UFC fighter Jorge Masvidal took a swing at former NFL player and anthem protester Colin Kaepernick for parading around in a Fidel Castro t-shirt while claiming to protest oppression.
In a July 12 tweet, the Cuban-American UFC fighter slammed Kaepernick for his hypocrisy even as protests rise against the communist regime in Cuba.
“My father escaped Cuba when he was 14 years old,” Masvidal said in the video attached to his tweet. “And I’ve only heard the horror stories since I could process thoughts of how shitty this communist regime, killing machine is. So, I just want to shed some light on Cuba — big SOS signal for them.”
#SOSCuba English pic.twitter.com/on5Z25H2q0
— Jorge Masvidal UFC (@GamebredFighter) July 13, 2021
“This oppression has been going on for 61 years,” Masvidal continued. “This is not just because of the pandemic, or it’s not just because they ran out of medicine — they’ve been out of medicine and they’ve been out of resources and food because of the corrupt government and the extreme corruption over there where only a few at the top eat and everyone has to suffer. Those days have to end.”
Later, in an Instagram post, Madvidal recalled how Colin Kaepernick wore a t-shirt praising Cuba’s communist dictator, Fidel Castro, and added that “cowards” like Kaepernick should be sent to live in Cuba so they can experience real oppression.
Masvidal is, of course, referring to the time in 2016 when Kaepernick wore a t-shirt praising Castro at a San Francisco 49ers press conference:
Kaepernick was poised to educate the US on its oppressive history, then he wore a Fidel Castro shirt. #irony pic.twitter.com/M2KzSoNkbS
— Jordan Allott (@JordanAllott) August 30, 2016
At the time, Kaepernick praised Cuba for its education and health care systems and even claimed that the island nation’s educational system was so good because Castro spent more money on schools than on prisons.
Kaepernick’s claim that Castro did not imprison his people rings hollow, though. One report in 2012 found that Cuba had the sixth-highest rate of imprisoning its people per capita in the world, and many of those behind bars were political prisoners placed there for openly defying the communist regime.
Back in 2016, Kaepernick also showed that he was not just protesting the few police misbehaving when he wore socks that portrayed all police officers as pigs. Kaepernick also said that the U.S. was never great, noting that he was standing up against the whole country in general, not just supporting “social justice” with his anthem protests.
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