The National Basketball Association considers itself one of the most “progressive” organizations in America, and is always ready to criticize President Donald Trump or other Americans who members of the league think are not woke enough.
But this weekend’s apology to China shows that the NBA is quick to attack Americans while turning a blind eye to China’s serious human rights abuses.
Over the weekend, the NBA rebuked Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey who tweeted his support of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong. The league apologized to the oppressive Chinese government for Morey’s support of the democracy activists.
But according to a recent report at Human Rights Watch, China is still one of the worst abusers of human rights in the world. In its 2018 report, the organization reported that China has “dramatically stepped up repression and systematic abuses against the 13 million Turkic Muslims, including Uyghurs and ethnic Kazakhs, in China’s northwestern Xinjiang region.”
“Authorities have carried out mass arbitrary detention, torture, and mistreatment of some of them in various detention facilities, and increasingly imposed pervasive controls on daily life,” HRW wrote. “New regulations in Tibet now criminalize even traditional forms of social action, including community mediation by religious figures. In Hong Kong, a region promised ‘a high degree of autonomy’ under the Sino-British Joint Declaration, the Chinese and Hong Kong governments hastened their efforts in 2018 to undermine people’s rights to free speech and political participation.”
HRW also reiterated China’s oppression of its homosexual citizens, refugees, asylum seekers, women, and girls, and that is not to even mention its actions against Tibet.
This is the country that the NBA is falling all over itself to support.
But the woke members of the NBA has been very quick to attack Americans who they think aren’t woke enough. Especially when they feel that they can safely attack such people without hurting their financial bottom line.
For instance, when NBA player Jason Collins came out as gay in 2013, the whole NBA was effusive in its praise of the player. Stars from Kobe Bryant to Kirk Gibson jumped to praise Collins for his bravery for coming out.
In another case, in 2016, San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich — an outspoken leftist and critic of President Donald Trump — attacked the Trump administration for what Popovich insisted was Trump’s “bullying of gays and minorities.”
It was right after Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016, and Popovich was livid.
“Not basically because the Republicans won or anything, but the disgusting tenure and tone and all the comments that have been xenophobic, homophobic, racist, misogynistic,” Popovich exploded. “I live in that country where half the people ignored all that to elect someone. That’s the scariest part of the whole thing to me.”
Then in 2017, Warriors coach Steve Kerr and his team hosted an “LGBTQ Pride Night,” to “educate kids” about gay rights.
But according to the Lancet, China, home to one of the largest LGBTQ populations in the world, commits serious persecution and discrimination against gays. Not only does government take harsh action, Chinese society takes harsh action against gays. LGBTQ children even face serious oppression and abuse by parents, while Chinese authorities turn a blind eye.
Despite China’s abuse of its LGBTQ citizens, the woke NBA has been utterly silent about the mistreatment of gays in the country the league is courting for big dollars.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.
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