J.A. Adande, director of sports journalism at Northwestern University, said out loud on ESPN’s Around the Horn that genocide is the same as voter ID laws. He also claimed we have “agents of the state” blasting away unarmed citizens.
The Around the Horn Twitter account even tweeted out the segment. Someone actually thought it was a good idea.
I could not find the whole show, but from what I can tell no one pushed back. Host Tony Reali sort of tried to, but did not make it obvious.
Reali even mentioned China’s genocide and human rights abuses in the country against the Uyghurs and everything they’ve done to Tibet before going to Adande.
I transcribed it for you guys:
J.A. ADANDE: Who are we to criticize China’s human rights records when we have ongoing attacks by the agents of the state against unarmed citizens and we’ve got assaults on the voting rights of our people of color in various states in this country so sports, I think it is possible and it is necessary more than ever to just shut everything out if you are to enjoy the actual games themselves.TONY REALI: I appreciate everything you just said there…Just to follow up here, specifically on China here, we’re talking about human rights violations, we’re talking about genocide and the IOC chose China. Specifically said yes we will go there while maintaining they are for human rights and things of that nature and sports can conquer that. How do you view it?J.A. ADANDE: Well, again, where can you choose that’s free? And look at some of the other recent hosts of the game including Russia and some other recent places. It’s very hard to find a country that isn’t problematic when it comes to human rights including here. Remember we had athletes boycotting going to Mexico City because of the human rights issues in the United States in 1968, most notably Kareem Abdul Jabbar. I think we can bring attention to it. I think it’s notable that we did have a Uyghurs participant lighting the torch and hopefully this will be used to bring attention to it.
Yes, dude, the Chinese Communist Party totally picked a Uyghur to light the torch out of the goodness of its heart.
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