By Jonah Goldberg
Friday, October 11, 2019
The NBA says it won’t compromise on its values, even as
the league makes it clear it has none.
As you’ve no doubt heard, Houston Rockets general manager
Daryl Morey tweeted his support for the protesters in Hong Kong. Almost
instantly, the Chinese government and Chinese businesses erupted in outrage.
The NBA, the Rockets, Morey, and various players rushed to apologize or express
regret for offending millions of Chinese basketball fans. The NBA’s statement,
particularly the Chinese version, was loathsome in its obsequious groveling.
A few days later, NBA commissioner Adam Silver held a
press conference in Tokyo, hoping to put out the firestorm. Responding to
China’s cancellation of some NBA exhibition games in protest, Silver seemed
like he was standing his ground.
“I think it’s unfortunate,” Silver said of the canceled
games. “But if that’s the consequences of us adhering to our values, we still
feel it’s critically important we adhere to those values. . . . We are not
apologizing for Daryl exercising his freedom of expression.”
Silver did express regret, however, that so many in
China, including “millions and millions of our fans” were “upset.” He said that
while he wasn’t endorsing what Morey tweeted, he would defend Morey’s right to
tweet it.
Of course, the tweet remains deleted.
Days later, fans carrying pro–Hong Kong signs were
ejected from an NBA exhibition game in Philadelphia. At a Washington Wizards
game, pro–Hong Kong signs were confiscated by security. American reporters have
been told they couldn’t ask players about the China controversy. A CNN reporter
was instructed: “Basketball questions only” when she tried to talk to two
Rockets players. The league later apologized, which it seems to be getting good
at.
In other words, the NBA is eager to seem as if it’s in
favor of free expression while curtailing expression as much as possible. The
strategy has had some success. A CNN headline declared, “NBA chief Adam Silver
says profit can’t come before the league’s principles,” and was accurate to the
extent that it’s sort of what Silver said. It’s not clear it’s what he
believes.
The mere fact that this controversy has become about free
expression is a victory for the NBA. Saying, in effect, “I disagree with what
you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it,” has always been a
popular way for cowards to seem brave.
The problem is that free expression is just one of the
values the NBA claims to stand for. In Silver’s statement, he waxed poetic
about the principle the league is famous for marketing to the world: diversity.
“One of the enduring strengths of the NBA is our diversity — of views,
backgrounds, ethnicities, genders and religions,” the statement read.
That’s great. But the Chinese government has herded more
than a million Muslim Uyghurs into “re-education camps” while paving over their
cemeteries and tearing down their mosques. The same league that pulled its
all-star game out of Charlotte, N.C., over a contentious transgender bathroom
law has no problem partnering with a country that fights diversity at the point
of a gun.
As first reported in Slate, the NBA even has a
training facility in Urumqi, the capital of Xianjing, the epicenter of China’s
cultural genocide project.
China’s lack of commitment to diversity and equality
doesn’t end there. The country essentially practices Jim Crow with Chinese
characteristics, as Chairman Mao might have said. If you aren’t ethnic Han, or
if you don’t speak Mandarin, you’re a second-class citizen with little to no
access to certain jobs and universities.
What Silver doesn’t understand — or deliberately ignores
— is that free expression isn’t a standalone value. It’s part of a larger
whole, which includes democracy, the rule of law, and the full suite of human
rights. China opposes the whole package. Or, to be more accurate, the Chinese government
does. Which is why it’s against freedom in Hong Kong.
It’s clever for Silver to talk about not wanting to
offend “millions and millions” of Chinese fans. That plays well to the ears of
woke Americans who think offending people tests the limits of free speech. But
Twitter is blocked in China, which means none of those fans saw the tweet in
the first place.
What they did see was the orchestrated propaganda
campaign from the Chinese government and its rich clients — a group that
includes the NBA.
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