Anti-racist Martí. The socio-economic and political environment in which José Martí grew up , during the second half of the 19th century , when Cuba was colonized by Spain , and the slave system was implanted on the island , influenced his patriotic, human, revolutionary and literary. His ideas against racial discrimination matured over time, after living as a political exile in Mexico , Guatemala and in the United States where he was able to appreciate the exploitation and discrimination to which the American Indian had been subjected.
Summary
[ hide ]
- 1 Beginnings
- 2 Maturity of your thinking
- 3 Solidarity with Africa
- 4 See also
- 5 References
- 6 Sources
the beginning
In 1862 , at the age of nine, he traveled with his father to the territorial district of Hanábana, jurisdiction of Colón or Nueva Bermeja, in the current province of Matanzas , where his father had been appointed Captain Judge Pedneo. In this place he knows the horrors of slavery, and the mistreatment to which black slaves were subjected. Since then, his anti-racist sentiment was awakened in him. Faced with these facts, Martí expressed:
And the blacks? Who who has seen a black man flogged does not consider himself his debtor forever? I saw it, I saw it when I was a child, and the shame has not faded on my cheeks yet. I saw him, and since then I swore his defense ». [1]
Jose Marti
The 21 of October of 1869 he was arrested and accused of disloyalty. Despite having only 17 years of age, 4 of March of 1870 is subjected to a military court and sentenced to six years in prison and forced labor. During his stay in the Departmental Prison and when he worked in the quarries of San Lázaro, he expressed solidarity with the humble and appreciated the excessive punishment to which blacks are subjected. The abuses committed by the colonial regime in that place motivated their contempt for the ruling classes.
In his booklet El Presidio Político en Cuba , published in 1871 in Spain, he denounced the outrages that were committed in prison and, referring to blacks in this brochure, he describes:
«Poor black Juan de Dios! He was laughing when they put the chain on him. He was laughing when they put the bomb on him. He laughed when he marched to the quarry […] the Spanish government had condemned an idiot in Cuba […] and with Juan de Dios, poor little black Tomas […] He’s eleven years old, and he’s black, and it is muzzle. Eleven years and he is in prison! Eleven years and he is sentenced as a politician! ”
Jose Marti
Maturity of your thinking
After completing his studies, he traveled to Mexico in 1875, where his family awaited him after four years of forced separation. There he observes for the first time the conditions to which the Indian has been subjected, which he later appreciates in Guatemala and the United States.
In North America his anti-racist writings proliferated in the face of the stark situation of the regime, and where ethnic minorities lived in extreme situations of discrimination and exploitation. In each of them, Martí not only criticized but also exalted those classes to fight for their rights when he expressed:
“How is the Indian to silence the natural hatred from which he stole his land under the contract and brutalizes and denigrates him?” [2]
Jose Marti
In the full maturity of his ideas, Martí states that there is no such supremacy of one race over another and also declares his commitment to “the full dignity of man.” It also warns that discrimination has a deep social character, rather than a racial one. Thus it expresses:
«There is no hatred of races […] in the justice of Nature […] highlights […] the universal identity of man. The soul emanates, equal and eternal, from bodies diverse in shape and color. Whoever fosters and propagates the opposition and hatred of the races […] » [3]
Jose Marti
In the article My race published in the ” Periódico Patria ” on April 16 , 1893, he expressed his highest concept of his racial vision in the following way:
«Man does not have any special rights, because he belongs to one race or another: say man and all rights are already stated. “The black man, because he is black, is not inferior or superior to any other man; the white man who says:” my race “sins as redundant; the black man who says:” my race “sins as redundant. men, everything that specifies, sets aside or corners them, is a sin against humanity. ” [4]
Jose Marti
Confront those who seek to divide Cubans through racism. Thus he commented:
“To insist on the divisions of race, on the differences of race, of a naturally divided people, is to hinder the public and individual fortune, which are in the closest approach to the factors that must live in common.” [5]
Jose Marti
Solidarity with Africa
Martí lived the second half of the 19th century , which coincided with the colonial expansion on the African continent. Not only does Martí refer in his writings to the racial situations that were manifested in Cuba and America, but also in Africa . In 1893, when he organized the Cuban War of Independence, he condemned the Spanish aggression against Morocco .
