Jason Whitlock may not be on ESPN or Fox Sports anymore, but he certainly gets his voice out there and is now able to speak more freely without the threat of losing his job.
The sports personality has never been a fan of athletes like Colin Kaepernick and LeBron James, even more so now that he thinks they are two of many current stars who are heavily influenced by China.
Whitlock recently joined ‘The Truth with Lisa Boothe‘ and called out several athletes for embracing “an anti-American sentiment” with their messages. Among those athletes were LeBron James, Serena Williams, and Colin Kapernick.
“All of our corporations want to improve their relationships with China. And so in the sports world, there’s nothing more powerful than Nike. It’s a 40 to $50 billion company. It’s bigger, more financially relevant and stronger than the NFL and the NBA combined,” Whitlock said, according to Mediaite.
“That’s why LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick, even Serena Williams, there are other spokesmen, they’ve embraced an anti-American sentiment in their public stances,” Whitlock told Boothe. “Because this improves their relationship with China. And this is why they’re so fearful of ever speaking out against anything that goes on in China.”
It was in 2019 when LeBron took major backlash for saying then-Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey “wasn’t educated” before he sent the tweet in support of antigovernment protesters in Hong Kong that damaged relations between China and the NBA.
“I don’t want to get into a [verbal] feud with Daryl Morey, but I believe he wasn’t educated on the situation at hand, and he spoke,” James said. “And so many people could have been harmed not only financially, physically, emotionally, spiritually. So just be careful what we tweet and say and we do, even though, yes, we do have freedom of speech, but there can be a lot of negative that comes with that, too.”
When asked why he thinks Morey wasn’t properly informed about the unrest in Hong Kong before he tweeted support for protesters, James said it is “just my belief.”
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“I believe he was either misinformed or not really educated on the situation, and if he was, then so be it,” James said. “I have no idea, but that is just my belief. Because when you say things or do things, if you are doing it and you know the people that can be affected by it and the families and individuals and everyone that can be affected by it, sometimes things can be changed as well. And also social media is not always the proper way to go about things as well, but that’s just my belief.”
As far as Colin Kaepernick goes, he has all been blackballed from the NFL after he kneeled during the playing of the National Anthem in 2016 to protest the treatment of minorities at the hands of police.
“China has a very cleverly, convinced a segment of the population, a healthy segment, that there’s no worse racism than what’s in America,” Whitlock said. “No one ever says, well, hold on, man, go look at China, go at- how do you think black people are treated in China? And not the celebrity, black people, not the basketball players, because China has a passion for basketball that’s unmatched around the world.”
