Basketball Hall of Fame Honors J.A. Adande After He Defended Genocide in China
The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame named J.A. Adande the recipient of the Curt Gowdy Print Media Award on Saturday. The award honors a journalist each year for their written coverage of professional basketball.
The list of previous winners is estimable, including Michael Wilbon, Bob Ryan, and Peter Vecsey – three of the most accomplished sports writers of the past two generations.
Yet honoring Adande severely undermines the storied history of the award.
Two years ago, J.A. Adande appeared on ESPN and defended the genocide of Muslim Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region of China. He claimed genocide is no worse than how red states in the United States treat voters of color, as in requiring all voters to provide proof of identification.
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's necessary more than ever to just shut everything out if you are to enjoy the actual games themselves," Adande said.
For context, here is a look at how China treats Muslim Uyghurs and Adande what downplayed on ESPN:
According to Adande, states requiring voters to show proof of identification is just as wicked as killing, raping, torturing, and enslaving Uyghurs.
Monstrous. Nazi-like.
Shilling for a communist regime and genocidal maniacs on U.S. television should've disqualified Adande from any award honoring his courage as a journalist.
He's not courageous. He's a coward.
Adande tried to divert the conversation away from China's human rights violations toward a political fallacy that red state voting laws in the U.S. impede the voting abilities of black Americans, a narrative that black voters in Georgia continue to prove invalid.
Fox News host Will Cain condemned Adande's message on Fox & Friends:
"What you just saw right there is unacceptable," Cain said while playing the clip of Adande. "That is completely despicable. That was a commentator on ESPN comparing voter ID laws -- a proposition that 80% of Americans, both black and white and Democrat and Republican, support -- to genocide.
"This individual is not only an ESPN commentator but also the head of Sports Journalism at Northwestern University. That is the voice teaching future journalists out there, who will go out into the world. And by the way, that's the most prestigious -- emphasis on the word prestigious -- Sports Journalism department in the country."
Clay Travis agreed:
"As crazy as you think the political media is and as biased as you think the political media is, … sports media is a billion times worse. … People come home from work. They want to pop a beer. They want to find out who won a game. And next thing you know, you're watching J.A. Adande … spreading direct Chinese propaganda.."
"That is what China tries to argue: Oh, we may have genocide, we may have actual slave labor being used by Uyghar Muslims who are being made to pick cotton, to make tennis shoes, by the way. But you know, in the United States, there are disputes over whether or not Georgia has too restrictive of a voting bill. So it would be unfair for the United States to point out Chinese genocide. That is a Chinese propaganda message that is being propagated directly by ESPN. And it's so noxious."
Honoring Adande also raises questions about the validity of the Basketball Hall of Fame. China has already compromised much of professional basketball.
A recent report from ESPN found that 40 principal owners in the NBA have around $10 billion tied up in Chinese investments.
The players have tens of millions of dollars agreed to in contracts with show companies like Li-Ning and Anta that use slave-produced cotton from the Xinjiang region.
In 2019, LeBron James warned NBA players and officials to not criticize China, on account of said business dealings:
"Yes, we do have freedom of speech, but at times, there are ramifications for the negative that can happen when you are not thinking about others and only thinking about yourself," LeBron commented
No, Curt Gowdy Print Media Award-winning journalist J.A. Adande did not hold LeBron accountable for those comments. Of course, he didn't.
He wouldn't dare. Hardly anyone in the NBA media would.
The Chinese Communist Party appreciates an industry of reporters invested in vilifying the U.S., but never China.
The CCP appreciates the Basketball Hall of Fame honoring a willing stooge, in J.A. Adande, this past weekend.