By Pastor Herrera Macurán
Horizonte Cubano News
August 26, 2026 — Morning Edition
Cuba talks constantly about sovereignty, socialism, the Revolution, the embargo, migration and its relationship with the United States.
There is another subject that deserves far more attention.
Race.
For decades, the official narrative presented the Revolution as having resolved — or substantially overcome — the racial inequalities inherited from republican Cuba.
Important changes did occur.
Black Cubans gained greater access to education, health care and professional opportunities. Formal racial segregation was confronted. Institutions that had historically excluded Black citizens could no longer openly operate under the same rules.
Those achievements should not be erased simply because they complicate today’s political arguments.
But neither should they prevent Cuba from confronting another reality:
Eliminating legal discrimination did not eliminate racial inequality.
And pretending otherwise has made the problem harder to discuss.
Racism Does Not Disappear Because a Government Declares It Defeated
Racism is not only a law telling someone where they can live, study or work.
It can survive through economic inequality.
It can survive through social networks.
It can survive through stereotypes.
It can survive through differences in family wealth and access to opportunity.
It can survive in assumptions about who looks successful, who appears suspicious and who is considered suitable for particular positions.
Cuba is not unique in this respect.
The United States continues struggling with its own racial history despite enormous legal and social progress.
Brazil confronts similar contradictions.
So do countries throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.
Cuba should not be expected to have magically escaped a problem that has existed throughout the region for centuries.
The mistake was pretending that ideology alone had solved it.
Look at Who Has Access to Capital
Modern Cuba’s economic changes have created a new question about race.
Who has access to money?
When private businesses expand, entrepreneurs need capital.
They need property.
They need equipment.
They need relatives or partners capable of helping them finance a business.
For many Cubans, remittances from relatives abroad can provide some of that initial capital.
But Cuba’s history of migration matters.
Not every family has equal access to relatives abroad with enough disposable income to finance a restaurant, rental property or private enterprise.
If access to capital is unequal, economic liberalization can unintentionally reproduce older inequalities.
A country may create formally equal opportunities while citizens begin the race from very different starting lines.
That deserves serious study.
Tourism Revealed Another Cuba
The expansion of tourism and private enterprise has also created opportunities that are not distributed equally.
Who owns desirable property that can be rented?
Who has relatives abroad capable of investing?
Who speaks foreign languages?
Who has connections with international visitors?
Who has access to neighborhoods where private businesses are profitable?
These questions have economic answers.
But they may also have racial dimensions.
Cuba needs reliable public data allowing researchers and citizens to examine those relationships openly.
If racial disparities exist, acknowledging them is not an attack on Cuba.
It is the beginning of addressing them.
Where Do Afro-Cubans Live?
Race cannot be separated from geography.
Look beyond tourist Havana.
Look at housing conditions.
Look at neighborhoods with deteriorating infrastructure.
Look at access to transportation.
Look at communities receiving less private investment.
Then ask whether race and economic disadvantage intersect.
Housing is particularly important because wealth often passes between generations through property.
When families begin with different levels of accumulated assets, opening an economy does not automatically place everyone on equal footing.
That is why economic reform must consider not only how much wealth a country creates, but who has the opportunity to participate in creating it.
Representation Is More Than Photographs
Cuba can point to Black officials, professionals, artists, athletes and military personnel.
Representation matters.
But representation should not be measured simply by counting faces in official photographs.
The deeper questions are about power and opportunity.
Who makes important economic decisions?
Who manages major institutions?
Who has access to emerging sectors of private wealth?
Who owns successful businesses?
Who participates in negotiations with foreign investors?
Who has a voice when national priorities are established?
A racially diverse country should be willing to examine whether its centers of economic and institutional power reflect that diversity.
Afro-Cuban History Is Cuban History
Cuba cannot understand itself without understanding its African heritage.
African descendants helped build the country.
They fought in the wars of independence.
They shaped Cuban music, religion, language, food and culture.
They contributed to labor movements, intellectual life, military service, sports and every stage of the country’s development.
Yet discussing Afro-Cuban identity has sometimes been treated as though emphasizing race somehow threatens national unity.
It should be the opposite.
A mature national identity does not require citizens to erase parts of themselves.
A Cuban can be completely Cuban and proudly conscious of African ancestry.
Those identities are not competitors.
They are part of the same history.
The United States Should Listen Too
The racial question should also matter in American discussions about Cuba.
Washington and the Cuban-American political establishment frequently debate the future of the island.
But how often are the specific economic and social concerns of Afro-Cubans part of that conversation?
A future relationship between the United States and Cuba should not be designed exclusively through political elites on either side of the Florida Straits.
Afro-Cuban communities should be heard.
So should rural Cubans, workers, entrepreneurs, women, young people and other groups whose experiences may differ from those dominating traditional political discussions.
If American policymakers want to understand Cuba, they must understand the whole country.
Economic Reform Must Not Leave Black Cubans Behind
If Cuba expands private enterprise and foreign investment, racial equality should become part of the economic conversation from the beginning.
That does not mean imposing racial quotas on every business or treating every economic difference as evidence of discrimination.
It means collecting data.
Studying outcomes.
Expanding access to financing.
Supporting entrepreneurship in disadvantaged communities.
Improving education and professional development.
Investing in neighborhoods that have been neglected.
And ensuring that economic modernization does not produce a society in which opportunity increasingly depends on inherited family wealth or access to dollars from abroad.
The objective should be opportunity.
Real opportunity.
Cuba Must Be Willing to Have the Conversation
Discussing racism does not mean denying the social achievements of the Cuban Revolution.
Nor does acknowledging those achievements require pretending racial inequality disappeared.
Both things can be true.
Cuba made important progress against racial discrimination.
And Cuba still has a racial problem worth discussing.
The country will never understand the full dimensions of that problem if researchers, journalists, institutions and ordinary citizens cannot examine it openly.
There should be data.
There should be debate.
There should be disagreement.
And Afro-Cubans should not have to choose between identifying as Cuban and discussing their experiences as Black Cubans.
The racial question is not a foreign invention.
It is not automatically a counterrevolutionary question.
It is not a question Cuba solved permanently in 1959.
It is a Cuban question.
And after decades of avoiding the most uncomfortable parts of that conversation, perhaps it is time to ask it openly:
What does racial equality actually look like in Cuba today?
Until Cuba is willing to answer that question honestly, the promise of equality will remain incomplete.
Pastor Herrera Macurán is the founder of Horizonte Cubano News. The views expressed in this article are those of the author.