A sports writer with the Miami Herald who covers the Miami Dolphins was stunned to hear Colin Kaepernick defend Fidel Castro on a conference call with reporters.
This sports writer, Armando Salguero, whose family escaped Cuba, asked Kaepernick about a shirt he wore with photos of Malcolm X and Fidel Castro.
Here’s the audio of the questioning:
Salguero certainly challenges Kaepernick on his defense of Castro, but it’s what he wrote about the call that I found so devastating:
MIAMI HERALD – So it’s good to have an open mind about Fidel Castro and his oppression, I ask?
“I’m not talking about Fidel Castro and his oppression,” Kaepernick said. “I’m talking about Malcolm X and what he’s done for people.”
At this point I hope Kaepernick is starting to realize how untenable his position is relative to the Castros. Even Malcolm X, who met with Castro in New York, for years afterward declined invitations to visit him in Cuba. I’m hoping Kaepernick understands one should not make broad statements about standing up for people’s rights, then slip into a Fidel Castro shirt, suggesting approval for a man who has spent his days on the planet stifling people’s rights.
And that’s exactly the moment Kaepernick shows how lost he truly is. Because in the next breath, Kaepernick, born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, explains to me, the guy born in Havana, how great Castro really is.
“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.
Keep reading….here it comes…
Is this real life?
First, Cuba does not have the highest literacy rate. Second, don’t be surprised if the same people who report Cuba’s admittedly high literacy rate are related to those who report its election results — the ones in which the Castros get 100 percent of the votes.
Third, could it be Cuba doesn’t have to invest a lot in its prison system because, you know, dungeons and firing squads (El Paredon) are not too expensive to maintain?
Finally, it’s bizarre that Kaepernick is extolling the education system of a country where people believe launching out into shark-infested seas to flee is a better idea than staying there.
Boom! Those were brilliant points, but the last one I especially loved as it painfully exposed Kaepernick’s stupidity by pointing out the obvious.
But Salguero isn’t done. Here’s a true story from his own personal experience that is the foundation for the next smackdown:
A true story: My parents decided when I was born that living in chains could not be my fate. And because there wasn’t going to be a successful Salguero family counter-revolution, my folks did what they could to get me out. And all three of us — papi, mami and me — got visas to leave. It took five years to get those visas and my folks were immediately fired from their jobs when they applied.
On that July 1967 day when we were scheduled to go, the three of us made it to the boarding ladder of the Eastern Airlines Freedom Flight bound for America. But a Castro soldier stopped us before we boarded and demanded to see the family’s papers. I remember this as if it was yesterday. That bearded guerrilla in green and carrying a rifle confirmed all three of us were cleared to leave Cuba.
But, he added, that only two of us could leave because that’s what he personally was deciding. He then told my father to pick who goes and who stays. What ensued next is hazy to me. I know there were tears. I know there was drama. But suffice to say only my mother and I got on that plane.
My dad stayed behind, and for three years he was unable to reunite with us. Other family members never were able to reunite with us.
And now more stupidity from Kaepernick…
That life experience in my head, I tell Kaepernick that the United States may not invest as much as he wants on education (actually, the investment is staggering) but we also don’t break up families here.
“We do break up families here,” Kaepernick responded. “That’s what mass incarceration is. That was the foundation of slavery. So our country has been based on that as well as the genocide of native Americans.”
Based on that?
I ask Kaepernick if he’s equating the breaking up of Cuban exile families by a dictator with people being sentenced to prison in the United States.
“I’m equating the breaking up of families with the breaking up of families,” Kaepernick responded.
And here we go. Salguero dismantles this second batch of Kaepernick’s stupidity with amazing clarity:
Look, I understand Kaepernick’s complaint that some people are falsely imprisoned and others go away for long stretches for committing multiple minor crimes. But what is it about nuance he doesn’t get? There’s no way the blanket statement he just made is correct.
My family breaking up because my parents wanted me to be free is not and never will be the same as, for example, a father of two in the United States murdering someone and being away from his kids because he was convicted and serving time.
My father and the murderer are not similar. So breaking up families cannot always be equated with breaking up families. To believe so is not thinking the issue through. And not thinking issues through is a bad look for so-called protest leaders such as Kaepernick.
If that weren’t enough, here’s Salguero’s final smackdown…
My exchange with Kaepernick ended there, after about three minutes, because I was stunned how someone so outspoken about his beliefs could be so ignorant to facts not up for debate. I suppose he thinks he made salient points in our back and forth.
All he did was expose himself as a fraud.
So wear your Malcolm X shirt that features Fidel Castro, Colin Kaepernick. Wear it around a town where hundreds of thousands of Cuban exiles live with memories similar to mine. Wear it on the field Sunday during pregame if you’re so proud of it.
Show everyone what a unrepentant hypocrite you are.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading that and I’m glad he didn’t pull any punches on calling Kaepernick a fraud and an unrepentant hypocrite. Truer words could not have been spoken.
You don’t need to have escaped Cuba to refute this moron from San Francisco, but I must say that Salguero does it so well I don’t think anything else needs to be said.