It's a concerning stance to take, but billionaire and Golden State Warriors minority owner Chamath Palihapitiya chose to preach about this stance on his show this week.
No one cares about what is happening to the Uyghurs, according to the quote from the All-In podcast. You bring it up because you care, and I think it's nice that the rest of us don't.
The Warriors distanced themselves from Palihapitiya's comments, writing that he "does not speak on behalf of our franchise, and his views certainly don't reflect those of our organization." I realize that I came across as lacking empathy and my belief is that human rights matter, that's why I issued an apology.
Palihapitiya made things worse by doubling down on his comments when challenged by his co-host. The point would have been better received if he had framed the statement as a commentary on the IOC and NBA's silence on the matter. But instead, he dismissed the hundreds of thousands of Muslim minority men and women being subjected to mass internment and torture since the beginning of the year. He didn't say that world leaders didn't care, but that he himself didn't care.
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act was signed by President Biden in December. The import ban on goods from Xinjiang will go into effect this June after the Act was passed by the House and Senate last month.
For the past few years, figures connected to the NBA have made headlines for their criticism of China's human rights record. The genocide of the Uyghur Muslims, as well as other human rights violations in China, have been spoken out against by the Celtics player. The Chinese called for Morey to be terminated after he supported the Hong Kong protests. The NBA has refused to support the statements of their athletes and executives. It achieved the impossible by getting Ted Cruz and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to criticize its decision to rebuke Morey, as the Chinese market is huge for the NBA.
If not officially representing them in that unfortunate moment, Palihapitiya said the quiet part of the NBA's stance out loud. The IOC is happy to overlook any and all red flags of human rights abuses that could hurt their profits from the Olympics. Should he be forced to sell his shares when he is simply investing in an organization that has done everything they can to maintain an economic relationship with China in the face of their own representatives calling for change?
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