“Nobody cares about what’s happening to the Uyghurs, okay. You bring it up because you care and I think it’s nice that you care. The rest of us don’t care. I’m just telling you a very hard, ugly truth. Of all the things that I care about, yes, it is below my line.”
—–Golden State Warriors owner Chamath Palihapitiya, in an interview.
This statement, classic signature significance, neatly explains why the National Basketball Association remains metaphorically in bed with the brutal regime in China, why the Biden Administration refuses to hold the country responsible for its role as an international outlaw (and inflicting its virus on our population,economy and the world), and if you change just one word, why the United States allowed Hitler’s Final Solution to proceed as far as it did.
Give credit where it is due: at least Palihapitiya is being honest. As for his fellow owners, we can see that they feel exactly the same way through their conduct, but prefer not to say so out loud. It might cut down on the profits from souvenir NBA jerseys.
Palihapitiya, who is a part-owner of the San Francisco Warriors, added that he cares about climate change, economic ramifications if China invaded Taiwan, and the supply chain problems. If the U.S. is able to solve all its domestic issues, he said, then he might start paying attention to the plight of the Uyghurs.
Ethics Alarms 
He cares about economic issues, but not the fate of oppressed millions persons?
He is exactly the kind of cartoon capitalist that “the Left” has been railing against for decades….
They aren’t on his radar for the same exact reasons that fetuses aren’t.
You score absolutely no points for being honest about doing wrong things. You just don’t lose more for lying about it.
Oh, I think you have to get some points! Imagine how nice it would be to hear the news media say, “Yeah, we warp our reporting every day to support the policies, party and officials we like. You can’t trust us.”
I actually find it quite refreshing. Sure, he is a horrible person, but at least he owns it. You can have a discussion about the real issues when people are honest. When everyone is running around lying and pretending to be good people, no one can address any of the real problems. Everyone just argues about who is lying, what they are lying about, and which lies are worse. Your team lies more than my team! No yours does! Ugh.
From his wiki page: “After graduating from college, Palihapitiya followed his future wife, Brigette Lau, to California. They had three children together and divorced in 2018. Palihapitiya now lives in California with Nathalie Dompe, an Italian pharmaceutical heiress and model, CEO of Dompe Holdings who he started dating in 2018, with whom he has one child.”
Nice guy.
Somebody skipped their media relations training. Anyone who had their ego at least somewhat in check would know to follow the script.
As Aleksie suggests below, it should be very interesting to see how his or the Warriors’ or the league’s PR/crisis response teams follow this up.
Honestly, this rationale is exactly why the American public wasn’t more sympathetic to German Jews. Not our problem, fix our economy and domestic issues first, not our business to tell another country how to solve its problems.
And Hollywood behaved the same way, not wanting to risk German movie ticket profits.
There’s nothing new under the sun.
This would be a perfect moment to ask Chamath if he believes in systemic and/or structural racism. He will answer in the affirmative and talk about voter suppression, incarceration of minorities, Republicans putting y’all back in chains, etc. And then, like Columbo, you say, “oh, just one more thing”, would you say that arresting minorities and putting them in re-education campus would be considered a form of systemic racism. He will answerer affirmatively. Follow up with asking, if Uyghurs are minorities. Affirmative. What is your criteria for decrying systemic racism, is it only when in the US, is it only when it gives you brownie points, only when it doesn’t cost profits? Are you just a shameless pandering hack, that has the integrity of a slug, or are you actively evil? The answer will be authentic frontier gibberish. After media backlash, he will give a level 10 apology about how he misspoke, it’s not who he is, was inartful, will strive to do better, etc. As minority himself, he will get a “get out of jail” card this time. But he will have a stain, nonetheless.
So, on an ethics scale of 0 to 10, how’s this corporate response?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FJVO_soUcAE0B33?format=png&name=900×900