When is a trip, not a trip?
You might have found yourself asking this question in the past 48 hours, what
with all of the hype that has taken place over Jay-Z and Beyonce’s trip to Cuba
for their 5th wedding anniversary. The news should’ve instilled an ‘awwww’ from
the general public, especially considering the fact that the Carters brought their
mothers along. But instead, it’s become yet another dirty football seized upon by
political opportunists and crackpots, and a bigger story than it should have ever
been. Senators Marco Rubio, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart were up
in arms over the trip, viewing it as illegal and supporting an oppressive regime.
Rubio even went so far as to attempt to show off a sort of ‘hip factor’ concerning
hip-hop, claiming that Jay should’ve made an attempt to visit Ángel Yunier Remón
Arzuaga, an MC from the duo Los Hijos Que Nadie Quiso (The Unwanted Children)
in prison since being arrested for anti-government lyrics. Even actress Stacey
Dash chimed in on Twitter with a jingoism worthy of Michelle Bachmann. And
while other morning shows talked of the President’s 13th speech on gun control,
Fox News chose to speculate about the trip possibly being a ‘secret trip to get
support for Obama.’ You even had people criticize Beyonce’s hairstyle, asking why
would she get braids to go to a Spanish country.
The entire wave of fake outrage shows another layer of stupidity that exists in
the halls of Congress and another facet of bigotry. Since 2009, Sean Penn, James
Caan, Jim Belushi and other celebrities have journeyed to Cuba with little to no
fanfare. Bey and Jay-Z go to Havana and you’d swear it was Kathleen and Eldridge
fleeing to Algiers back in 1969. It’s two Black millionaires who have supported and
are close to a Black president. That’s what’s alarming about this trip to the ignorant.
The trip was approved by the Treasury Department as a ‘people to people’ voyage,
which is allowed under US law in addition to ecological missions, humanitarian
trips, cultural missions and religious missions. Rubio wanted to make a statement
to satisfy the Cuban exile part of his politcal base, as did Ros-Lethinen and Diaz-
Balart, the part that is vehemently anti-Castro. But they also exposed a part of
themselves that some who view the Cuban people in an honest eye, see as part
of the reason why Castro rose to power. Rubio citing a Cuban MC in prison is him
doing the bidding for the Tea Party to get themselves more tan, if you will. And
Ros-Lethinen, although having liberal stances on other policies, is so anti-Castro
that she was on record as saying that she’d welcome his assasination in a
documentary film, 638 Ways To Kill Castro. Twice. Another element to this is,
perhaps their stance also sheds light on the Black/white struggles still prevalent
among some Cubans as it is in other Latino communities and how it still burns
bridges in a few cases.
Cuba has always been a thorn in the side of this country. Even now, with Fidel on
retirement mode and his brother Raul running the government, Cuba still is seen
as either a threat or a place of resillient culture. It’s not the looming Communist
threat 90 miles off the Florida Keys it once was, thanks to the fall of the Soviet
Union. But it is still a heralded nation, mainly because of the richness of its music
and people. And that’s something that Americans are learning more about without
the politics. Maybe Jay-z and Bey went to check out the Afro-Cuban flavor up close and
personal, like a lot of folks do. Maybe they wanted to do so after reading that recent
New York Times article about how Afro-Cubans still feel their rise to prominence is
limited, despite there being laws against discriminaton based on color in the books.
It’s almost funny that Jay went there, 12 years after rocking a Che Guevara t-shirt
doing his MTV:Unplugged set with The Roots. And a few years after Black August
did a show there. What the Carters’ trip to Cuba should be seen as, is a wake-up
call. Other countries allow free passage to Cuba, Canada being the most prominent.
The fact that there’s more outrage by nutjobs over two Black millionaires going to
Cuba than the closing of Guantanamo Bay is just politics as usual as far as Havana
goes. And the current administration. I hope Jay-Z bought enough Cohibas for his
Bentley.