No, no, ya can’t selectively be a social justice warrior, says former ESPN anchor Bob Ley. Appearing on Michelle Beadle’s What Did I Miss? podcast, he slammed people crying crocodile tears over the Saudi Arabian LIV golf league while looking the other away on China’s horrific human rights abuses.
That means you, “LeChina” James, the big virtue signaler who's dead silent when it comes the Chinese commies who pad his bank account.
More than 20 pro golfers opted for LIV golf over the PGA Tour to join the Saudi-backed pro league, prompting criticism for allegedly “sportswashing” the Saudi government’s human rights abuses.
The NBA and James, et al, are the grand champions of sportswashing when it comes to China, Ley pointed out. NBA owners and players are taking blood money from China, and their hypocrisy is off the charts.
Ley said, “It’s real easy to be pissed off and angry about LIV Golf and the Saudis. All I ask for is philosophical and ideological consistency. Apply it to China consistently, LeBron.”
A charter member of the ESPN broadcast team and an Emmy Award-winning anchor there for 40 years, Ley exposed James for making a big “human rights activist” name for himself while kissing off the victims of China’s communist oppression.
“China has as many issues as any other country, and is the outrage tempered by the popularity of the sport and the dollars at stake?” Ley asked, and explained:
“LeBron, I think, has a responsibility, and an opportunity more importantly. And it’s easy for people to come to the conclusion that players, at a time when social voice and equity are very much a part of sports, more so than ever before, here’s an opportunity to make a stand. If you are a billionaire, you can afford to perhaps make a stand and at least become educated … and freedom of speech is a different thing, and is there an opposition party in China? Not in at least 60 years.”
Ley said those who “wanna get a froth about LIV Golf” need to take a breath and affirm China’s inhumanity. “Are we comfortable dealing with a nation like that and putting it all on the table?” Ley said. “Those are questions people have to answer.” Especially NBA people.
Beadle, a former ESPN personality herself, said her knowledge of China’s human rights abuses is toe deep. We Americans can all see police abuse in our face, cops shooting black men, in the U.S. because “it’s there,” she said. But we don’t see it in China and it would take a significant amount of research and in-depth studying to affirm it, and a lot of people don’t do that.
Ley affirmed that it takes work to be involved as a concerned citizen. Especially a concerned citizen who isn’t connected at the hip to China like James is. Let's just say China knows the routing number of James' bank all too well.
Beadle quickly provided shade for James and the NBA by changing the subject to soccer after that.
