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发帖数: 29846 | 1 April 16, 2013 by Warner Todd Huston
More condemnation for the vacation trip to Cuba indulged by rapper Jay Z and
gal-pal singer Beyonce, this time from Hollywood director Phil Lord–
himself the son of a Cuban refugee. Lord thinks that the entertainers were
“dupes” of the oppressive Cuban military, that they “don’t care” about
the political gulags Cuban dictator Castro built, that they essentially
mocked the thousands of Cubans that have been imprisoned and lost their
lives in those prisons, and says the pair represent little else but “
nihilism with a beat.”
Beyonce and Jay Z celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary in Havana, Cuba
, apparently with the blessing of Barack Obama’s administration quite
despite that the U.S. still has an official prohibition against Americans
visiting the Island nation turned political prison.
Lord told the media that at first he thought that Jay Z and Beyonce just
weren’t aware of the oppression of Cuban people. He gave them the benefit
of the doubt that they just weren’t aware of the many artists that had been
imprisoned and their art banned. But after Jay Z released his song that
taunted people opposing Cuba, Lord realized that Shawn Corey “Jay Z”
Carter knew exactly what he was doing that that made it all the worse.
The director of such films as 21 Jump Street and Cloudy With a Chance of
Meatballs is not alone in his condemnation of the Island hopping Carters. AJ
Delgado also slammed Jay Z for the trip saying, “Beyoncé and Jay-Z not
only legitimize and support the repressive regime, with both their presence
and their cash, but turn a blind eye, cruelly, to the perils and languishing
of the Cuban people.”
Delgado went on with a list of Cuban human rights activists that dictator
Fidel Castro has thrown in jail.
Lord wasn’t going to just sit around and complain, either. He did something
unusual for a denizen of Hollywood. He quite publicly put his time and name
to an open letter to the Carters excoriating them for their callousness.
An Open Letter to Jay-Z
Dear Mr. Z,
I just heard your new track, “Open Letter,” released today. It’s got
everything I love about your music: looping internal rhymes, an infectious
beat, and imagery that draws me into a kind of swaggering, defiant fantasy.
Speaking of defiant fantasies, I’ve been following news of your recent
trip to the island nation of Cuba. As the son of a Cuban refugee, and cousin
and nephew to many Cubans on the island, I cringe when Americans visit Cuba
for a fun island vacation. For one thing it’s illegal (which nobody seems
to care about), but more importantly, it’s either ignorant of or calloused
to the struggles of Cubans on the island. I actually encourage my friends to
travel to Cuba, to bear witness to one of the great tragedies of our time,
to learn about the real Cuba, to put a human face on the caricature of
Americans that the Castros propagate. Exchange and travel between our two
nations should be a catalyst for change, as it has been even in my own
family. But for me, Cuba is not the place to have a fun, sexy, vacation.
Because for Cubans on the island and living elsewhere, it’s not.
So when I heard of your visit, I thought to myself, Jay Z seems like a
smart, thoughtful guy. He doesn’t realize what he’s walking into. He
probably just thinks Cuba is a chic place to relax with the family. He
probably just doesn’t know the things I know.
He likely doesn’t know that the Cuban tourism industry is run by the
Cuban military, so when he spends money at an officially sanctioned hotel,
or restaurant, he is directly funding the oppressors of the Cuban people.
He doesn’t know that most Cubans have poor access to independent news
sources, the internet, books, and food.
He doesn’t know that Cuba has two health systems, one for the well-
connected, and one for everyone else.
He doesn’t know that before Castro, the Cuban peso traded one-to-one
with the dollar, and that since then, the Castros have raided the nation’s
coffers and introduced widespread poverty to a once prosperous nation.
He doesn’t know that my ancestors fought to free Cuba from Spain, and
to set up a democracy to ensure that they would always be free.
He doesn’t know that in spite of those dreams, my mother and her family
fled for their lives from this regime way back in 1960, as did *two million
* other Cubans.
He doesn’t know about the thousands of people executed by firing squads
led by sexy t-shirt icon Che Guevara.
He doesn’t know about the dissidents, artists, and librarians that
currently rot in Cuba’s prisons, and the thousands more who live in fear.
He doesn’t know about Orlando Zapata Tamayo, an Afro-Cuban dissident
who died in a Cuban prison in 2010 after an 80-day hunger strike.
He doesn’t know that a U.S. Citizen, Alan Gross, is currently serving a
15-year sentence in a Cuban prison for providing phones and computers to
the members of the Cuban Jewish community. He doesn’t know that all
attempts by our government and private citizens to secure his release have
been scoffed at.
He has likely forgotten about all those who have died in the Florida
Straits, trying to float on makeshift boats to freedom.
He doesn’t know that contrary to popular understanding, Amnesty
International reports that repression of dissidents in Cuba is actually on
the rise.
He doesn’t know that when an international music luminary shows up in
Cuba, his presence is unwittingly used as propaganda to support the regime.
He doesn’t know that artists in Cuba, with whom he was supposedly
having a cultural exchange, serve under the close supervision of the
government, and don’t enjoy the freedom to defiantly name check the
President, call out a few senators, threaten to buy a kilo of cocaine just
to spite the government, or suggest that they will follow up their purchase
with a shooting spree, as rapped about in “Open Letter.”
He doesn’t know that just because our country applies a different, some
say hypocritical policy to China, it doesn’t make either regime any less
oppressive, or any more acceptable.
He doesn’t know that when people say “I’ve got to visit Cuba before
it gets ruined,” I think to myself, “It’s already ruined. And by the way,
ruined by what? freedom of speech? walls that don’t crumble? shoes? Do you
mean ruin Cuba? Or ruin your fashionable vacation in Cuba?”
He doesn’t know that when I really start to think about all this, I get
so mad I can’t sleep.
He doesn’t know that when he’s wearing that hat, smoking that coveted
contraband cigar, he looks like a dupe.
He doesn’t know how much good he could be doing in Cuba, for Cubans,
instead. Bearing witness, supporting artistic freedom, listening.
He doesn’t realize that as someone privileged to be born in a free
society, one in which someone could come from nothing and become a
celebrated music, sports, fashion, business and political mogul, it’s not
only his good luck to be able to bring to light the needs of the less
fortunate, it’s his obligation.
But then, Jay-Z, I heard your new song, and paid attention to the lyrics.
I heard you bragging about your “White House clearance.”
I heard you talk about how much you enjoy Cuban cigars.
And I heard you tell the President I voted for, “You don’t need this
shit anyway, chill with me on the beach.”
You reject the responsibility to speak up for an oppressed people, even
while you take up your own cause with gusto.
Then I figured it out.
You actually know all of this stuff, you just don’t care.
That’s not just being a bad citizen, or a bad neighbor.
It’s being a bad artist.
It’s Nihilism with a beat.
-Phil Lord |
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