E-mail a friendCarlos Moore
airdate February 10, 2009
Dr. Carlos Moore is an ethnologist and political scientist, specializing in African, Latin American and Caribbean affairs. He researches and writes on the impact of race and ethnicity on domestic politics and inter-state affairs. Following exile from his native Cuba for opposing the Castro regime's racial policies, Moore has lived and worked in many countries, including the U.S., Senegal and, his current base, Brazil. He holds two doctorates from the University of Paris 7, France and is fluent in five languages.
Activist discusses how Black Cubans see the election of Barack Obama and why some of them think the president will change U.S. policy towards Cuba. (3:13)
Full interview. (15:31)
Carlos Moore
Tavis: Carlos Moore is a noted Cuban activist, political scientist, and author who spent much of his adult life fighting for racial justice in his native country. His acclaimed new book is called "Pichon: Race and Revolution in Castro's Cuba," the foreword for the book written by his dear friend, Dr. Maya Angelou. Dr. Moore, nice to have you on the program, sir.
Dr. Carlos Moore: Thank you, it's a great pleasure being here.
Tavis: It's a great honor to have you here. There's so much I want to cover in the time that we have. Let me start, though, with the title of the book. I've been to Cuba a few times and spent some time with Castro, in fact, as you know, so I'm familiar with the word, but I think a lot of people are not. Pichon means what? How is that perceived?
Moore: Well, it's a very derogatory term; it's the most derogatory term that you can use in Cuba for a Black person.
Tavis: Just like the N-word here stateside.
Moore: No, it's worse.
Tavis: Worse.
Moore: The N-word is used for ordinary Cubans - ordinary Black Cubans. But if your parents come from the West Indies - from Jamaica, Barbados, or Haiti - then you qualify as a pichon, which means you are the son of a nigger excrement.
Tavis: So that's even worse than, as you said, worse than the N-word.
Moore: Yeah. So I was called this when I was growing up, all the time.
Tavis: Why call - and I'll go deeper into this in a moment - but why call your book that?
Moore: Because I wanted the world to know that that was the experience of Blacks in Cuba like myself, who grew up in that experience. I wanted them to know that term because when people see the term pichon, they say, "Well, what is this?" And then I explain.
Tavis: So it's a way in.
Moore: Yes, it's a way to explain a reality.
Tavis: Got it. I'm trying to figure out how I want to go out this, because there's so much in this book. Let me pick out a few salient issues, if I can. I think I want to start with your being born in Cuba, your father, in the middle of the Baptiste-Castro fight, takes you all to New York. Castro, of course, later comes to New York, as we all know, for that big UN appearance, stays at Hotel Theresa - we all know this story. Brought his own chickens with him because he didn't trust -
Moore: That's what they said.
Tavis: Yeah, that's what they said.
Moore: The press said that.
Tavis: The press said that - (laughter) that he brought his own chickens because he didn't trust people making his food for him, so he brought chickens from Cuba. But anyway, while Castro's in Harlem at the Hotel Theresa, you get a chance to meet Castro.
Moore: Right.
Tavis: Tell me about that meeting.
Moore: Well, you see, at the time -
Tavis: First of all, how old were you then, roughly?
Moore: I was about 17.
Tavis: You're 17 and you meet Castro.
Moore: Yeah. I was a militant already. I was working on behalf of the revolution in the States. I had been already - I had been brought into Marxist politics by people like Harold Cruz, Maya Angelou, Max Roach, all of these people who were in the civil rights movement. Those were my mentors. So I was already quite known in those circles, and I was known in those circles of the revolutionary arm of the Cuban Revolutionary Movement which was in the U.S., which was the movement, the 26th of July.
So when Castro came, they felt that since I was very - I had been working, that it was a chance to bring me into the presence of the leader of the revolution. They felt it was like a reward for all of the work I had done on behalf of the revolution in the States.
So of course when I met Fidel Castro at that meeting, it was not - it was a brief meeting. It was a - he would not have remembered. I remember, of course. It was a moment - it was a very special reception with a number of selected people, so I remember one thing is that I reacted to him with a lot of warmth because I loved Fidel Castro.
We all loved him. I had a tremendous love for this man and for what he had done. But during that meeting, something went wrong. It's that one of the people, the only Black person that was in the revolution then, which was Juan Almeida, had just arrived I think the day before.
And when I met with Juan Almeida during that whole evening, Juan Almeida told me that he had not been scheduled to come to the United States. That he only came because Castro had gone to Harlem. So I said, "This is something wrong here." I was 17, but I already was very aware. I said, "There's something wrong if Castro's delegation is all White."
So if Castro had not been snubbed at the (unintelligible) hotel, at this rich, White hotel downtown, and if he had not gone down to Harlem, he would not have brought Almeida here. And Almeida was the head of the army, you see? He was not a diplomat. So they just had him plucked from Cuba, put him on a plane, and brought to Harlem just because Castro was in Harlem. So that was strange to me.
Tavis: I'm trying to figure this out, because I'm hearing you say and I read in the book that you see Castro as an authentic social reformer on the one hand. On the other hand, there's something not happening in the movement, something Castro is not allowing to happen, not inspiring to take place in the movement that makes you want to go back home and get involved in these race and revolutionary issues. Help me understand that.
Moore: Well you see, the Cuban revolution, I grew up in tremendous poverty and I grew up in a situation of tremendous racism. So when the Cuban revolution took place, for me this was a solution. To me, I felt that this was the beginning of an entirely new book that we would write in Cuba. I was 17, but to me, I had been reading all of these books about Marxism, about revolution, I had been schooled by people who were already experienced in politics.
So I had an idea of what revolution was about. So I decided that I should cast my lot with this movement. So I said, "No, I don't want to be in the United States, because to me, the United States was an imperial country. The United States had dominated Cuba, had humiliated Cuba, had deprived Cuba of its sovereignty, and I saw Cuba as a neo colony.
I knew that there was a neo-colonial situation between the United States and Cuba. So I said, "Well, my place is not in the United States. My place is in Cuba, fighting for the revolution." So I went back.
Tavis: So what'd you discover when you got back?
Moore: Oh, when I went back it was bad, because I discovered that in spite of all of the things that the revolutionary leaders were saying, that these things were lies. What they were saying about race, they were saying that there was no more racism in Cuba. They said that the Americans had brought racism to Cuba, but that Cuban society was more or less a colorless society, a mestizo society, and that racism didn't exist.
That racism was a product of American influence and a product of capitalism. And since American influence had been expelled from Cuba, and since capitalism had been abolished and this was a socialist society, race didn't exist. We were in a post-racial society.
So I met with a number of people who were - I wasn't the only one. I met with a number of people who were dissatisfied with this discourse, and the chief person who was our mentor at that time was Walterio Carbonell, one of Cuba's most brilliant scholars.
And he was a Marxist Black scholar. So I came into contact with Carbonell, and Carbonell said, "No, we can't accept this. We must challenge the government on this." So we started challenging the regime and saying, "This is not true."
Tavis: So tell me more, then - I'm just trying to hit key part s of the story here and they can read the rest in the book. But how do you then do this dance, as it were, with Fidel Castro? I'm still on this point. You see him as an authentic social reformer, but he's letting you down on this particular issue. How do you dance with Castro?
Moore: Because I still had faith in him. Remember, Castro was larger than life to us. We had faith in this leader, and we felt that the fact that he had confronted imperialism, confronted the United States, and had had the courage to do what he did, because Castro's a very courageous man. He's a nationalist, he's an anti-imperialist, and he's a man who is committed to social reform. There is no question about this.
Castro's not a segregationist. So we felt that Castro had - could understand that the policies that he was enacting, if he - we could explain to him that this policies wouldn't work, that they were wrong - for instance, he banned all Black organizations in Cuba. He called them racist organizations.
There were 526 organizations in Cuba; he banned them. He started banning all of Black organizations, which had come out of slavery, and he started attacking the Black religions, African religions. He said they were primitive. So we said, "There's something wrong here, so we must talk to him, we must explain to him what race is, because he's not understanding."
Tavis: Contextualize for me now his legacy on these issues, now that for the most part he is off the scene.
Moore: Well, I think that Castro did a lot of good for Cuba in terms of Cuba's political independence and sovereignty, but in terms of what he did racially, there was a lot which was very negative, because he destroyed the Black movement in Cuba, and he destroyed those Black political figures in Cuba who were revolutionary and who were trying to get to him to explain to him that that policy was wrong.
So by destroying and silencing the Black movement in Cuba and silencing these voices in Cuba, these Black voices, he allowed racism to just devour the revolution. And that's what happened - in 50 years, racism has become rampant all over Cuba's body politic.
Tavis: There are a couple of things you said in this conversation, Dr. Moore, that I found - at least I heard as interesting parallels between your experience back in the day and the experience that many young African Americans, 17, like you were at one point, are having today - 17, 18, and beyond. And that is, one, this notion of feeling that now that we have a guy named Obama in the White House, we have President Obama now, there are many young people who are as ecstatic and as excited and as enthused about President Obama as you were about your new president, Fidel Castro. Secondly, there are a lot of these persons who now think, or at least have hope in the fact that we are moving toward, if not already living, in a post-racial America because there is a Black man in the White House.
Draw for me quickly the parallel between those two things, number one, and number two, how is Mr. Obama's election, President Obama's being in the White House now viewed by the Cuban government, do you think? What do they think about this, and what do the people, namely Afro Cubanos, think about Mr. Obama's victory?
Moore: Well, let's start first with how Black Cubans react. Black Cubans have reacted with a lot of enthusiasm about the election of a Black person, especially someone as brilliant and as humane. They know that the only way to get rid of White supremacy in Cuba is by Cuba and the United States having a normal relationship, because this will open up this society.
Tavis: Stop right quick. Are you telling me then that they actually believe that just because President Obama is Black that he is going to change U.S. policy toward Cuba?
Moore: No, they believe that President Obama will eliminate the embargo. They believe that President Obama will take a number of steps which will make it easier for a normalization of Cuban American relations.
Tavis: That would make him, you understand - obviously, you're the expert here - that would make him very different from every other U.S. president of recent memory, and that would put him in a real tough spot with those Cubans in Florida.
Moore: The Cubans in Florida who are against - who are for the embargo do not matter. U.S. policy has been hostage to those elements in Miami, those right wing elements in Miami, and any sensible government in Washington would understand that time has come to move on.
Tavis: But that's the reason why they do matter, that they have been able to control this White House policy, U.S. policy against Cuba for all these years. They do matter, absolutely.
Moore: But for the first time, 35 percent of those same Cubans in Miami who belong to the younger generation, and this generation is growing and becoming more influential in South Florida, 35 percent voted for this new president. So because things are changing in Cuba, I would say that precisely the Cuban regime, the Cuban government, which has remained static for the last 50 years, fears this new administration.
They fear because they're not ready for this. They're not ready for dialogue. They have always been socialized in confrontation, and they're not ready for an administration which is intelligent and which is going to deal with dialogue.
Tavis: Carlos Moore's been awfully kind to come on this program tonight and to entertain my questions about the Castro regime, his connection to it, about how the government of Cuba and the people of Cuba view our new president, Barack Obama.
We talked a little bit about his life but there's so much more to his life, his legacy, his contribution that you can read in his new book, it's a memoir: "Pichon: Race and Revolution in Castro's Cuba," with a wonderful foreword by Dr. Maya Angelou. Dr. Moore, an honor to have you on the program. Thank you for coming in.
Moore: Thank you very much.
Tavis: It's good to see you.
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