Earlier this year, San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick started a widespread movement to bring attention to police brutality and the systematic oppression of minorities in the United States by refusing to stand for the national anthem. Simultaneously, he launched himself into the center of a polarizing conversation over the state of race relations in the country, and the meaning of patriotism.
Now, just a few months later, Kaepernick finds himself in the middle of another divisive debate — this time, about the legacy of long-time Cuban President Fidel Castro, who passed away on Friday, and who is seen as a loyal revolutionary or a ruthless dictator, depending on the eye of the beholder.
This particular controversy started last week, when just days before Castro’s death, Miami Herald reporter Armando Salguero confronted Kaepernick about his decision to wear a T-shirt displaying photographs of a meeting between Malcolm X and Castro.
The NFL star wore the shirt last August, at the first press conference after he began his national anthem protest — and Salguero, a Cuban refugee who fled the country with his mother in 1967, took issue with the fact that Kaepernick chose to don a shirt depicting “one of the 20th century’s biggest oppressors of people.”
So, on a conference call with other reporters from south Florida ahead of the 49ers’ visit to the area to face the Miami Dolphins on Sunday, Salguero seized the opportunity to question Kaepernick about his fashion choice.
While Kaepernick insisted that he was wearing the shirt because of Malcolm X, Salguero would not stop pressuring him to essentially disavow Castro.
AS: Are you a believer of Fidel Castro, who is on that shirt?
CK: If you let me finish, please. The fact that he met with Fidel to me speaks to his open mind to be willing to be able 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.
AS: So it’s good to have an open mind about Fidel Castro and his oppression?
CK: I’m not talking about Fidel Castro and his oppression. I’m talking about Malcolm X and what he has done for people.
AS: I realize that, talking about it …
CK: One of the things Fidel Castro did do is have the highest literacy rates 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.
AS: He also did something that we do not do here. He broke up families, he took over a country without any justice and without any elections.
CK: We do break up families here, 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.
AS: Are you equating the breaking up of Cuban families with people going to jail in the United States of America?
CK: I’m equating the breaking up of families with the breaking up of families.
AS: Wow, that’s amazing.
The uncomfortable, testy exchange led Salguero to write a column calling Kaepernick an “unrepentant hypocrite,” and also served to foreshadow the divisive reaction to Castro’s passing that rippled across the country and the world. In 2016, after all, everything is partisan — even death.
While Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed “deep sorrow” for Castro’s passing and Mexico President Enrique Pena Nieto reflected on his “friend,” U.S. President-elect Donald Trump actively celebrated the death, both on Twitter and in a statement where he said that “Castro’s legacy is one of firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental rights.” But Trump was far from alone in in his jubilation — Cubans in Miami also threw a city-wide party after news broke.
The celebrations in Miami are understandable. Castro’s oppression of Cuban people is not up for debate; it’s a fact. While he did put an emphasis on literacy and health care, he also systematically took away many civil liberties. Castro supported labor camps and conversion therapy for gay men, and is responsible for at least 10,000 (and possibly as many as 78,000) deaths of dissident Cubans. There is no freedom of speech in Cuba — Castro controlled all media, from entertainment to news and everything in between.
“During Castro’s rule, thousands of Cubans were incarcerated in abysmal prisons, thousands more were harassed and intimidated, and entire generations were denied basic political freedoms,” Human Rights Watch reported. “Cuba made improvements in health and education, though many of these gains were undermined by extended periods of economic hardship and by repressive policies.”
When Salguero was a child, his parents sought to exit the island because they feared for their child’s future in a country that lacked any semblance of justice — “living in chains could not be my fate,” he wrote. The family had to wait five years for exit visas, and even though he and his parents all had proper documentation, one of Castro’s soldiers arbitrarily decided that only two of them could get on the flight to the United States. His father stayed behind, and it took another three years before he was permitted to leave the country again.
So it’s easy to understand why Salguero was so enraged that Kaepernick wore a picture of Castro on his shirt, and wouldn’t acknowledge the suffering that he and his compatriots had experienced. In Salguero’s mind, it’s simple — there’s no way to be against oppression and for Castro.
But Kaepernick’s points deserve more than just routine dismissal, too.
The island nation dictator’s legacy has long garnered the support of brown and black activists for one simple reason: Castro’s leadership took a stand against rule by the white and wealthy in favor of creating opportunities for the poor and brown. For people of color around the world, particularly African nations and African Americans, Castro represented a resistance to racial oppression and success despite being cut off from Western society.
The best example of that is Castro’s alliance with former South African President Nelson Mandela. Cuba sent 36,000 troops to help fight the U.S.-sanctioned apartheid, sent teachers and doctors to help rebuild post-colonial Angola and, more recently, helped combat Liberia’s Ebola outbreak in 2014. Since the beginning of Castro’s rule, Cuba has had significant involvement with rebellions initiated by blacks and the contribution hasn’t been forgotten.
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That’s why in the United States, some are showing deference to Castro’s death rather than rejoicing it. Celebrity chef Roblé Ali and former model and fashion icon Bethann Hardison posted tributes to Castro featuring one of his more resonant quotes that predicted the thaw of U.S.-Cuba relations at a time when people of color would hold positions with global influence: “The United States will come to talk to us when they have a black president and the world has a Latin American Pope.”
Rapper Nasir Jones, who goes by the stage name Nas, faced a deluge of criticism after he posted a photo of Castro laughing alongside Malcolm X — the same photo Kaepernick wore on his shirt.
“During Castro’s rule, thousands of Cubans were incarcerated in abysmal prisons, thousands more were harassed and intimidated, and entire generations were denied basic political freedoms.”
“Only 5 percent understand. I’m not Cuban, I don’t fully know how he affected my Cuban family, so I’m sending strength and power for your pains. But lots of us, as Black people, [and] some others in the USA, we saw him as an Ally in the Struggle,” Nas wrote.
While it doesn’t erase or excuse Castro’s problematic regime, Jones’ sentiment resonates with many people of color who continue to struggle with independence and equity under former colonial-friendly governments. It’s a sentiment that is especially warm in today’s political climate where primarily white citizens in the United States and Europe have voted for country leaders or policies that openly marginalize people of color.
Ultimately, the story behind the images in Jones’ post and on Kaepernick’s shirt is one of camaraderie.
In 1960, Castro came to New York for a United Nations general assembly — but was snubbed by the Shelburne Hotel, which reportedly charged the dictator $20,000 cash security fee to continue his 10-day stay in the luxury hotel. Tabloids called Castro and his crew “uncouth primitives,” alleging they vandalized their rooms and “killed, plucked, and cooked chickens in their rooms at the Shelburne and extinguished cigars on expensive carpets.”
Having been kicked out of the hotel, it’s rumored that Castro and his party camped in Central Park until Malcolm X and other civil rights leaders arranged for the group to stay at the Hotel Theresa in Harlem. Even though it has been characterized more as a friendly chat, the meeting between the two generated significant press and was well-received overall. It represented international unity — a bond between one of the United States’ most prominent black leaders and a totalitarian one who vowed to uplift Afro-Cubans out of oppression.
This is the meeting that Kaepernick chose to focus on. And after his team’s last-second loss to the Dolphins on Sunday, the quarterback didn’t back down from his statements earlier in the week.
“What I said was, I agree with the investment in education, and I also agree with the investment in free universal healthcare, as well as his involvement in helping to end apartheid in South Africa. I would hope that everyone agrees those things are good things,” Kaepernick said, dressed in yet another Malcolm X shirt. “Trying to push the false narrative that I was a supporter of the oppressive things he did is just not true.”
“Trying to push the false narrative that I was a supporter of the oppressive things he did is just not true.”
But Kaepernick has to learn that he is just as responsible for the things he doesn’t say as he is for the things he does say. The scrutiny of the spotlight follows him through it all, from his eloquent discussions with the press about police killings and oppression, to his socks depicting cops as pigs; from his $1 million donation to help communities in need to his decision not to vote. Everything he does is part of his message.
So while the quarterback might think that he is a victim of the “out of context” nature of news these days, that doesn’t necessarily apply in this case. Yes, the things he said about Castro were factually correct, and he should be lauded for encouraging Americans to look inward at the oppression that still exists domestically, but people have a right to be upset by the fact that he didn’t actively disavow the many human rights violations that were committed under Castro’s watch.
It’s tempting to want to grade the exchange between Kaepernick and Salguero by winner and loser, just as it’s understandable to want to divide Castro’s legacy into pristine two categories, good and bad. But, as with all things, it’s more complicated than that.