Brave freedom fighters in Cuba have taken to the streets, demanding the end of the country’s communist dictatorship. Just two years ago, however, Nikole Hannah-Jones, founder of The New York Times‘s “1619 Project,” praised Cuba’s communist revolution for bringing about “the end of codified racism.” Democrats like President Joe Biden may offer lip service in support of the protesters, but many on the Left have cheered on the oppression.
In 2019, around the original launch of the 1619 Project, Hannah-Jones identified Cuba as a model for racial equality. The 1619 Project claims to unearth systemic racism in the United States, and the original version claimed that the “true founding” of America came not with the Declaration of Independence in 1776 but with the arrival of the first slaves in Virginia in 1619 (the first slaves actually arrived far earlier). In an interview with Vox’s Ezra Klein, Hannah-Jones suggested the U.S. should follow Cuba in fighting racism.
“Are there candidates right now — or even just places — that you think have a viable and sufficiently ambitious integration agenda, and if so, what is it?” Klein asked Hannah-Jones on his podcast, recently unearthed by The National Pulse.
“I’m definitely not an expert on race relations internationally,” Hannah-Jones began. She also admitted that “it’s also hard to look at countries that didn’t have large institutions of slavery and compare them to the United States.”
“If you want to see the most equal multi-racial democ… — it’s not a democracy — the most equal multi-racial country in our hemisphere, it would be Cuba,” Hannah-Jones said.
She explicitly attributed the alleged racial equality to socialism, the very oppressive system against which the protesters have arisen.
“Cuba has the least inequality between black and white people of any place really in the hemisphere. I mean the Caribbean — most of the Caribbean — it’s hard to count because the white population in a lot of those countries is very, very small, they’re countries run by black folks, but in places that are truly at least biracial countries, Cuba actually has the least inequality, and that’s largely due to socialism, which I’m sure no one wants to hear,” Hannah-Jones argued.
These remarks echoed Hannah-Jones 2008 article published in The Oregonian. In that article, she disputes the official narrative that “Cuba is poor. Cuba is communist. Cuba violates human rights and represses dissent.”
“Education is the cornerstone of the revolution,” she wrote. She praised the communist country’s education and health care systems, saying the latter, in particular, is a “world model.”
“Black Cubans especially are wary of outsiders wishing to overthrow the Castro regime. They admit the revolution has been imperfect, but it also led to the end of codified racism and brought universal education and access to jobs to black Cubans,” she argued. “Without the revolution, they wonder, where would they be?”
Under the communist revolution, where are they now? They are in the streets, fighting for freedom. Some of them have been arrested for speaking their minds. After all, unauthorized public gatherings are illegal in Cuba. Funny how communism works that way.
Communism also inspires revolution. In fact, Marxists cooked up critical race theory (CRT) — which influences the 1619 Project — to encourage revolution by claiming that a hidden racism pervades American society. The 1619 Project reframes many aspects of American life as rooted in race-based slavery and oppression, including capitalism, the consumption of sugar, and America’s rejection of 100 percent government-funded health care.
Recommended: ‘1619 Project’ Founder Rejects Her Alma Mater’s Tenure Offer, Cites Racism and Sexism
The 1619 Project twists American history and it appears to have inspired some of the destructive riots last year — riots that destroyed black lives, black livelihoods, and black monuments. When Claremont’s Charles Kesler wrote in The New York Post, “Call them the 1619 riots,” Hannah-Jones responded (in a since-deleted tweet) that “it would be an honor” to claim responsibility for the destructive riots.
Americans should learn from Cuba. The Cubans are fighting for freedom — against the regime Hannah-Jones has repeatedly praised as a solution to the “institutional racism” she peddles. Cubans flee to the United States, and now they’re fighting for America’s freedom. The U.S. cannot abandon that in the name of fighting “racism.”
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