Rep. Steve King’s (R-IA) campaign Facebook page on Sunday posted a meme criticizing Parkland student Emma Gonzalez for wearing a Cuban flag patch on her jacket at the “March for Our Lives” rally calling for gun control on Saturday.
“This is how you look when you claim Cuban heritage yet don’t speak Spanish and inure the fact that your ancestors fled the island when the dictatorship turned Cuba into a prison camp, after removing all the weapons from its citizens; hence their right to self defense,” the meme with a picture of Gonzalez reads.
Gonzalez, who has arguably become the face of the student movement for gun control in the wake of a deadly shooting at her school, was born in the U.S. but her father immigrated from Cuba in the 1960s.
On the King campaign Facebook page, Pulse night club shooting survivor Brandon Wolf responded to the meme with outrage.
“Are you SERIOUSLY mocking a school shooting survivor for her ethnic identity?!” he asked. “Do you losers have NOTHING else to do anymore? Have you lost the will to govern? Do you need a safe space from these teenagers?”
In response, the King campaign wrote, “Pointing out the irony of someone wearing the flag of a communist country while simultaneously calling for gun control isn’t ‘picking’ on anyone. It’s calling attention to the truth, but we understand that lefties find that offensive.”
