The Abhorrent Double Standards of the Left in Sports As Well As in Every Other Aspect of Life

A few years ago, the removal of Confederate flags was proceeding apace when the valiant leftists' next heroic step got into high gear, the destruction or removal of Confederate statues — something that was inevitably praised across the leftist sphere.

Mentioning a slippery slope after the Charlottesville riots, President Donald Trump said (in a speech that was deceitfully reported to make the president sound racist) that this would eventually lead to objections to the American flag, as well as to the banishment of statues and depictions of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson — something that was mocked across the leftist sphere.

(This is something I too had predicted, back in June 2015, just as I predicted in October 2008 that charges of racism against the United States, in spite of the (then-hypothetical) election of a black man, will never cease…) 

It didn't take long for the drama queens (i.e., the very people who had mocked Trump) to prove the Donald (and myself) right. Indeed, in 2016 (after eight years of a black president), a professional sportsman managed to unite leftists in awe, as the football player — one Colin Kaepernick — started kneeling during the national anthem, for the salutary reason to protest police brutality as well as racism in the USA. Since the Star-Spangled Banner ain't Dixie, isn't brave brave Sir Colin's virtue-signaling akin to protesting, if not (yet) demanding the outright removal of, not the Stars and Bars but the Stars and Stripes?!

In the meantime, Democrats lashed out at the Deplorables, past and present, renaming the Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner — twice — while the banning of statues, murals, tapestries, and other images of people with no relation whatsoever to the CSA were implemented or at the very least solemnly discussed, from Christopher Columbus to George Washington, with the epitome being a religious school removing a statue of… Jesus Christ. Meanwhile, the tch-tching of the flag continued apace in various places (not least on T-shirts in high schools) around the country, with Ol' Glory banned or at least frowned upon.

Victor Davis Hanson calls this waging war against the dead:

Not since the iconoclasts of the Byzantine Empire or the epidemic of statue destruction during the French Revolution has the world seen anything like the current war on the past. In 2001, the primeval Taliban blew up two ancient Buddha statues in Afghanistan on grounds that their very existence was sacrilegious to Islam. In 2015, ISIS militants entered a museum in Mosul, Iraq, and destroyed ancient, pre-Islamic statues and idols.

Bursting with valor, corporations were/are quick and eager to jump on the leftists' ban(d)wagon, introducing unisex bathrooms, banning the (legal) sale of firearms, or hiring Kaepernick as their spokesman — and obeying his dictates regarding their (US, not CS) flag-depicting products.

Let us swoon with admiration and praise to the high heavens the insight, the courage, and the activism of these outstanding individuals and of those first-rate institutions.

The praiseworthy institutions include, needless to say, members of the mainstream media such as the New York Times. As it happens, the newspaper of record has weighed in on historical matters three times in the past month or so: the 1619 Project, China's communist revolution, and the 9-11 attacks.

• Related: 1619, Mao, & 9-11: World History According to the NYT — Plus, a Remarkable Issue of National Geographic Reveals the Leftists' "Blame America First" Approach to History

From the Times, we learn that the Founding Fathers, who in any case are (despicable) racists, turn out to have little to no real hand in the actual founding. As Lyman Stone puts it,

the 1619 Project … isn’t mostly about helping Americans understand the role played by plantation agriculture in American history. It’s mostly about convincing Americans [and foreigners alike (!)] that “America” and “slavery” are essentially synonyms.

One should feel at least a little bit bad about being American, because, as several articles are reported to say, the United States, in its basic DNA, is not a liberal democracy, constitutional republic, or federation. It’s a slave society. 

Indeed, America is uniquely, demonically evil, we are taught by the drama queens.  This is reflected, moreover, in the death of every citizen, if black, at the hands of a policeman, if white, which deserves universal condemnation and shows that the nation of 300+ million deplorables is in fact a nightmare.

Shame, America! Shame! SHAME!

Regarding China and the Muslim world, on the other hand, there is not anything resembling a sh•thole in sight.

Indeed, writes the Times, Mao Zedong "began as an obscure peasant" and "died one of history's greatest revolutionary figures."  (By the way: don't forget that Trump ‘May Be Responsible for Many More Millions of Deaths’ than Hitler, Stalin, and Mao.) So, China's communist founder, who went out of his way to murder 45 million people, deserves nothing but praise and hagiography; while America's revolutionaries must be condemned irrevocably for having slaves (which was part of daily life at the time, including, yes, in Asia and in the Middle East).

As for the anniversary of 9/11, the "newspaper of record" sent out a commemorative tweet ignoring the Islamist terrorists ("airplanes took aim") and managing to downplay the number of the victims (is 2977 closer to "more than 2000" or simply to "nearly 3,000"?).

It's good to know that there are places outside the horrific United States that are so much better to live in than in that Yankee nightmare.

From America's newspaper of record, therefore, we are happy to learn that there does not seem to be any (or much) racism in China or in the Muslim world, there does not seem to be a single slave among the Chinese nor among the Muslims (nor has there ever been one throughout their respective histories), while deaths at the hand of the authorities in communist countries and in Muslim countries are just about unheard of. No, there is nothing about China or the Muslim world to be offended about or simply agonize over.

No deplorables outside the U.S. of America, the superwoke drama queens assure us.

This is what our children in the West are taught in schools. No wonder so many of our kids protest against their own country while thinking kindly of foreign concepts like socialism.

This all brings us to the NBA and ESPN, along with a (growing) handful of other companies.

So: woke and superwoke drama queens are heralded for their fight against oppression (when it — allegedly — concerns American deplorables alone), but…

Not only do the brave sportsmen of the NBA who courageously vowed to boycott North Carolina for its "inhumane" transgender bathroom policies refrain from protesting the Chinese flag or the communist anthem, not to mention Chinese repression (regarding the NBA or just in general); they censor their (own) speech, they clamp down on spectators' free speech, expelling them in the process, and they shut down journalists (even MSM reporters).

Blizzard Entertainment bans a gamer for supporting the Hong Kong protests, Marriott Hotels fires an employee for liking a tweet by a Tibetan separatist group, Tiffany removes an ad that offends the Chinese, and to top it all, a University of Arizona honcho — naturally! — implies that China's human rights record (or lack thereof) cannot be condemned because of… America's Second Amendment. Oh, and let's not forget brave brave ("Oh goody, let's make another movie denouncing American society") Hollywood destroying the career of Richard Gere years ago for echoing the demands of his friend the Dalai Lama. Nor should we forget the brave brave world of graphic novels for denouncing the "dark side" of America in one comic book after the other.

The assessment in the New York Post of Miranda Devine, who has more on Apple, Google, Mercedes-Benz, Qantas, Air France, Air Canada, and British Airways, is harsh:

The NBA’s kowtowing to China’s bullying is proof, if you ever needed it, that woke capitalism is a sick con job. It is the opposite of “standing for something.”

ESPN enters the fray by forbidding the discussion of Chinese politics during… a discussion of the tweet about Chinese internal politics. Not only is there no opposition to the Chinese flag or the communist anthem or the Chinese leader, there is not even any opposition to a depiction of China's map, i.e., to Chinese propaganda. It's nice when you get clarifying signs.

Regarding Ramona Shelburne's original tweet: In view of the fact that leftists' (self-serving) attitudes have "deeply offended many of [y]our friends and fans in [the United States]", how about referring to that as "regrettable" and showing just a little respect (not even great respect is demanded) "for the history and culture of [the United States]" while using sports "as a unifying force to bridge cultural divides and bring people together"?

Update: We’re Not Exporting Our Values to China — We’re Importing Theirs warns Jim Geraghty:

As of this writing, not a single player, not a single coach, not a single owner has spoken out in support of Morey. You couldn’t get all those guys to agree on any topic in domestic American politics. But for the first forty-eight hours of this controversy, the opinion of everyone associated with the NBA was uniform. Our relationship with China has not made them more like us. It has made us more like them.

Think about it: we have no shortage of professional athletes who are willing to publicly denounce American cops who they deem abusive and brutal. But everybody’s looking at their shoes as the cops in Hong Kong beat the hell out of anybody in a mask and shoot people at point-blank range.

Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr has plenty to say when the topic is mass shootings, Donald Trump, or Colin Kaepernick. But suddenly he finds the topic of Hong Kong just too complicated and “bizarre” for him to comment.

Update 2 (via Instapundit): Nike updates Kaepernick slogan, “Believe in something, unless it upsets the Chinese government”
Update 3: Nike Announces Partnership With Chinese Communist Party With New Slogan “Just Obey It”
 
Related: The Confederate Flag: Another Brick in the Leftwing Activists' (Self-Serving) Demonization of America and Rewriting of History (June 2015) 
• As We Predicted in 2008, Accusations of American Racism Would, and Will, Never Cease (January 2017)
• To What Extent Is It Racist to Vote Against Barack Obama in November 2008? (October 2008)