Former NBA coach and NBA analyst Stan Van Gundy is the latest prominent league personality to run interference for China, complaining that asking the NBA about China distracts from “our own poor record on human rights.”
“We committed genocide against Native Americans. We have enslaved, lynched, segregated and incarcerated blacks over 400 years,” Van Gundy said, responding to an Orlando Sentinel opinion piece slamming the NBA. “Women couldn’t vote for 140 years. Using abuses elsewhere to try to distract from our own poor record on human rights is dishonest.”
We committed genocide against Native Americans. We have enslaved, lynched, segregated and incarcerated blacks over 400 years. Women couldn’t vote for 140 years. Using abuses elsewhere to try to distract from our own poor record on human rights is dishonest https://t.co/3TyPJrbZPA
— Stan Van Gundy (@realStanVG) August 6, 2020
The only dishonest one here is Van Gundy, who is minimizing China’s atrocities while pretending that the United States is either on its level or even worse. “Abuses elsewhere” is referring to China’s concentration camps, where Uighur Muslims are tortured and forced into abortion and sterilization. “Abuses elsewhere” is China locking up political dissidents and religious minorities, suppressing freedom of speech, and looking to export its authoritarianism with forcible takeovers of Hong Kong and Taiwan.
This isn’t just some general argument that abuses anywhere in the world mean NBA players can’t speak out on issues in the U.S. No one is asking the NBA to speak out on Russia or Venezuela, nor is anyone asking athletes in other leagues to speak out on China. This is specifically an issue between the NBA and China, since the league is willing to ignore abuse in their own league academies just to have access to China’s lucrative market.
More importantly, the things Van Gundy cites as America’s human rights abuses are things that have already been remedied. Slavery ended in 1865. The Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964. Women received the right to vote in 1920. The Trail of Tears happened in the 1800s.
In contrast, China’s genocide against the Uighurs is happening right now.
Ultimately, this sort of dissembling is about greed. Like LeBron James and other NBA personalities, Van Gundy has a financial stake here. The NBA has billions in partnership deals with Chinese companies, and the conservative estimate is that the league brings in $500 million in annual revenue from China. Van Gundy works for NBA TV as well as TNT, which has a broadcast deal with the NBA worth $2.7 billion annually.
The U.S. has been reckoning with its past injustices since the country was founded. No one is suggesting that China’s human rights abuses somehow excuse America’s past sins. But those sins are in the past, whereas the NBA is ignoring and enabling China’s current abuses, all in pursuit of the almighty dollar.
