Former President Barack Obama has announced that he is joining the National Basketball Association to promote “social responsibility” in Africa.
Obama will assist the NBA to bring woke gender politics to African nations to push “greater gender equality and economic inclusion,” the league announced in a Tuesday press release.
The partnership will go deeper than mere cooperation, though. The NBA has also agreed to hand the Obama Foundation a minority equity stake in NBA Africa, the league’s division on the continent.
Obama praised the effort saying that NBA Africa will help spread the left’s ideas across the globe.
(Patrick Smith/Getty Images)
“The NBA has always been a great ambassador for the United States — using the game to create deeper connections around the world, and in Africa, basketball has the power to promote opportunity, wellness, equality, and empowerment across the continent,” Obama said in the Tuesday statement. “By investing in communities, promoting gender equality, and cultivating the love of the game of basketball, I believe that NBA Africa can make a difference for so many of Africa’s young people.
“I’ve been impressed by the league’s commitment to Africa, including the leadership shown by so many African players who want to give back to their own countries and communities. That’s why I’m proud to join the team at NBA Africa and look forward to a partnership that benefits the youth of so many countries,” Obama added.
For his part, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver insisted that there are “enormous growth opportunities” for sports in Africa.
“We are honored that President Obama has become a strategic partner in NBA Africa and will support our wide-ranging efforts to grow the game of basketball on the continent,” Silver said in the release. “In addition to his well-documented love for basketball, President Obama has a firm belief in Africa’s potential and the enormous growth opportunities that exist through sports. NBA Africa will benefit tremendously from his engagement.”
(Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Silver has made similar claims about the NBA’s partnerships with China, but thus far, the NBA’s Chinese affiliations have been all about money instead of furthering ideas about “inclusion.”
Still, in May, Silver claimed that the NBA’s interests in China are somehow like foreign policy and “building relationships” between nations.
“The political science major in me believes that engagement is better than isolation,” Silver exclaimed. “That a so-called boycott of China, taking into account legitimate criticisms of the Chinese system, won’t further the agenda of those who seek to bring about global change. Working with Chinese solely on NBA basketball has been a net plus for building relationships between two superpowers.”
Despite Silver’s flowery rhetoric about international engagement, the NBA and its players continue to ignore that their products are often manufactured using slave labor by the Chinese companies with which they deal. Yet, the players and league remain silent about China’s oppression.
Even as the NBA and its players are making millions with their lucrative deals with the red Chinese, not everyone is so blasé as Silver is about it all. For instance, in July of last year, U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn sent a letter to the league warning Silver that doing business in China necessarily means you must do business with the Communist Party.
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