During training camp back in August, Colin Kaepernick wore a shirt depicting former Cuban leader Fidel Castro meeting with Malcolm X. The wardrobe choice did not sit well with a Cuban-born reporter, and that reporter finally got a chance to confront Kaepernick last week.
With the San Francisco 49ers taking on the Miami Dolphins, Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald asked Kaepernick in a conference call why he wore a Castro shirt. Kaepernick tried to steer the conversation toward Malcolm X, saying he was more showing support for how open-minded the human rights activist was. When pressed further, Kaepernick eventually commended Castro on his commitment to education.
“One thing Fidel Castro did do is they have the highest literacy rate because they invest more in their education system than they do in their prison system, which we do not do here even though we’re fully capable of doing that,” Kaepernick said.
Salguero unloaded on Kaepernick in a column, accusing him of being a hypocrite and suggesting Castro spent more on education than prison systems because “dungeons and firing squads (El Paredon) are not too expensive to maintain.” Salguero, who described his escape from Cuba and Castro’s reign, later said in an interview that Kaepernick would be jailed or worse if he lived in Cuba.
.@ArmandoSalguero: If Colin Kaepernick were ever to live in Cuba and show dissent like he does here, he would be jailed pic.twitter.com/Z1IGu2EMhR
— FOX & Friends (@foxandfriends) November 29, 2016
“Colin Kaepernick has put himself out there as a guy who is anti-oppression, a guy who wants people of all factions to not be oppressed, and yet he’s donning a shirt with one of the 20th century’s all-time oppressors,” Salguero told FOX News. “If Kaepernick were ever to live in Cuba and show any form of dissent, as he does here on the sidelines of NFL games every week, he would be jailed, violence would be thrust upon him, he would be spat on. He would know very quickly that it’s a different game in Cuba.”
The United States has plenty of issues, and Kaepernick reserves the right to speak out on them and protest as he pleases. But it’s easy to see why someone who escaped from Cuba would be offended by the quarterback’s support for a freedom-restricting leader. Kaepernick’s support for Castro is right up there with the latest piece of hypocritical information we learned about him.
