platform to voice their dissent.
Martínez's analysis does not stop at the past. His warning points to the future. If Cuba moves toward economic opening without addressing this structural inequality, the outcome will be predictable. "The people who have greater access to capital are predominantly white, which makes me fear that these social differences will be reproduced again," he warned. He concluded with a powerful image: "It’s not the same to start a race from the same point as it is to start 100 meters behind."
This gap is already measurable. According to a report by the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, 68% of the Afro-Cuban population has experienced difficulties in acquiring basic goods, compared to 61% of the general population. Cubalex also documented that Afro-descendants make up 56% of the prison population in Cuba and receive longer average sentences for sedition.
The Cuban regime presented its "Color Cubano" program to the UN, claiming to have fulfilled 35 out of 38 recommendations from the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, but the gap between that official discourse and the documented reality is precisely, Martínez warns, a pending issue to be addressed during the transition.
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