Steve Kerr response to question about Chinese Human Rights Violations

It's not just that...it's the start different between THOSE progressive causes and THIS one. If you're going to speak out, speak out. If you're going to shut up, shut up. It's when you pick and choose that people will get riled up...which is what is happening here. He knows as much about China as he does the other things he speaks out on...yet suddenly he doesn't 'feel qualified'. He also clearly doesn't understand the difference between a GOVERNMENT harming its citizens vs random individuals doing so. Perhaps he can use some of this new found quiet time to reflect on the great number of things he probably doesn't know enough about.

 

Which is about as dumb a thing to get riled up over as Morey’s original tweet. People always pick and choose. No person can (or should try to) claim every issue as their thing they are passionate about. And if one doesn’t wish to make public comments about something they aren’t passionate about, that’s their choice. He has no moral obligation to chime in here with his viewpoint, if doing so can affect people he has a relationship with (like his players, or others he may know that works with NBA China).

I get the argument people are trying to make. Him not speaking out about China means he doesn’t care about human suffering, which means he really doesn’t care about gun violence. The problem is you can make arguments of this form to call out anyone who chooses to be politically active on an issue that matters to them. So, to me, that’s a cheap maneuver to attack someone you already have some other problem with. Which is all that’s going on here.

The reality here is that no one can say if him speaking out will have a net positive or negative effect on the situation there. There’s really no reason to assume it’s more likely to be positive than negative. So, who cares in any case he chooses not too offer some flaccid viewpoint, like “I support freedom”, just to appease people at home?

 

Note, I would not criticize him if he chose to speak out on China, if he cares about it and he has an informed opinion on it, That’s his choice.

The “he spoke here, but didn’t speak out there” attack is nonsense. Just “shut up and dribble”, repackaged.

 

Very good post, durvasa.

Will only say the 'who cares' would likely be China. So, the entire league is being mum on the topic, because they don't want to offend China. Good for business, gives plenty of ammo for your critics. Did you see the posts about people being removed from games IN THE US for holding signs supporting Hong Kong? The NBA is in a tricky spot here: don't want to offend China, but fans in the US upset that they are then also basically coming out against freedom. The supposed reason for the removal was 'no signs that incite violence'. Do you see a lot of violence here in the U.S over Hong Kong? No.

 

It is tricky, from an imaging standpoint. I think the instance you are referring to occurred at a Sixers game, and was made by team officials rather than the league. Should the NBA require all teams to allow anti-China signs in their arenas, even if it goes against the business interests of a given owner? Or should they give teams the "freedom" to make that choice on their own?

 

If they are going to leave it up to the whims of the owner, make that the policy. Right now it is supposed to be LEAGUE policy, and the policy they have which allows for removal is 'no signs which incite violence'. Do we have any violence here over Hong Kong? No. So, it was just a business decision. That's fine...but then make that your policy. "Owners can remove anyone they want from the arena at any time"...and see how THAT goes over with your season ticket holders.

Again, hypocrisy. Nothing new, in fact its the norm. It's just being brought out into the open now, and therefore the criticism. Has nothing to do with 'policy'. It's all about the moolah.

 

I had read articles as well as posts from people that were actually at the venue talking about that entire event. The guy and his wife sat behind the bench of the visiting Guangzhou team and showed "Free HK" signs. They had verbal confrontations with pro-China fans, who complained to the Wells Fargo Center staff about the signs. Then the staff took the signs (according to the policy, "signs must be in good taste, and appropriate for the event."). After that, they stood on the chair and yelled "Free HK" to the bench of the visiting team, which led to the removal. They were warned three times by the staff about their continued disruption of the fan experience before being escorted out. I personally see no problem for the staff doing that for the sake of other fans. It is too easy for people to just read a short post and interpret an event like that as a pro-China move. In reality, if a guy showed pro-Trump signs in a game, escalated confrontations with others, and ignored three separate warnings, I think there is a chance he would be removed as well. Here are official statements from the Sixers and Wells Fargo Center.

 

https://sports.yahoo.com/weeks-befo...d-tweet-about-hong-kong-rising-195734270.html





He avoided the question and went back to bashing America once he saw that narrative don't make his party money. He knows exactly what is going on.

People have no problem with political commentators who aren't massive hypocrites , but the media pushes the celebs who are because they want people like durvasa to blindly follow those making more money than them.

 

Go after Morey as strongly as you go after officials of other teams or black players, if you’re not a hypocrite. He went silent on this pretty damn quick.

 

Simple way out of this mess for Kerr that has proven to work on a good portion of the country - just say you were joking.

 

Basically this.

Someone like Harden saying "He loves China, is sorry and supports Adam Silver" doesn't bother me because he never said Morey was wrong, gave no opinion on Hong Kong, never said he loved the Chinese government and Silver said he supports free speech, so Harden supports that too. While Harden has given money and is somewhat involved in causes, he generally has attempted to get everyone to get along.

Steve Kerr on the other hand grew up in an incredibly politically informed and active family. His father was deeply involved in the fight for freedom of speech and free exchange of ideas. His own father died at the hands of intolerant and oppressive forces. Steve Kerr has a long history of stating he supports free speech and his players expressing their opinions on causes. Steve Kerr has made numerous comments on causes, offering opinions often, sometimes when they are not being solicited. Further Kerr's own brother is an expert on Chinese culture and history.

Yet suddenly Kerr has no opinion on whether a colleague should be fired for free speech? Suddenly he doesn't know enough to comment on a "very complicated" issue.......

It is bullshit, and at the end of the day Kerr and LeBron are no different that the corporations they criticize and the institutions that claim to fight against....... because as soon as they risk losing money, they do a 180..... at least guys like Jay Williams make it clear from day 1, it is about money.

JayZ's ass can be thrown in there with his dealings with the NFL. Doing the right thing isn't always easy...... and not everyone can do it....... and that is fine, but if you hold yourself out to be "woke", then your sorry ass better mean it.

Also, how much money do they need? They aren't living paycheck to paycheck.....

 

Well at least those in Hong Kong can still burn jerseys...... just not the Chinese flag.

I wonder if anyone will care when they are rolled over by tanks repeatedly until their bodies are turned into a paste and then washed down the sewer drains like the CCP did 30 years ago. In Tiananmen Square 10,000 were killed. Lets hope it isn't so bloody this time.

陳光誠 is a hero and an incredible man I consider a friend of mine. If more people had his bravery the world would be a better place.

 

Morey is just as chickenshit as Kerr and Lebron and the rest. The league said this was bad for business, and everyone fell in line. What I'd like to have seen is Silver say, Morey doesn't speak for the league but we support his right to speak his own mind. Come what may. Failing that, I'd sooner have everyone say "no comment" over insinuating that Morey's tweet was ignorant. I feel betrayed by the path they chose to go down.

 

Steve "Chinaman" Kerr really grew into his slur.

 

Some reports of the Tiananmen Square protests were biased or plain false. Leaked documents suggested that there was no massacre within the square. There were deaths in other areas of the city. The overall death toll is unclear. That 10,000 number is the highest among all the estimates and its accuracy is doubtful. A few other estimates put the number from hundreds to over 1,000. There were riots against the army. Some student leaders had planned to flee to the US long before the protest ended, which cast doubt on their actual motivations to organize the protest. The media reports on the tank man were extremely overblown. The man was not rolled over at all. Instead, he crawled onto the tank to talk to the soldier and then eventually got pulled away by others.

With the lesson of Tiananmen event and more advanced technologies, I do not think it is going to be very bloody even if the military is involved.

All in all, China is still a developing country and has many social issues.

 

Well that's more of the fault of the CCP than people here citing reports.

IMO, for China to move forward, it should open the windows on that chapter in history (among other things).
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/world/asia/china-tiananmen-square-massacre.html

Ms. Jiang said she believed that China’s stability and prosperity would be fragile as long as the party did not atone for the bloodshed.

“All this is built on sand. There’s no solid foundation,” she said. “If you can deny that people were killed, any lie is possible.”​

Just look at Japan. They're still not trusted in the region despite being the 3rd largest economy with "no military forces" and it starts with all their denials over their horrific war crimes during WW2. Everything can go to **** from just that trigger point. From S. Korea, let alone China.

France and Germany are the pillars of the EU right now, but they were at each others throats for almost a hundred years. Soviet aggression might've been the catalyst, but a key difference is because they both agreed to let their historians collaborate together and take an accurate account of WW2 w/o the bullshit and face saving lies.

Without piecing together that historical record, they would've allowed each other to puff up their own victories and fiercely deny their embarrassments as fake news decades and generations later.

I get that "face" is a big thing in Eastern cultures, but it's not like it's small potatoes in the West. Germans went from believing they were the Master Race into sharing a collective guilt that remains fairly strong generations later. But it's not like that guilt has crippled Germany into subservience or a second class status.

The old Japanese bastards maintaining the lie obviously don't think the younger generations can handle something simple as the truth...

Food for thought.

 

Kerr is fake garbage

 

Recently (2018) declassified British government reports from the British embassy put the death count at 10,000.... with the CCP police telling the protestors they had one hour to disperse... before opening fire and bayoneting then after only 5 minutes... they were set on fire after being killed and in some cases ran over by tanks. The CCP police then used large hoses to flush the burned and smashed “paste pies” into the sewer/drainage to clear the area.

What started out as a protest by students for basic human rights after Hu died, grew to over one million protestors in the Square area only a few weeks later.

Three days before the massacre the CCP bans all non CCP media from using cameras on reporting on the protests after pictures were published showing crowds with hundreds of thousands of protestors and peaking at an estimated 1.2 million.

The CCP was embarrassed that the world media was reporting that so many people in China were protesting for basic human rights. They were embarrassed that Gorbachev couldn’t appear at the Square. When the sheer numbers of protestors grew to over a million... the CCP soldiers were instructed to use force to solve the issue.

 

That is an nice suggestion. However, there could be political consequences if the government publicly supports a re-investigation. Several politicians who were related to the final decision still have influence to the national politics after retiring. Also, I doubt the government really wants more "democratic protest" especially after the HK riot, if that is what the movement is painted as. There could be re-investigations after 10 to 20 years but I don't think it is going to happen soon.

 

I don't think any of the living war criminals in Japan still have any visible standing either, and like that situation, civil rights/transparency is not a problem that will fade away for China in 10-20 years, regardless of the statuses of HK or other semi-autonomous regions.

There's a strong degree of skepticism for government bodies that can only be tempered by these deliberate acts. Each act serves as a step towards a long road in building a civil culture that fosters trust between the people and their government.

Americans have taken that culture for granted and it was no more apparent when Bush tried to nation-build Iraq only to see the government turn into a sham democracy. Well, how would their people know any better after living a whole lifetime of fear under one despot?

Cultures that foster civil liberties generally take a lot longer than 10-20 years, so who knows...