Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Of two dictators and madness in Miami

I treasure my 2015 trip to Cuba. Nine days with real Cubans, learning how they believed in Fidel Castro's vision of racial equality. They also looked forward to better relations with the United States, and praised President Obama at every turn. My hope is that the two nations continue to move closer economically and democratically. But I also remember when I was an editor at The Miami Herald that Cubans fleeing Castro's Cuba got 40 acres and a mule (symbolically) -- but immigrant Haitians fleeing dictator "Baby Doc" Duvalier's brutalty were imprisoned in detention camps in South Florida. That blatant racial discrimination lives on today; just examine the upward mobility of the expatriate Haitian community compared to their Cuban counterparts. There really is no comparison.