There’s a terrible optic out there for the NBA. It appears slave labor pays for the NBA in China. Don’t you just love professional sports these days? Neither do I. The National Basketball Association is full if hypocritical social justice warriors. Don’t misunderstand. They believe what they say… for as long as they are talking.
But, they are interested in others doing as they say. It’s a power thing. Not so much a justice thing… unless they mean “Just Us.” We cannot know where the Chinese money for basketball comes from. But, we know money is fungible.
How can these loud mouthed hypocrites rationalize remaining quiet on the issue of Chinese slave labor? If they cared about people at all they would be taking a stand. They care about grandstanding and WIIFM. For the NBA it is all about “show me the money.” This is true, as highlighted by new revelations about the nature and size of labor camps housing Uighur Muslims.
The situation
Something like 85% of China’s cotton exports come from Xinjiang. That is where at least one million Uighurs are currently detained in camps. Some characterize this action as tantamount to genocide. At least 570 thousand laborers picked cotton in the western region of Xinjiang in 2018. That is according to a new Center for Global Policy report.
BBC reporters visited the region to document its “huge industrial expansion.” When they got there Chinese officials stopped them from filming what they saw. Since the first revelations about the camps, the NBA has not addressed Chinese human-rights violations. The irony of slaves picking cotton is lost on these buffoons.
Even as the NBA pursues its social justice agenda domestically it slinks past the big market money China represents. The league declines to comment when queried about the BBC report. The NBA got more than $500 million in Chinese revenue in 2019. As they say money talks and nobody walks…
The league inked a $1 billion deal with Beijing tech giant Tencent. It is to exclusively stream games in China. NBA China, a separate entertainment arm of the league. It has been valued at more than $5 billion by one sports consulting firm in 2019. It appears slave labor pays the NBA.
Time to put up or shut up boys
The NBA publicly supports political expression among communist players and coaches. At the same time it is cracking down on those who criticize China. In 2019, former Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey faced sharp rebuke from his peers for supporting Hong Kong human-rights activists. What did the Hong Kong protesters support freedom and human rights… for all.
There are athletes who have sacrificed lucrative careers to speak out against the abuse of Chinese dissidents. European soccer players Mesut Özil and Antoine Griezmann have spoken forcefully against human-rights abuses by the Chinese Communist Party. Özil, a German-born, ethnically Turkish Muslim, has lost millions of dollars in endorsement money for criticizing Beijing’s treatment of Uighurs.
He has even been scrubbed from video games sold in China and Chinese internet searches. Griezmann recently severed sponsorship ties with Chinese telecom supergiant Huawei. Huawei has a large role in the regime’s surveillance of Uighurs. What are you going to say there NBA… slave labor pays?
The NBA is a case of biting the hand which feeds you. America is not perfect. But we don’t have slaves picking cotton. America learns from its errors, makes adjustments and moves on. America is an aspirational place. In the past that has meant making the place better and sharing the improvement with everyone in it. We do that through justice. Not by adopting an attitude of Just Us.