During Verbal Confrontation Cuban Columnist Calls Colin Kaepernick ‘Unrepentant Hypocrite’ For Wearing Fidel Castro Shirt

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Contentious San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick has found himself involved embroiled in another controversy. Hours before the death of Fidel Castro, Miami Herald columnist Armando Salguero called out Kaepernick for wearing a shirt of the infamous Cuban dictator. Salguero, who was born in Cuba and is adamantly against Castro, condemned the 49ers QB for his questionable t-shirt which featured the meeting between Castro and Malcolm X in September 1960 at the Hotel Theresa in New York City.

The exchange between the writer and quarterback was tense at times. Kaepernick defended and praised Castro only hours before it was announced that the dictator had died.

Kaepernick wore the t-shirt in August, but the 49ers are in Miami this Sunday to play the Dolphins and Salguero questioned Kaepernick’s fashion choice. Salguero called Kaepernick an “unrepentant hypocrite” and a “fraud” for wearing the shirt that featured Fidel Castro.

“Colin, one of those times you made that stance about fighting systematic oppression, you wore a Fidel Castro shirt after the game,” Salguero said to Kaepernick. “Are you not aware that Fidel Castro is one the 20th century’s biggest oppressors of people?” Kaepernick responded by saying that he was wearing a Malcolm X shirt and respected him for meeting with Fidel and had an “open mind to be willing to hear different aspects of people’s views and ultimately being able to create his own views as far as the best way to approach different situations, different cultures.”

Salguero clapped back by saying, “So it’s good to have an open mind about Fidel Castro and his oppression?”

In his column, Salguero reminds Kaepernick that he did say this about fans not watching NFL games because of his kneeling during the national anthem, “You know, if they’re OK with people being treated unfairly, being harassed, being terrorized, then the problem is more what they’re doing in their lives than it is about watching football games.”

Kaepernick responded by praising Castro, “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.”

The writer then asked, “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?”

Salguero wrote how Castro should not be praised.

Cuba for more than five decades under the Castros has stifled practically any and all dissent. According to Human Rights Watch, “Cuban citizens have been systematically deprived of their fundamental rights to free expression, privacy, association, assembly, movement, and due process of law. Tactics for enforcing political conformity have included police warnings, surveillance, short-term detentions, house arrests, travel restrictions, criminal prosecutions, and politically motivated dismissals from employment.”

He then penned how his own family escaped the Communist nation. It took five years for his family to get visas for and were immediately fired from their jobs when they applied.

Former Governor of Arkansas and two-time Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee weighed in on the situation.

Thousands of Cuban-Americans flooded the streets of Miami early Saturday morning to celebrate the death of Fidel Castro.