Reflections on My Visit to Cuba: A Response to Calla Walsh

By Gus Griffin

Calla Walsh’s May 29th op-ed, Biden Calls Cuba Terrorist While the People Demand and End to U.S. Terrorism against Cuba, was correct!

Having been born after its revolution in 1959, I, like anyone else growing up in the United States, have been subjected to a very one-sided characterization of the island and its government.

This year, through the National Network on Cuba in the U.S. and the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) 16th annual Mayday Brigade, I finally got the opportunity to visit the island and observe and draw my own conclusions. I was among some three hundred others in the U.S. delegation. About thirty other countries sent delegations from five different continents.

It is impossible to fully relay what I observed and the amazing accomplishments this tiny island of about eleven million has achieved despite an illegal economic embargo for over 60 years. Having said that, I’ll list a few:

• While the U.S. is facing a growing diabetes crisis, Cuba has a promising treatment for the disease. However, due to the blockade, U.S. citizens are not allowed access to this treatment. This is an example of how the embargo can have life or death consequences for both U.S. citizens as well as Cubans;

• Cuba also has one of the largest adults Covid 19 vaccination rates in the world despite the embargo hindering its capacity to acquire syringes. This is thanks to the faith the Cuban people have in their world-renowned healthcare system and the country’s development of five different Covid 19 vaccinations which also are beyond the reach of U.S. citizens again due to the embargo;

• Other bio-medical advancements include a tic vaccine that helps preserve their livestock but does not kill the tic;

• The country’s Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) established in 1999 provides a tuition free medical education with the only condition being that graduates commit to practice medicine in poor and underserved communities after graduation. Two hundred and twenty of its graduates are currently working within the U.S. without the crippling burden of medical school student loan debt. The average U.S. medical school graduate owes $250,990 in total student loan debt. Seventy-three percent of medical school graduates have educational debt. One of ELAM’s graduates is an alum of my employer, Montgomery College and we are in the process of bringing her to the campus in the fall to talk about ELAM and her experience;

• An extension of the country’s internationalism is its health care and educational ambassadorship which sends doctors and other health care workers and literacy educators to the world’s most underserved areas. They are currently serving in thirty-two different countries around the world; 

• There is a home ownership rate of 85% which explains why I saw none of the homeless encampments we routinely see in the U.S.; and

• The country recently updated its Family Code which now recognizes same sex marriages and other family structures previously excluded from the benefits of marriage.

This list is by no means complete! The country can and is doing so much more, and the people of the U.S. and the rest of the world would benefit if the embargo, a relic of the cold war, were ended. 

In this year, the 200th anniversary of the infamous “Monroe Doctrine” from which the U.S. declared all the western hemisphere its hegemonic domain, there is no better time to renounce this ideology which is at the root of the Cuban embargo. The Washington D.C. Council is among the latest to take a step in that direction recently by passing a resolution urging the lifting of the embargo and removal of Cuba from the list state sponsors of terrorism. A third action would be to return Guantanamo Bay back to the island as a piece of its sovereign land. This sentiment represents a growing international movement. Of 193 United Nation members, 185 voted to condemn the blockade last year.  This trend has been consistent for about 30 years.  

It is my hope that other governing bodies and organizations will join the world chorus by condemning the blockade against Cuba. 

Gus Griffin is a professor at Montgomery College and a member of Black Alliance for Peace and Ujima People’s Progress Party.

Hashtag Me Two: Reflections on Women's Solidarity

By Michelle Black Smith

When Hollywood actress Alyssa Milano tweeted #MeToo in solidarity with the all too many women who have been subjected to sexual assault and harassment, she started a firestorm, but not a movement. That distinction belongs to Tarana Burke, founder of the nonprofit Just Be Inc., an organization devoted to the "health, well being and wholeness of young women of color everywhere." Burke created the Me Too movement in 2006 after listening to young women speak of their experiences with sexual abuse. Burke, who has remained active in the fight for women's health and justice, raised the antennae of numerous women of color. Much to the chagrin of some, Burke was largely unacknowledged by many notable white feminists.

Burke's niche popularity and subsequent rise to prominence following research into the origins of the hashtag MeToo bring to the forefront a troubling but persistent state of being for white and black women in the struggle: how the former can be entirely committed to the equality of all women, and the latter become trustful of a group with members who have practiced betrayal in every movement central to the freedom of women, from the suffrage movement to women's rights to women's rights redux in 2016. This tension, existent since African girls and women arrived on American shores, shape shifts, becoming more or less easy to grasp with each decade but never abates. #MeToo is a powerful and galvanizing tool in the chest of women who wield it to assert voice while feeling support and safety in numbers. For her part, Burke has supported the hashtag with her own tweets. Yet, the movement Me Too, the #MeToo, and Burke's reaction to it leapfrog us backward in time to the mid-1800s when Sojourner Truth stood before a large conference of white women to assert her pain, her struggle, her femininity before a feminist gathering that recognized oppression through a narrow, exclusionary gaze. The "Ain't I a Woman" declaration by Truth has come under skepticism in recent years as histories of her direct quote and reaction to it at the 1851 Women's Convention in Akron, Ohio differ. What is certain: the "Am I Not a Woman and a Sister?" motto dates back to the British abolitionist movement of the 1820s, and the American abolitionist movement of the 1830s. Sojourner Truth, as her surname suggests, was in fact calling for a political landscape in which white men acknowledged the equality of black people and all women, and surrendered to the inevitability of power sharing. Fast forward to the present and Truth might be surprised to learn that the basic tenets of the struggle have not changed. White men and women are still fighting over power between themselves while black women are positioned in the middle, still having to determine who is an ally while carving out their own spheres of power and protecting their flanks.

The position of black women located between and behind white women and men is historical fact and contemporaneously significant. From the first wave of Africans landing on America's shores to the legal end of slavery in 1865, black girls and women were routinely caught between two brutal masters - the white men who owned and raped them, and the white women who commanded and resented them. There are documented examples of emotionally and spiritually mature white women who saw the enslaved woman's status as a moral dilemma if not a legal crime. Those legally free women sought to protect their sisters in bondage within their realms of power, their ability ranging from meager to substantial. That protection could take the form of bringing the enslaved woman from the fields to the big house, negotiating terms for the woman to grow special food or make extra clothes, or teaching her children - often the mistresses de facto step-children - how to read. More often, the enslaved girl or woman was seen as the "mistress," the adulterous female stealing affection and corrupting the slave master. Moreover, the enslaved woman was often a surrogate - the proxy sexual partner who relieved the slave master's spouse of her "wifely duties."

So, it is against this historical backdrop that I begin to examine my own unease with #MeToo, the hashtag and the movement. My black woman's cellular memory is wary, concerned that a repeat scenario of Sojourner Truth's experience in Akron is eminent. And it is. Witness the statistical majority of white women who voted for Donald Trump. While ninety-four per cent of black women voted for the over 60, flawed but unarguably qualified white woman, fifty-three per cent of white women voted to elect the over 70, sexually aggressive, "pussy-grabbing" unproven and underqualified man to the most powerful political office in the country. If white women cannot in a majority vote in their best interest, where does that place black women and other women of color in an ostensibly inclusive feminist struggle?

Simultaneously and increasingly, I am made uneasy by the number of complaints against prominent men concerning their sexually aggressive behaviors ranging from harassment to criminal assault. Are the accusations reported in the media indicative of actions by powerful men limited to certain professions, or are these pervasive behaviors that go largely unreported or unaddressed in spaces not commonly held in the public eye? Will the volume of complaints begin to desensitize a society to the grievances of wronged women? Will society become desensitized to the point of discouraging women from speaking out, thus victimizing the very population that deserves justice for the violence done to them? The feminist in me rejects any inclination to discount the legions of women who have come forward in the wake of the first Harvey Weinstein allegations, arguably the opening of the floodgate. My concern for humanity wants to place a protective arm around every niece, sister or girlfriend's daughter who might be a victim of the abhorrent and/or criminal behaviors named. The black activist in me struggles to understand how Bill Cosby is more dangerous and newsworthy than Bill O'Reilly and Roger Ailes. The womanist in me can't comprehend how so many of my white sisters could practice such an obvious act of self-hatred and sacrifice of self-interest that the result is a 21st century America that feels as perilous to me in my time as my grandmother must have felt in hers, as Sojourner Truth must have felt in hers. To be sure, Ms. Truth's life had none of the choices, freedoms or protections that I enjoy in mine. However, fear, like power, is both relative and real.

So, this January 20, 2018, I contemplate with apprehension whether to participate in the second national Women's March. Proximity is not an issue - I am an hour away from New York City. My late mother, a smart, progressive, self-loving and self-respecting black woman, was born on January 20th - I could march in honor of her. Or would she consider my marching honorable? A part of me thinks staying home will honor her as well. But, to stand in truth, and to stand with Truth is, for this black woman, the opportunity to wield my power, claim possession over my body, celebrate the black female aesthetic, and resist the simultaneous over-sexualizing and de-sexualizing of the black feminine form.

Let me be clear, I am not marching for the self-loathing, naval-gazing women who voted against their self-interests and mine. However, I will march for their offspring. If I march, I put foot to pavement to honor my mother and all the Sojourners of this world. I will march in support of the girls and young women and the vulnerable women who do not (yet) share my fully realized place in this world. I will march with the same pride I felt watching women of all colors, self-identifiers, cultural, ideological and faith backgrounds organize, lead and participate in the march of January 2017. I will not, however, accept the number two spot in a movement that only purports to empower and include all women. I will not proclaim "me too" at any white woman's latest ambivalent protest against a white male patriarchy where I am cast as the interloper in a marital spat. I can, however, walk alongside my white feminist sisters, as long as they are able and willing to walk alongside black womanist me.

Works Cited

Garcia, Sandra E. "The Woman Who Created #MeToo Long Before Hashtags." The New York Times 20 Oct. 2017 <https://mobile.nytimes.com>

Just Be Inc ., Tarana Burke <https://about.me>

Being Queer: Personal Reflections on Identity, Gender, and Relationships

By Marina Rose Martinez

The first time I had sex with my now husband, I told him roughly three things:

1. I am not really a girl, so don't expect me to act like one and don't treat me like one.

2. Don't ever touch my throat.

3. If we're going to fuck, I have to be in charge.

Actually, what I really said was something along the lines of "I don't want to be a man, but I really don't act like a woman, and that bothers most people eventually. It will probably bother you eventually. I'm never going to change." Genderqueer was barely even a Live Journal tag.

He told me he didn't think there were really women in the world like me, and that he'd wished for me. I told him that the qualities that attracted me to him were his gentleness, his shyness, and his artistic nature. I liked that he sewed and cooked, that he liked cute things, and that he could be silly. He liked that I was tough and loud, and that I could tell people to fuck off as easily as I could tell them how amazing they were. I didn't say this at the time, but I had wished for him, too.

I've written about this a dozen times, but in my house growing up there were two genders: abuser and victim. Men did what they wanted to your body so that you could do what you wanted with their money. Or drugs. Or property in general. It's a raw deal when you get older and realize that women can get jobs and have money of our own. It's an especially raw deal when you look back on a childhood of trading punches for shelter and realize that you were the only one getting hit while older women told you this was woman's lot.

Although I do remember the time my mom came home covered in blood. Head to toe. She was matted with it. She took a shower and then she left, pinkish white drops lazily drying on the plastic shower walls the only evidence she was even there.

But what does this have to do with me being queer? I know, right? That's what I thought. Of course I didn't identify with femaleness. Of course I'd rather act like a dude; I got the shit kicked out of me for being a little girl. Or that's what they said. But I know a ton of people who got their asses kicked for being girls. That didn't stop them at all.

I've never felt like a girl. What does a girl feel like when her mom's boyfriend is trying to choke her to death? What does a girl feel like when a random junky is running his finger up and down the back of her sun dress telling her he thinks her "peach fuzz" is sexy? What does a girl feel like when she wakes up with her grandpa licking her mouth in the middle of the night?

I've always had other priorities, survival being chief among them. Recovery following quick on the heels of survival. One of the smartest decisions I ever made was to keep going to 12 step meetings even after my mom dropped out. As a young atheist, I was told that "a God of my understanding" could be anything. I met people with AA chips as their gods. Trees, stuffed toys, philosophical concepts, sentences in books, laws of mechanics and everything in between. My own personal god is currently gravity coupled with a vague sense of not-knowing things. I think it's my longest lasting god and I really like this one.

When you tell a child, desperate and alone in the world, without perspective, without prospects; who is conditioned toward abuse, who has been used and gas-lit her entire life that God can be anything, you also tell her that she can be anything. I could be a me of my own understanding. When you live with abusers who are also mentally ill or addicted to something the only way to know the truth is to get quiet and go deep inside yourself for it. Addicts will tell you that this is your fault. They will tell you that you actually like what they do (to you, with you, without you, whatever.)

One time my mom grabbed me by the neck, shoved me against the wall and screamed "STOP HURTING ME!" Which is a great tactic, because instead of fighting back, I stopped to think about the last 30 minutes of our screaming match in order to make sure that I hadn't actually touched her at all (I hadn't). There's no such thing as the truth in a drug addict's home.

Nobody in the meeting tried to tell me what my problem was. First of all, we all knew. Second of all, that was mine to search, and work through and own. I think if I had gone to a therapist at that time, I would have been told a lot about what I looked like. A narcissistic hypomanic gender dysphoric codependent with attention deficit disorder and anorexia who practices self-harm and suffers from PTSD.

I did assume that as I got older, worked through some shit and matured in general, I would grow more comfortable or more natural in my femaleness. I didn't really want to. I didn't want to develop a sense of compassion for my abusers either, but when I did, it opened the world to me.

My resentment was so much a part of who I was that it felt like the only thing holding me up most days. Imagine my surprise when I finally saw my parents as children themselves, with abusive parents of their own. Whose resentments against their parents lead to a life so unexamined that they turned into abusers despite their best efforts not to. It was the resentment that had grown in them like an abscess, festering under the surface until it exploded in violence and selfishness and led them to become the one thing they said they would never be.

Resentment was more a part of me than my gender has ever been. Gender to me is just a vague sense of not speaking the same language as everyone else, but it's one of the few aspects of my personality I have loved and enjoyed for most of my life, even when I wasn't really sure how.

My grandmother used to say "You always have to be different." I think she was trying to admonish me, but it also felt like a tacit acknowledgement. Maybe I am different enough. Maybe if I have to be different, I won't be capable of getting the same results as everybody else.

My trans friends from high school and college didn't seem to have my experience. Gender was a truth they told and were imprisoned for. Gender was a trauma event that they survived. A girl tortured with boyhood, a boy forced into girlhood. I never felt like that. I still don't.

My wedding was a revelation in this regard. When we were still in college, I told my boyfriend (now husband), "you know we're queer, right?" He disagreed. It was a conversation that went on between us for a while. Liking to sew doesn't make a man queer. Obviously.

But doesn't it seem queer that I have no relationship to being a woman?

Why would you? The patriarchy makes womanhood a horrible fate.

Besides, we were graduating into the largest financial shitstorm in eighty years. Telling people your pronouns are zie and zier at that time was mostly a great way to never be able to pay your rent or your student loans. Singular 'they' was still reserved for sentences like 'someone left their umbrella in the lobby.' So we are not queer. We are feminists.

But the wedding was different. I've always had a love-hate relationship with weddings. Despite my best attempts to hide it, I'm a total sap. I love love. After I realized that not every marriage was an abusive farce, not every wedding a sales transaction, I felt free to enjoy the sentiment. And I do. But I never wanted to get married myself. It felt awkward to me. I could never see myself as a bride much less a wife. I still don't really get the whole wife thing. And don't act like there isn't a thing.

I am not the female half of this binary gender unit. Before we got married we were just us. Ben and Marina. One and the other.

After we announced our engagement, my inbox flooded with unsolicited advice, suggestions, and offers of help. I was dumbfounded. What about me and our long years of association would make my friends think I wanted to talk about wedding planning? Once again, it was like they were speaking a different language. All of a sudden my experience of myself and my partnership was being held into the light of gendered expectations and we were failing to deliver.

I was content in my decision to get married, it was a good time and a good plan based on our financial situation and our upcoming house purchase. It fit well in our 5-year plan to start the adoption process. I did not and still do not understand why that obligates me to get excited about flowers, a thing I have never done.

Usually when I'm not getting a gendered thing, it's just one thing. The day moves on and so do I. People who have gendered expectations of me get frustrated over time, but there's not that many of them around now that I'm an adult and can choose my own company.

Getting married was about six months of things I absolutely did not understand. People got frustrated with me not understanding, and I then misunderstood their frustration. One person finally asked me, exasperated, "why are you getting married if you don't want to?" Why does me not caring about flowers and dresses have anything to do with whether or not I want to move forward in my life plans with my partner?

But that stuff does matter to many smart women who are equally as feminist as I am. Does not going crazy for flowers or caring about wedding dresses make a person queer? No. But I think it is a symptom of what makes me queer. It's not that I have no relationship to dresses or flowers, I like them both. It's that there is some "female language" I do not speak and cannot learn.

Gender is a construct, but these arbitrary gender roles appeal to people because they communicate with a true part of the human experience as a man or a women. That doesn't happen for me. Up until recently, I didn't think it happened for anyone. I really believed that gender was completely performative; that, man or woman, you were trained for your role and how well you performed it had to do with how thorough your training was. Even as I had transgender friends and loved ones for whom that was obviously not true. I trusted their experience to be real and valid; I just considered it to be one of life's paradoxes.

Even after that, I didn't see much of a reason to be explicit in the way my experience of gender feels different from what I'm taught I should be feeling. Compared to my feelings as a trauma survivor, as a woman in poverty, as a Latinx person, a fat person, it didn't feel relevant. It was the least interesting thing about me.

This is easier now because times have changed. But it's also more necessary now because the people in power have not. President Trump initiated his plan to ban transgender people from the armed services. In Nazi controlled Europe, one of the first laws the Nazis passed was to ban Jews and the other groups they would go on to murder from civil service, like the military.

Up to this point it wasn't a hardship to let people see my clothes and my partner and make assumptions that I was at least part of their tribe in that way. It made more sense to be a straight woman who advocated for gay and trans rights and who tried to open the door for my brothers and sisters whenever possible. There was no tortured part of me, I never felt closeted. I did feel like I wasn't telling the whole truth when I identified as straight, as a woman, but I had larger points to make and getting into the weeds about gender felt unnecessary at the time.

Most people really and truly don't give a shit what your gender feelings are. They want to know if you can do the job they hire you to do, if you can pick up the phone when they need to talk to you, if you'll keep the noise down after 10pm.

They consider it to be none of their business, and they will continue to think of it as none of their business when you are discriminated against and attacked, and when you are dead they will think it was none of their business who killed you. Because they have nothing to do with that sort of thing. Certainly the thing that killed you has nothing to do with "regular people" like them.

So people don't ask. They assume you are like them, just like I assumed everyone else was like me, and they go on with their day. That's all well and good when things are peaceful, when progress is steady and predictable, and when there is such a thing as a good queer. Because a good queer can open the door for everyone else. But this is different. The president's campaign of hate is against all of us humans. Some of us just don't realize it yet.

It's time to be explicit. Not only is there language when there wasn't before, there's knowledge when there wasn't before and I have leverage I didn't have before. I am not straight, I am not a woman. I am not a man. If there is a word for me, it would be agender or genderqueer. Some people use the term non-binary, which I find to be weird since all of gender, being on a spectrum, is inherently non-binary.

Anyone who knows me will probably think this is not news. You won't be seeing any changes in my behavior. I'll continue to act the way I've always acted. I will continue to be completely unfazed by whichever pronoun you refer to me with (they're all equally meaningless as far as I'm concerned) and I will continue to be completely annoyed by the unnecessary gendering of agender things like #girlboss and guy-liner.

This was originally published at the author's blog .

The Hampton Institut