African-Americans: Blacks in Cuba 'treated with callous disregard' - CNN.com: Havana, Cuba (CNN) -- A group of prominent African-Americans has challenged Cuba's race record, accusing the island nation of harassing its black citizens and cracking down on civil rights activists.
Sixty intellectuals and artists, including Princeton University professor Cornel West, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and actress Ruby Dee, have signed a declaration of protest.
'We cannot sit idly by and allow for decent, peaceful and dedicated civil rights activists in Cuba, and the black population as a whole, to be treated with callous disregard,' the declaration says.
The declaration also calls for the release of Darsi Ferrer, a jailed mixed-race dissident who organized human rights marches.
Cuba has struck back with a letter written by its intellectuals and distributed by the government.
'To say that there is a 'callous disregard' among us for black Cubans, that civil liberties are repressed for reasons of race and to demand an end to 'the unnecessary and brutal harassment of black Cubans who defend human rights' would seem to be a delusional farce,' they respond.
Cubans are proud of their racial mix, but racism is often an uncomfortable topic.
