As of late, I have run out of patience and time to speak at length on the unmitigated war crimes and international offenses our country’s government takes upon the international community.

But whatever excuses may exist in terms of continued inaction (of which none are permissable or valid) from our people here in Louisiana does not exist when it comes to Cuba. Louisiana holds the majority of US exports to Cuba as a state, but we suffer severe economic losses every time we are forced unilaterally by the Federal government to abandon trade. Despite these antagonisms by the government, the people of Cuba have only sought to help us in Louisiana.

When Katrina hit and the Bush administration left our neighbors on rooftops, without power for weeks, wondering how our lost family were doing, the Cuban government requested to send 1586 doctors and 86 tons of medical supplies. Cuban doctors waited for days in hopes that their plea to help their Gulf neighbors would be heard. How did the Bush administration respond? They denied the aid in an effort to not allow any positive sentiment to be built. They left us to die, whether that was on Danzinger Bridge, in the currents, through lack of power, or from dehydration/heat exhaustion/starvation.

And this was not a rare phenomenon of Cuban solidarity. Most of the Global South depends on Cuban doctors to constantly supplement what are often overstretched healthcare systems in countries repeatedly destabilized by the US in the name of neoliberalism and democracy, which we oh-so-enjoy here in the states.

Now we claim to free Cuban, Haitian, Iranian, Palestinian, and other peoples all by starving, bombing, blockading, and couping the country. When will that pit in your stomach finally become a tumor and kill off your humanity? When will we finally admit that we can no longer abdicate responsibility of our government’s actions onto the usual rotating-villains offered up by those in power? When will we finally see that our neighbors have a shared history and existence with the international body?

Cubans never put a chemical plant in my backyard. Cubans, while our country was still pushing Jim Crow’s “separate but equal” lie, were overthrowing literal slave plantations and taking their destiny into their own hands. Cuba held room for Assata Shakur when our country sought to persecute her. Cuba fed and educated their people while our government sought to make our living standards so threadbare that we could lose everything in missing a week of work.

Join Baton Rouge DSA in the coming months as we work to help our neighbors understand the interconnectedness of our struggles with the people of Cuba’s struggles. As workers, our enemy is the same: billionaires who dream all day long of returning us to slavery plantations while they continue to do more and more of what has been detailed in the Epstein files and decades of US intelligence documents.

In the meantime, while we work to build campaigns to assist the Cuban people, please visit https://international.dsausa.org/cuba-solidarity/stop-the-siege/ for more information on ways you can donate to keep people alive while they attempt to kill thousands through this illegal siege.

Viva Cuba

Cam C, Co-Chair of BRDSA