The Book of James by Valerie Babb

Author:Valerie Babb [Babb, Valerie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Published: 2023-11-28T00:00:00+00:00

Back in the United States, Houston GM Daryl Morey tweets out sentiments that the Chinese government takes as an attack. And we’re the most high-profile American citizens in China at the time. Now he’s made things very hot for us. We were supposed to appear at a Special Olympics benefit event in Shanghai. You can see this giant twelve-story billboard from our hotel, which is advertising our appearance, and we watch in awe as they take it down.

There are people surrounding the hotel where we’re staying. We’re getting death threats from pro-government people. We can’t leave. We didn’t practice. We didn’t take any tours. We just came over here because it’s our job to play the game, because the league wants to make money in the huge market. Now we’re not entirely sure if and when we’re going to see our families again.12

For James and others, it was a matter of personal safety. Criticizing the sending of a tweet, not its content, James observed in an interview, “So many people could have been harmed, not only financially but physically, emotionally, spiritually. Just be careful what we tweet, what we say and what we do.” He later added a clarification: “I do not believe there was any consideration for the consequences and ramifications of the tweet. I’m not discussing the substance. Others can talk about that. My team and this league just went through a difficult week. I think people need to understand what a tweet or statement can do to others.”13 The Daryl Morey tempest cost the league between $150 million and $200 million, though “cost” might be a relative term for a league with $8.3 billion in earnings. At any rate, by 2022 the kiss and make up between the NBA and China had started, and Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai invited Qin Gang, then Chinese ambassador to the US, to the Barclays Center to see the Nets play the Sacramento Kings on Valentine’s Day 2022.14

Response to James’s tweet about Morey came from all areas and demonstrated his international reach. Abroad, Hong Kong fans posted tweets of disappointment, some burned his jersey, and one was videoed holding the sign lebron is wrong. kanter is right. freedom is goat.15 At home, conservative politicians used the tweet to cast doubt on James’s credibility as a social advocate and, by extension, on his agenda. “This kind of garbage is hard to take.… News flash: people are being harmed—shot, beaten, gassed—right now in Hong Kong. By China. By the Communist Party the NBA is so eager to appease,” commented Missouri Republican senator Josh Hawley, the same Josh Hawley who would later raise a clenched fist in support of white supremacists storming the US Capitol. “It’s sad to see him join the chorus kowtowing to Communist China and putting profits over human rights for Hong Kong,” observed Florida’s Republican senator Rick Scott, who would refuse to condemn Donald Trump as an instigator of the January 6, 2021, riots.16

On the domestic front, James’s footing was surer.

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