Daryl Morey and Adam Silver
Subsequently, the NBA was banned in China in early October. Coincidentally, a few days later, China’s trade war negotiation team arrived in the United States. At the beginning of the extremes of the matter, on October 10, the first phase of the trade war seemed to have hopes of being reached, and the US stock market suddenly had an uptrend. The incident began to cool down, and many NBA stars began to have the exact opposite rhetoric. On October 14, other broadcast platforms in China other than CCTV began to continue to broadcast NBA games, except Houston Rockets' game.
The most objective comment I have found on the show so far.
On the two days before Spain's National Day (10/12/2019), a few days after the NBA incident, the date that China and US have progress on trade war armistice negotiations, a group of 'people' (I don't know what to call them, the wrong word may hurt people on both sides and I do not want to support any sides because that's their own business) displayed an flag during Warriors pre-season game, intended to promote the independence of the Catalonia region.
This message seems to have been some sort of 'blockade' and it is not reported in most English news. I recommend you can search in other languages, such as Spanish, or read the news from Spain directly by your-self because that's the closest way to approach what their government and people thinking.
We can find out that this kind of offensive application of using social media has undoubtedly hurt others, and it may continue to expand to some other place, such as Scotland, or any area that has had residual effects after the two world wars and the colonial era.
Second, in my view, Adam Silver used a very clever groundswell method to 'shaken' people. I agree that people should have the right to speak freely, which is what Adam Silver said, but he did not say the latter sentence that we all know in the subconscious: we must be responsible for our words and deeds. There is an example that happened in 2014.
Donald T. Sterling (born Donald Tokowitz, April 26, 1934) is an American businessman who was the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers professional basketball franchise of the National Basketball Association (NBA) from 1981 to 2014.
'In April 2014, Sterling was banned from the NBA for life and fined $2.5 million by the league after private recordings of him making racist comments were made public. In May, Sterling's wife Shelly reached an agreement for the Sterling Family Trust to sell the Clippers for $2 billion to Steve Ballmer, which Sterling contested in court. The NBA Board of Governors approved the sale of the Clippers to Ballmer on August 12, 2014. Sterling settled his lawsuit against the NBA in November 2016 and remains active in Los Angeles real estate.' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Sterling)
From this case, we can know the NBA has a cognition that free speech has a boundary, offensive languages, such as discrimination and racial topics, should not be used in any case. But why almost nobody cares about the feeling about their fan in China?
Kobe Bryant and his Chinese fan
I think one reason that makes this happened is probably that we don't really know each other. We all know that the Physical Correctness of the United States in the last 20 to 30 years is about human rights and freedom, but does anyone know that a very important Political Correctness in China is about sovereignty? In the past 100 years, few wars have threatened the United States, but in China, in the past 100 years, we have been invaded, slaughtered, divided, and killed. We call that 'The century of humiliation (1839 - 1949), ' I think this is why people in other countries may not understand why the Chinese are so cautious and sensitive about sovereignty. I also think this is why this contradiction the outbreak is so intense.
I browsed the forums on both sides after the conflict broke out (10/8-10/14). I saw a lot of people complaining about each other and laughing at each other's shortcomings. I saw the words that most mentioned on social media in China is like 'f@&k America', and I also saw some similar things on social media in the United States--'f@&k China.' The funny thing is we have surprisingly consistent choices on both sides of the bad language. I think this phenomenon is a fierce collision between our Political Correctness and culture, and then through the amplification of the social networks, and finally create a conflict in the case of political needs.
Conclusion
This conflict has changed the views of the two sides on each other and has also brought history to a different direction. I am writing this article not to defend the Chinese government, nor to criticize the Americans. I hope that we can understand each other and respect each other. After all, complaints can't solve the issue. Only communication can truly understand each other and resolve differences.
What role did groundswell play in this incident? Do you think that sports should be mixed with politics?
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I am open for rational feedback. If you have any question please let me know.
I did not know about this conflict before reading your post, because I don't follow basketball, but I did know a little bit about the Hong Kong protests. I think conflicts like this have happened before, and will happen again, and there are definitely parallels to Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem. I don't think I can really understand the cultural impact of sovereignty in China because I'm not very familiar with the culture, but I think people generally get very fired up when it comes to national leadership and pride which is why I draw the connection to Kaepernick. I think if people want to get a conversation going about something political, televised sports are definitely a way to make that happen and I disagree with the idea that politics should be kept separate because I think to some extent everything is political.
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