(Ezekiel Loseke, Headline USA) Enes Kanter Freedom, a former star center in the NBA, exposed the hypocrisy of the NBA’s woke virtue signaling in a long form interview with renowned libertarian journalist John Stossel.
Stossel opened the interview describing Freedom’s protest against communist China, which led to China banning his team’s games and the player himself reportedly being blackballed by the NBA.
“That’s strange,” Stossel noted. “The NBA encourages protests about injustice in America.”
Stossel pointed out that the NBA has funded several anti-police and anti-American commercials, painted “Black Lives Matter” on its courts, and even encouraged players to kneel during the national anthem.
Freedom—who had his last name legally changed to call attentioned to his activism— explained to Stossel that he’d been politically active since the second year of his NBA career.
Early on, NBA had always supported his political activism. But that, he noted, was when he was criticizing his home country of Turkey, not China.
“China, it turns out, must not be criticized by an NBA player,” Stossel clarified, adding that “Kanter [Freedom] lost his job.”
Freedom went on to say that his activism against China was initially motivated by his attempt to avoid hypocrisy after being confronted by a fan about the Uyghur populations in Western China that have been forced into labor camps—and worse.
The fan asked him, “How can you call yourself a human rights activist when your Muslim brothers and sisters are getting tortured and raped every day in concentration camps in China?” Freedom recalled.
He took the challenge seriously, researched the abuses, and spoke out against the tyranny of communist China.
“When it comes to problems [that] are happening in America[,] [t]hey’re the first organization [to speak out],” he said. “[The NBA says] this is wrong. This is what should happen, blah, blah, blah right?”
Freedom explained that the ratings of the NBA go a long way toward demonstrating that the league’s protection of China is all about money.
“More people watch[ed] NBA games in China last year than [the] American population,” he reported. “Over 450 million [Chinese] people watched NBA games.”
Freedom reported that during a conversation with league commissioner Adam Silver, Silver blatantly lied about China canceling Celtics games and was willing to distort the truth to prevent a threat to their Chinese market.
Likewise, he reported speaking to other players who would agree with him privately but would not risk their endorsements, shoe deals or NBA contracts to oppose the communist tyranny.
Freedom clarified that there is more money in China for NBA owners than TV revenue.
“Forty NBA owners got tied up $10 billion in China,” he said.
Freedom specifically called out Lakers star Lebron James, an outspoken left-wing activist with whom he has feuded in the past, for his decision to turn a blind eye to China.
“When the things that you talk about affects your money and business, you’re going to shut up about it,” he said.
Stossel pushed back on Freedom, saying that the NBA stands with BLM and no Asian hate.
Freedom further pointed out that the NBA also purports to stand with Latinos, “the LGBTQ community” and “so many things that are happening in America.”
However, he highlighted a critical difference.
The NBA’s activism, “is not going to cost any money,” he said. The NBA opposes activism “as soon as the things that they talk about … cost them money.”
Recent examples may be the NBA’s decisions to back off its endorsement of BLM just a year after it embraced the protests and to mandate the playing of the national anthem at its games.
Freedom reported that the obvious hypocrisy regarding China has led to the exposure of the NBA’s total moral corruption.
“When it comes to China, now the whole world knows that they are bowed down to money and business and they have no morals, no values or no prayer principles,” he said.
