ESPN Commentator: Who Are We to Judge China’s Genocide?

CLAY: Friday on ESPN’s Around the Horn program, they were discussing the Winter Olympics. Winter Olympics are underway right now. Massive decline in the overall viewership. I think part of that is attributable for sure to this being China, and many people out there who would otherwise love the Olympics saying, “I just don’t feel like I can support China in any way,” and they had this discussion on Around the Horn. And this commentator, J. A. Adande — who is a top journalism professor at Northwestern University as well — said that he didn’t feel like he could judge Chinese genocide because of America’s voting bills. Listen to this.

.@jadande talks about reconciling watching the Beijing Winter Olympics amid China’s human rights crisis pic.twitter.com/mqkOygjBXV

— Around The Horn (@AroundtheHorn) February 4, 2022

CLAY: All right, Buck.

BUCK: Wow. Wow.

CLAY: Your reaction when you hear that… By the way, so you know, we wrote about this at OutKick as soon as one of my guys saw it. He said, “Oh, my God. Clay, you have to see this.” One of the top commentators at ESPN specifically said, “Hey, I’m not gonna talk about Chinese human rights abuses and genocide effectively because of police issues in America,” which we talked about, “and voting rights bills that are discriminatory against minorities in the United States.”

Now, let’s pretend, Buck, that even if those things were going on. We rightly point out, Derek Chauvin’s in prison, and we try to hold police accountable if and when they break the law. The voting rights bill thing is a total sham. But to argue that those are in any way the equivalent of Chinese genocide is actually direct Chinese propaganda. We asked ESPN for a comment on this on Friday when that aired. Buck, they refused to condemn it, they refused to comment on it in any way at all, and this is the kind of conversation that is taking place on a daily basis.

BUCK: Let’s just assume for a second here. What is this sports guy’s name? I’ve never heard of him before.

CLAY: J. A. Adande.

BUCK: J. A. Adande. Let’s assume Mr. Adande is establishing a principle here. Then we would have to assume that his belief would also be that we’re in no position to criticize the multigenerational concentration camps of North Korea where people are born in and die in concentration camps because of the political crimes of their parents or even their grandparents under the communist regime out of Pyongyang, out of North Korea.

You have to wonder, where does the line actually get drawn here? You can’t criticize genocide in China because of…? Also, think about the error in trying to equate these things? The actual state-sponsored policy of concentration camps of mass sterilization, of torture and political repression of millions of people — and voting rights issues?

I don’t know. I guess it is not possible to be so stupid in the sports media world that people will stop listening to you, because I will say — and would he deal with a lot of dumb things here. We play clips from The View on this show sometimes! That may be the dumbest thing I have heard this year so far, which is saying a lot.

CLAY: Buck, zero pushback on the show itself. Nobody else came on and said, “Well, you know, you’re comparing voting rights issues with genocide.” And the voting rights bill, by the way, is a total BS storyline, but think about this. Major League Baseball pulled the All-Star Game out of Atlanta over the Georgia voting bill. And all of these companies came out and said, “Oh, this is so brave!”

Remember we also asked Coke for a response because remember Coke came out — because they’re a based in Atlanta — and said, “Hey, yeah, we agree with the decision to hold Georgia accountable over this voting rights bill,” and so we reached out at OutKick, Buck, and we said, “Hey, Coke, you’re one of the primary sponsors of those people games that are going on right now in Beijing. Just wondering, have you condemned genocide in China?

“Because you said Major League Baseball was right to pull the All-Star Game away from the Braves, but yet with your giving all of this money to the Beijing Olympics and you aren’t saying a word about China. So explain to me how you can be supportive of the All-Star Game being pulled out of Atlanta but you’re not simultaneously also holding China accountable for genocide.” And this is emblematic, Buck, of the propaganda, and I wonder on some level, “Hey, is this coming from Disney?” that they’re so stupid that they would even make that argument and nobody would push back against it.

BUCK: There are two very big components of all this that I think — when everyone — when all of our people right now listening with us across the country keep in mind, it all adds up, right? I mean, yeah, it’s unprincipled, it’s ridiculous, it shows what a bunch of phonies they are. But you have to remember. The whole point of so much of the corporate virtue signaling that went on, let’s say, with Black Lives Matter as a movement was built around two things: virtue signaling and fear, right? You get points for this among your peers in America. People think if you’re the executive who’s running a company and you put out a statement… Remember some of the companies? I can’t even… I feel like Tide makes the detergent and they were saying, “We stand with Black Lives Matter!”

CLAY: No. I got an email from Chewy, ’cause we buy stuff for our animals. Do I need to know what the pet food company thinks about Black Lives Matter?

BUCK: But it’s important to establish this because we know that corporate America does pretend that it will mobilize on purely human rights and humanitarian grounds. But it’s a fraud, and that’s why the China thing is so interesting, because whether it’s ESPN or any number of other companies — and we’re talking about what’s going on in China to the Chinese people in terms of the repression, the one-child policy, forced sterilization.

You add on top of that as well — and that’s been going on for decades — the mass starvation of Mao’s Great Leap Forward and the Great Famine, in recent memory, folks. This is back in the sixties. It isn’t that long ago. You add all of this together, the crimes of the Chinese Communist Party and you say to yourself this is a monstrous regime and is still doing monstrous things today. Why not speak out against them?

Well, because corporations that mobilize in support of BLM, they want to look cool in front of their friends and peers, and they also don’t want to lose access to the Chinese market. Point here being, they don’t take a stand out of bravery. They’re actually taking a stand out of self-interest and all these companies that sit there now and say nothing about China are just exposing — at some level — their cowardice, actually.

Because why not do something here? Why not say that what’s going on in China is reprehensible? At least put out one of those… What did you say, Chewy? At least Chewy should put out a “we stand on human rights in China” so we know where Chewy stands on that issue. But, no, apparently not.

CLAY: Buck, by the way, does this stun you as somebody who hasn’t paid a lot of attention to sports? You would expect maybe a conversation like that to take place on MSNBC or CNN with one of their guest experts. But ESPN, this is ostensibly a sports network, and they are totally espousing Chinese propaganda, and many people out there watching it are not — let’s be honest — really paying attention to geopolitical issues. Which to me makes the propaganda land even better, right, because you aren’t realizing the impact of what you’re hearing.

BUCK: Oh, of course and this is why the control that the left has of entertainment and of Hollywood and of sports media, which I have learned a lot from you. I also remember a lot of conservatives were saying… See, Clay, I understand and respect that you want to fight for something you love.

CLAY: From the inside, yes.

BUCK: You don’t want to hand over the NFL and the NBA to the woke mob to ruin and destroy forever. I get that. I never had quite a love for these things; so when I see what’s going on here, I’m just out, right? I choose to non-participate in those things. I remember there were a lot of people on the right who felt that way about two years ago and they’ve now, oh, you know, now it’s all fine.

But sports media is absolutely an effective tool for propaganda because a lot of people don’t realize that they’re being preached to on these issues. And of course, this is the old Jon Stewart routine on The Daily Show. “Oh, I’m going to give you all this political propaganda,” and then when we push back it’s, “Oh, come on. He’s just a sports guy or gal,” “Oh, come on!” With Jon Stewart it was, “I’m just a comedian man.

“There are people doing crank phone calls before me.” Really? Because you interviewed the secretary of defense under Bush and if you tell him on the hot seat and wanted to be taken seriously. You know, Jon Stewart was clown nose on/clown nose off, and I think people realize there’s a dishonesty in that. You see a lot of it in the sports media, too.

CLAY: All the time.