Sen. Josh Hawley accuses NBA, celebrities of profiting from slave labor in China
Are U.S. companies profiting from Chinese slave labor while preaching social justice reform? Reaction from Jason Whitlock, partner and columnist at OutKick.com.
Outkick.com contributor Jason Whitlock on Wednesday explained why the National Basketball Association does not care about its United States audience as the league pursues massive financial interests in China.
“They’ve put the goals and the agenda of China ahead of the American agenda and that’s why it is so easy for them to sit on their thrones and smear America while overlooking the fact that there is Asian slave labor, and the Communist China Party are using a Lebron James, a Colin Kaepernick, a Nike to smear America,” Whitlock told “Ingraham Angle.”
Whitlock said that China’s plot to undermine American values is similar to the role Communist countries played against Western civilization historically.
“[China] smeared us with the race card when America is the worldwide leader when it comes to dealing with race. We dealt with it more effectively than any other country in the history of the world and we certainly deal with it a lot better than China,” Whitlock said.
SEN. JOSH HAWLEY BLASTS NBA FOR PULLING CUSTOM GEAR AFTER 'FREE HONG KONG' UPROAR
On Monday, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., introduced the Slave-Free Business Certification Act, which would “increase corporate supply chain disclosure requirements, mandates regular audits, requires chief executive officers to certify that their companies’ supply chains do not rely on forced, slave labor, and creates penalties for firms that fail basic minimum standards for human rights.”
“Corporate America and the celebrities that hawk their products have been playing this game for a long time – talk up corporate social responsibility and social justice at home while making millions of dollars off the slave labor that assembles their products,” the Missouri Republican said in a statement. “Executives build woke, progressive brands for American consumers, but happily outsource labor to Chinese concentration camps, all just to save a few bucks.”
Last week, Hawley blasted the NBA for pulling custom gear from its online store following the backlash the league received for blocking "Free Hong Kong" to be printed on its apparel.
Whitlock said that the NBA is striving to get a television contract in China that dwarfs the revenue they are getting domestically. He said estimates of the league deriving 20 percent of its revenue from China by 2030 is "very conservative," believing it is far larger.
“The influence of foreign countries is so strong in America that our sports leagues are bending. The NBA, [which] has a very global agenda that was David Stern’s vision: we’re going to make the NBA strong all across the globe. The NBA isn't’ concerned with its American audience. I don’t think they really care.”
On Monday of last week, the NBA was swept into controversy after a viral video showed that the online store could not process orders that used the text "FreeHongKong." Hours later, the store's operator Fanatics reversed what it suggested was a technical error that prompted the phrase to be "inadvertently prohibited."
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However, days after the incident, customers cannot find customizable apparel on both Fanatics and the NBA's online store. And returning to pages of specific jerseys showed that the products had been "discontinued."
Fox News' Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.
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