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Since for­mer San Fran­cis­co 49ers quar­ter­back Col­in Kaeper­nick side­lined his foot­ball career to protest injus­tice, he’s been very out­spo­ken on Amer­i­can issues of race and slav­ery from cen­turies ago. But Col­in Kaeper­nick is also a high­ly-com­pen­sat­ed face of sports retail­er Nike. And there­in lies the rub – the NFL play­er turn social jus­tice war­rior is notably silent on the slav­ery Uyghurs face in Chi­na where his name­sake Nikes are made.

Chi­na has detained Uyghurs and used them in forced labor. The Uyghurs are a Tur­kic-speak­ing Mus­lim minor­i­ty in Chi­na. This human atroc­i­ty is hap­pen­ing in the Xin­jiang region of Chi­na where Nikes are made.

China’s forced Uyghur labor is an ugly prac­tice. One very sim­i­lar to the pre-Civ­il war prac­tices that Kaeper­nick and his fel­low social jus­tice war­riors believe com­plete­ly soils Amer­i­can exceptionalism.

Except, rather than hap­pen­ing in the 19th cen­tu­ry, it’s hap­pen­ing right now in Chi­na. The dif­fer­ence appears to be that Kaeper­nick is prof­it­ing from it since Nike, who has giv­en him a wind­fall of cash, uses Ugy­hur labor.