For nearly a half century, America's wrongheaded and failed foreign policy toward Cuba has caused us to view the island nation through a fun house mirror -- distorting all reality and making it impossible to distinguish between truth and fiction.

So thanks should be given to President Obama for taking a first step to shattering that mirror by easing travel, spending and communications restrictions to Cuba earlier this week.

Depending on whom you speak to, Cuba is either a colorblind monument to racial harmony or a country where equality and political freedom don't exist. Like most things in life, the truth likely lies somewhere in the middle.

A reporting assignment to Cuba with the Congressional Black Caucus in 2000 didn't provide me with any great answers to the riddle that is Cuba. The majority of everyday people I talked to, white and black, expressed enthusiastic support for the government. I heard the phrase "viva la revolucion" from Cuban people more times than I could count.

And black Cubans said they were treated much more fairly and enjoyed greater opportunities than their grandparents had in the 1950s under the Batista regime.

But some people did voice anger at having to wait in lines for basic provisions and the rationing of cooking oil and electrical service.

My visit made one thing certain: allowing our distaste for longtime Cuban President Fidel Castro to stand in the way of letting Americans visit the island and talk to Cuban people is ludicrous.

I'm no apologist for Castro's regime. I know that those on the left who paint him as a flawless hero of the downtrodden are just as wrong as those on the right who say he is a tyrant who jails his critics for sport.

I'll admit I admire him for nothing more than keeping his country together through nine mostly hostile presidential administrations in the face of a broad U.S. trade embargo.

Castro is also to be credited for creating a national medical system that is the envy of the world -- supplying doctors and nurses to poorer nations around the world when disasters strike.

(Check out Michael Moore's 2007 documentary 'Sicko' for a fascinating glimpse of how doctors in Cuba aided American workers hurt in the 9/11 terrorist attacks)

But Cuba isn't without its problems.

It was impossible not to notice the heavy-handed police presence around the island. And on more than one occasion, conversations with locals were interrupted (and obviously discouraged) by snooping police officers.

After just a week there, it was easy to believe the testimony of Castro critics who say that protecting civil liberties is a back-burner concern in Cuba.

So if that is the case, what is the best help we can provide to change it? Dig in our heels and support a policy that has failed since 1963? I don't think so.

I hope President Obama goes a step further and really breaks the fun house mirror. Let every American who wants to visit Cuba go -- and not just those who have relatives there as is presently proposed.

If we are truly secure in the knowledge that our American way of life is superior to the communist model employed by the brothers Castro, let's put it out there for the Cuban people to see.