RIP Fidel

by Mona Shaw

I heard Castro speak in August, 1995.  It was the most powerfully, stirring speech I have ever heard in my life.  Hands down.  No contest.  I cheered at its end until I was hoarse.  He spoke of everything in which I believe with my whole heart, things I have always wanted for the world.

Still, Fidel, after all, was only a man.  I was in Havana that summer as part of a volunteer humanitarian project.  Yes, I was disillusioned.  People were poorer than I expected them to be.  Then again, that was mostly because of the U.S. Blockade.  There was a capitalism paranoia that made a black market necessary for people to get by.  All right, it was nowhere near the communist paranoia we have here, but it did exist. 

I didn’t like that I couldn’t get ice in a drink.  Beverages were often luke-warm, unless you got them at a refrigerated stand.  An air-conditioned room was rare.  I was always wet with my own perspiration.  This, however, made the fact that our showers didn’t have hot running water only slightly bothersome.  I think toilet paper being rationed bothered Americans the most.  (Ironically, toilet paper is a chronic need for the poor in the U.S., because you can’t get it with Food Stamps.)

While clothes lines strung between pillars at palatial mansions (now multi-family housing) disturbed some in my group, I was utterly charmed at the sight.

The best rum was only $2.00 a fifth, and the cigarettes were out-of-this-world good.  I proved this when I’d give one I’d smuggled home to a friend who doubted me.  They would take one drag and say, “Oh. My. God!”  (And only 50-cents a pack.)  Everyone smokes in Cuba, everywhere.  By the time my group left, we all did too.  The former smokers fell first.

Yes, I was disillusioned.  My travel wasn’t restricted, and I ambled around freely meeting people.  By far, the overwhelming number worshiped Castro.  Some did not.  Some yearned to come to America where they would have a better life of things wrapped up in one word, “freedom.”  They believed their government lied to them about America.  They knew better. They watched us on t.v.  They said things to me like this.

“I have never seen a homeless person in my life! So, I know it’s a lie that you have homeless people in America.  I have never believed that was true!”

“I work as a maid.  I can only have a 2-bedroom apartment for me and my two sons.  I know if I lived in America I could have a 3-bedroom house with a garage and a new car!”

“I don’t believe candidates for president need more than a million dollars to get elected.  That’s just preposterous!”

“Your country is rich.  I know you don’t have to pay for healthcare.  I don’t believe they send people bills for that. That’s insane.”

I hung out with Jorge who took me to a meeting where the neighborhood was to decide who would live in a new apartment building they had just built.

“Sofia works hard and cooked for the workers during construction.  She has three children!” one woman shouted.

“Enrique worked every day for twelve hours a day.  He has earned a place for him and his new wife!”  shouted another.

I also heard a stump speech by a candidate for province governor in elections we’re told they don’t have.  It was contentious and spirited.  The speaker was good. But not as good as Fidel.

I marched with about two million others in an international parade to protest the U.S. blockade.  I marched under an enormous Rainbow Flag held up by myself and dozens of Lesbian and Gay Cubans.  El Presidente saluted us when we walked by the reviewing stand.  It was a moment long-time coming after the period of re-education camps for gay people that had recently been closed.  Sodomy laws imprisoning gay people were still legal in the U.S. and would remain legal for another nine years.

There were no statues of Castro, but statues of poet Jose Marti were so ubiquitous that, as a joke, we would say, “Let’s meet by the statue of Jose Marti.”

It’s simply wrong to deny that Castro committed many human atrocities to those who resisted his government.  He did.  Nothing that every American president in my lifetime hasn’t done, but they were still atrocious.

Still higher education and healthcare and housing and food were not denied to a single Cuban citizen.  Something my own country has not managed to do in 240 years.

So, rest in peace, Fidel.  You were far from perfect, but you did do good.  I know the Miami Cubans still hold a grudge because they couldn’t remain the wealthy elite, but you enriched my life for sure.  Hasta la Victoria, siempre.

Studies Have Shown...

by Mona Shaw

“Studies have shown…” or “Academic research has demonstrated satisfactorily for a long, long time…” are common clauses that leave many believing the statement that follows the clause is a fact. 

It ain’t necessarily so.  Few bother to ask to have the study cited or have ever read any of these studies, or--when they do exist--to examine their methodology or their study sample, etc.  If we like the speaker’s credentials, we just accept it.

Beginning in 2003, I began to check out some assumptions that I’d formerly just accepted as a given.  I had heard some so many times, that I assumed they must be true.  Even so, I began to wonder and decided if I was going to repeat them, I wanted to know something about the studies upon which these assumptions were based.

Assumptions I’ve researched include:

Teenage pregnancies are up.

Receiving welfare keeps people on welfare for generations.

People with poor credit ratings are more apt to steal at work.

Poor people don’t vote.

Sexual assailants don’t benefit from therapy.

Poor people are more apt to be evangelical Christians.

Working class people are more apt to be racist.

It turns out these statements are false or misleading.

1.  Teen pregnancies are at an all-time low and have been decreasing for decades.

2.  Only 25% of those who grow up on public assistance collect public assistance as adults.

3.  There’s never been a study on the correlation between credit ratings and stealing on the job.  This is a myth that Auditing and Credit Rating firms began spreading to sell their products to businesses.

4. More poor people vote than any other voting bloc.  While it’s true the higher one’s income, the more one is apt to vote, when you factor in income per percentage of population, the hard numbers paint a different picture.

Let’s say 127,000,000 people vote in a POTUS election.  When adjusted by their percentage in population you get this.

59,000,000 people with incomes under than $30k/year voted. (50% of the populations at a 41% voter rate.)

10,500,000 people with incomes more than $100k/year voted (6% of the populations at 60% turnout)

57,000,000 people between comes of $30k and 100k voted) (42% of the populations at 50% turnout.)

When you extrapolate the very poor and the very rich you get this.

Just over 1,000,000 who earned more than $250k voted (1% of the populations at 80%)

5,500,000 of those earning less than 12k/year voted (30% of 14% of the population)

It’s difficult to know the truth about why poorer people are ignored, but they are sizeable voting blocks that could easily tip any election.

5.  While poor people are slightly more apt to be evangelical Christians, the margins aren’t that big, and they are in the minority among poor by far. In fact, those earning more than 50k/year are more apt to be evangelical Christians than those who earn less.  Only 25% of those under 30K are ECs, 24% (30-50K), 29% (50-99%) and 13% (100k and above.) 

Given that large evangelical churches are much more intense in their outreach to the poor (e.g. the Salvation Army and Southern Baptists), it’s surprising these numbers don’t skew more to the poor, but they don’t.

6.  In general offenders benefit greatly from therapy, and few reoffend.  While pedophiles don’t do as well, and cannot be “cured,” some do benefit. Just go look it up.

7.  Other than Archie Bunker, are working class and people more apt to be racist?  Again, there is no scientific study that I can find that has established this.  There are a few that begin with this assumption and attempt to analyze the basis of racial bias among lower-income classes.  In these it is usually acknowledged that where there is conflict for scarce resources, group boundaries are reinforced to increase survivability, and the most convenient method to identify oneself and others is through somatic markers, particularly skin color.  Political economists argue that it is issues of wealth and class that separate communities; that racism is simply the proxy.

Certainly, there is strong racial bias among some poor, but do we know it is less than among the elite?  While the elite have more techniques for camouflaging their bias, do they act on racism less or even feel less superior based on race?  There is nothing out there that analyzes racial bias among the affluent, which certainly exists and is far more dangerous.  Institutional racism is a control device invented by those in power to increase wealth and control workers.  The poor did not invent and do not have the power to execute it or perpetuate it.

It’s also important to note than lower-income people are far more likely to have mixed race families and inter-marry than the affluent.  They are also more likely to work in close proximity with people of other races and socialize in work environments.

I probably should foot-note this, but I’d rather not.  We need to question and study more.  That would be my point.