To buy a Black person in Cuba

Buy or sell persons may sounds crazy today, but not in the perspective of postmodern capitalism; because Black people are even cheaper now than ever, in that sense of intellectualism, as the capital of new slavery. The difference is in the nature of capital, not in its transactional power, but in the ability to buy or sell; and that’s what has changed, from those times of classical slavery to this of ideologies and intellectualism.

In this sense, people even become slave to pay political debts, like that legitimacy of liberalism; which bought its capital over the Black people, fighting their rights over themselves to the old slave owners. This is what explains the dissolving of a movement like that of the Niagara, to favor the whiteness of NAACP; and worse still in places like Cuba, where people are so depauperate that only have its representation for the class in power.

In a way, that’ the same situation of Black people in United States, but without the political complexity; because there’s not such thing as political complexity in Cuba, but a general state of poverty for the whole country; in which Black people lacks special resources to alleviate its burden, due their political dependence. This is what makes Black people so cheap to buy, as long as they are intellectually dependable; since this is how they can return some profit to their buyers, as political legitimacy of their liberalism.

Of course, the buyers are intellectuals and universities, like the corporations of postmodern capitalism; in that form of ideological strength, which needs task forces for their political transactions. The market is so alive and ferocious, that Black Cubans even organizes to the sell themselves; forming a kind of cabildos —like the Aponte Society— to expose their own virtues to the American bidders.

At a times it’s scandalous, because they proudly bear the name of maroons, just to secure a selling; since that tag is going to strengthen ideological legitimacy, which is what that capital is about. That means they will not do that to raise their prices, in what would be a legitimate market strategy; but just to secure the selling, which is what they so desperately need, in order to secure the transaction.

That of course makes them a kind of beggars, although disguised as proud maroons and Africanists; but nobody can talk about that, because those knowledge corporations dominate the market. Let’s be clear, the price is as low as an invitation from a university, even without a decent stay in a hotel; just a few coins to buy trinkets, and the stay in the house of the host, to easy the transaction to the buyer.

Some of them manage to get better agreements, like a scholarship including money for lodging; but that’s the exception and not the rule, as they try to save that money, to makes their lives better in Cuba. It’s hard to criticize them, because they are just trying to survive as slaves in intellectual plantations; but it’s amazing how far can go the hypocrisy of politics, making their profits with their poor lives.

Of course, they may choose to leave that way of life and live the normal lives of normal people; but they are cheap for a reason, and they know that outside Cuba they’ll need to work for more substantial transactions. At the end, Unite States is full of Black people with real problems, and that’s some hard competence; while in Cuba they can rely in their criticism of Capitalism, not matter their poverty, so shameful as its voluntary.