(NNPA)—President Obama’s historic announcement that the U.S. is restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba, after more than five decades of strategic political and military opposition, is today resonating positively throughout Black America. It is in the economic, cultural and political interests of 42.7 million Black Americans across the United States to focus on the new emerging opportunities to strengthen relationships with the people and government of the Republic of Cuba.
President Obama stated, “In the most significant changes in our policy in more than 50 years, we will end an outdated approach that, for decades, has failed to advance our interests, and instead we will begin to normalize relations between our two countries. Through these changes, we intend to create more opportunities for the American and Cuban people, and begin a new chapter among the nations of the Americas.”
A key question that needs to asked is: How will the changes that President Obama highlighted about Cuba will afford Black Americans in particular more opportunities to establish joint ventures and other business relationships with the people of Cuba? Too often some of us limit ourselves to lengthy debates about our changing world, but miss out on a chance to participate in helping to actually shape and build new world realities.
Our worldview about has always included international perspectives. Our consciousness is informed not just by what might be popular domestically at any given moment in time, but also how we see the international struggle for freedom, justice and equality.
In Black American education, literature, music, sports, business, religion and other cultural realms we have witnessed the benefits of defining and securing the interests of African people throughout the world.
I vividly remember James Baldwin encouraging me to understand better what it meant by the slogan “Viva Cuba!” Baldwin helped me to see the relationship between the Cuban Revolution and the African Liberation Movement against imperialism, colonization and the sufferings of neo-colonialism in the 1960s and 1970s.
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