For most of my schooling I had no idea if Fidel Castro was a ‘good guy’ or a 'bad guy’ because of the way my history books talked about him. Because of the way the media talked about him. There was this dichotomy about him and I couldn’t make out what this guy was. I felt deep down that he was a terrible man. I’d heard about the things he did to his people, I’d heard the horror stories. But the way the people on the news talked about him… the way my history book talked about him. It made me second guess how evil this man was. The way the media and the books talked about him obscured from me how evil that man was for YEARS. And I know I’m not the only one. I wasn’t the only one confused about what to make of that man, as if it was somehow up for debate about whether he was 'good’ or not. And this has happened before. That’s how it was in World War II, history books and the media obscuring how evil a person could be. The world had no idea how bad Hitler was when he was in power. The world had no idea how bad Castro was when he was in power.

That’s how fucking dangerous it can be to blindly listen to the media about things like that. Because it’s literally so easy to obscure from people how evil a being is. The way information about Castro was presented to me made me think he wasn’t all that bad. They can present to you with a smiling face the evils of the world and you would have no idea, unless you put in the effort to look deeper, which is sadly an effort lost amongst most.