Gu Follow Up

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So this Eileen Goog who we're talking about a couple
of things. Number one, yesterday, I was saying she renounced
her citizenship. It is possible, and it's difficult to know
because China is really secretive about this, that they've developed
some weird exception because you know, there it's a dictatorship.
They can do whatever they want. That she's been granted
special permanent residency status and they didn't actually make her

(00:23):
give up her citizenship, although she won't talk about that.
She and her people refused to say anything on the topic.
They just say, I'm as American as I am Chinese.
But I thought this was interesting. Sports Illustrated had a
big article about this online written by I was going
to commit this commemory Michael Rosenberg and Jack, You're gonna

(00:45):
love this. I'm just gonna read this to you, um.
And they talk about Goo grew up in California to
a Chinese mother, spent a few months every year in
China when she was a child, and in twenty chose
to compete internationally for China even though she's an American.
And they say Sports Illustration said, it certainly does not

(01:05):
mean in itself that this teenager endorses the Chinese government
and its policies by that logic. MICHAELA. Schiffrin represented Donald
Trump in eighteen and Joe Biden this week. That's not
how the Olympics workers should work, reasoning, Oh my god,
you've got to be freaking kidding me. Yeah, can you believe?
How how do you type that sentence? Then go back

(01:26):
when you're rereading your work and think, Yeah, that's some
good sound logic. I'm gonna leave that in there. I mean,
I hate to even have to point out how ridiculous
that is the question of a nation in its entirety.
It's system, not like the individuals who temporarily are custodians
of that symptom. That system. Rather, that's what a terrible comparison.

(01:50):
But then he writes, it is fair to wonder whether
Good chose to compete for China because she can make
exponentially more money that way. But we should be careful
with assumptions, etcetera, etcetera. Uh. Still, there's something chilling about
the Chinese government using goo as a pr weapon. You
think China is facing increasing and deserved pressure for its
atrocious human rights record, squelching a political descent and religious freedom,

(02:13):
and it is deploying an eighteen year old girl from
California as a shield. Chinese law prohibits tool citizenship, and
this has led to speculation about whether Goose surrendered or
US passport to compete for China. Twice just after the competition,
reporters asked her about it. Goo was asked the same
question again multiple times in her press conference. Each time
her answers seemed like they were spit out of a
government computer program. I kept looking to see if she

(02:35):
pushed a button on her risk before she spoke. Yeah.
So we got a bunch of texts yesterday from people
say she did not renounce her citizenship. What's your proof
of that? She won't answer the question, and that's Chinese law.
Now maybe she didn't like Joe said, but shut up.
So something incredibly hinky is going on regardless, right, I
should have gotten this tape, but anyway, I'll read it too.

(02:57):
Did you have to give up your U S citizenship
to compete for China? A reporter asked one of many times,
and she announced, I've always been super outspoken about my
gratitude to the US, especially the U S team. I
feel as though they've helped me out so much in
my development. They continue to support me. The same with
the Chinese team. They've always been super supportive and they
helped me so much. And so in that sense, I

(03:18):
think that that speaks volumes to the ability of sport
to bridge the gap and to be a force for unity.
That's a yes. That's a yes. And I'll bet China
did make her renounce her US citizenship and did not
make an exception for because they want to have something
on her. If she decides to all of a sudden
get a little too yappy within those reporters, they grab her.
She's not a US citizen anymore. It's not the same

(03:41):
um political problem as it would have been otherwise if
they grab a Chinese citizen, and they are nothing if
not calculating the Communist party in Chinnel. If the answer
was no, I didn't, then she would have said, no,
I didn't like this, I liked this couple of sentences
after that long, long, long answer. This is like responding
to what is your favorite flavor of ice cream? With

(04:03):
an eighty word answer about your appreciation of milk cows.
Goo obviously made a deal. The only question is what
were the terms. If Chinese officials allowed her to maintain
her US citizenship, it would likely be under the condition
that she keeps quiet about it lest the world know
they violated their own law. If they forced her to
give up her U s citizenship, that would bring backlash
in the States. You might better not see her on

(04:24):
a freaking Wheaty's box or anything like that. She is
a traitor to her nation. Oh there's there's more. When
asked if again to clarify her citizenship status, she demurred, yeah,
I'm First of all, I'm an eighteen year old girl.
I'm a kid. I haven't even gone to college yet.
I'm a pretty normal person. She ended the non answer
with this, if people don't have a good heart, they

(04:46):
won't believe me because they can't emphasize with people, empathize
with people who have a good heart. And so in
that sense, I feel as though it's a lot easier
to block out the hate now. And also they're never
going to know what it feels like to win an
Olympic gold medal. Wow, that was an interesting circled back
around to the gold medal thing. Yeah, wow, what the
and again ordered the enormous incomprehensible word salad, who ordered

(05:08):
the world's word salad. So this gal is, it turns out,
already has zillions of dollars worth of modeling contracts because
she's got wide set eyes and puffy lips, and so
she's making tons of money as a model. Well, what
could both countries and a spokesperson and a sex symbol
and the rest. What could be greater for China than

(05:28):
have her be the big successful model who left the
United States for China, Because not only are we a
better place to live, we're a better economic system, right
right yep. For instance, Goog counts American companies such as
Red Bull, Victoria's Secret, and Oakley among her sponsors. And
she's modeled for est Lauer, Tiffany and Company and Louis A. Ton.

(05:51):
She's a regular fixture in fashion magazines and on action
sports tours, etcetera, etcetera. Screw her, and screw anybody who's
trying to gloss over this story and act like it's
not something. It's something. Yeah, absolutely it is, and the
idea that and and again I tweeted angrily about this

(06:11):
the other night NBC went they bent over backwards with
an elaborate package. That's kind of an industry term for
they had sounded, they have video, and they have a
telepropter to read. I got an elaborate package. Oh boy,
keep it to yourself. But anyway, so they have this
package all designed to convince us that we should love

(06:32):
and admire this international, incredible, beautiful young woman. It was disgusting.
You can't. They attempted to, and maybe some people bought it.
You can't twist that into a feel good story. Now again,
I keep saying, if you're old enough to remember, can
you imagine one of our top athletes going to compete

(06:53):
for the Soviet Union and winning a gold medal against
the United States? No, you can't imagine that, sure, sure,
or Hitler's Germany for instance. Oh, by the way, Jesse
Owens decides, so he'd be a particularly odd choice as
a black man. But ah, you know, a top athlete
for the United States goes and competes for the h

(07:13):
for Hitler's Germany and wins the gold medal against US.
Isn't this a great story of multiculturalism? No, no, it's not.
Isn't that amazing? Jesse Owens? He speaks German and English,
he's a he was very handsome man. Uh. He has
modeling contracts in Germany and endorses a variety of German products.
It's so special that he spans both countries and there

(07:34):
he is with Hitler. Isn't that exciting? Says NBC. It
was bizarre. By the way, it's probably worth mentioning this.
I just think it's an interesting illustration of history. In
the way history works, history always gets boiled down to
like one thing, whether it's a war or a kingdom

(07:55):
or a king or a country or whatever. It gets
boiled down to the point where it's so grossly oversimplified
you really don't know anything about it whatsoever. And I
read a great piece pointing out that UM in the
thirties Hitler had actually the Games were awarded to Germany,
both the Summer and Winter Games were awarded to Germany

(08:18):
for nineteen thirty six, prior to the Nazis rise to power,
and Hitler was very very intent on the Olympics coming
off well in the way she's in ping is right now,
um And and they write by the story we often
tell ourselves is that the Olympics were an embarrassment to Hitler.
Jesse Owens, the black American track star, came to Berlin

(08:39):
won four gold medals. So much for the Nazis, master right,
you know that's funny. That's what I've been told in
documentaries about this my whole life.