Cuba is White, Black and Mixed Race Because it is DiversePosted in Anthropology, Articles, Caribbean/Latin America, Media Archive, Social Science on 2013-10-24 02:55Z by Steven |
Cuba is White, Black and Mixed Race Because it is Diverse
Havana Times: open-minded writing from Cuba
2013-10-22
Dmitri Prieto
Agrarian University of Havana
HAVANA TIMES — Recently, on the eve of October 10, a Cuban national holiday commemorating the date (in 1868) in which Cuban landowner Carlos Manuel de Cespedes and his retinue of (former) slaves took up arms against Spanish colonial domination, a Round Table program bearing the controversial title of “Neither Black Nor White: Cuba is Mixed Race” was aired on television.
During the Round Table discussion, Cuban scientists presented valuable and interesting evidence showing that our population’s gene pool combines the DNA of African, European and Asian / Indo-American peoples, concluding that, therefore, it would be impossible to define any Cuban “races” on the basis of genetics as such.
On the basis of this accurate insight, however, they also suggested something that I consider dangerously dubious: the notion that Cuba is a “mixed race” country…
Read the entire article here.