1619 Project founder praised Cuban socialism

Share this article

Nikole Hannah-Jones is far from an accomplished journalist, according to what she says in public and as her writing demonstrates. The newly-minted Howard University professor, and founder of the New York Times 1619 Project, praised Communist Cuba for its ethnic and racial equality.

In a 2019 interview, she said, “If you want to see the most equal, multiracial, it’s not a democracy, but the most equal multiracial country in our hemisphere, it would be Cuba.” Hannah-Jones also claimed, “Cuba has the least inequality between black and white people of any place in the hemisphere.”

She did not shy away from her controversial view and added, “In places that are biracial countries, Cuba actually has the least inequality.” Hannah-Jones asserted that the least inequality among races was “largely due to socialism.”

Mike Gonzalez, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, pointed out that Hannah-Jones was oblivious to the plight of the average Cuban because she idolizes socialism and its alleged remedy to racial inequality. He wrote that Hannah-Jones, in 2008, wrote a complimentary piece about Cuba’s appeal to the outside world.

Gonzalez called her piece “cringe-inducing,” not only due to the title “The Cuba We Don’t Know,” but also parroted Cuban regime propaganda. “Frank Sinatra rubbed elbows with the American mafia in Cuban casinos. Rich Americans drank mojitos in the mahogany-lined bars of the Hotel New York and the Hotel Nacional,” Hannah-Jones wrote.

Ironically, ongoing anti-regime protests in Cuba came from black or mixed-race Cubans. Many chanted, “Libertad,” or “liberty” as it translated into English, and clamored for the communist-run regime to relinquish its power.

Socialists like Hannah-Jones fail to recognize that the democratic protests stem from the people’s disgust with the poorly-run, socialized Cuban health system. Unconfirmed reports from various Cuban dissidents highlight how Cuba ran out of vaccines, that its self-produced vaccines were ineffective at best, and destroyed its tourist-driven economy.

Much like her 1619 Project and Critical Race Theory-based views, Hannah-Jones’s take on Cuba’s perceived racial equality successes is rooted in socialist fantasy and not in reality.