Meet the artist who painted Enes Kanters' shoes calling out Chinese oppression
“The genocidal Chinese government and the insecure tyrant behind it all, Xi Jinping, must not be allowed to host the upcoming Winter Olympics"
Boston Celtics center Enes Kanter laced up in customized shoes calling for the 2022 Winter Olympics to be moved out of China when his team was in D.C. Saturday to take on the Wizards.
The shoes were painted by Khenzom Alling, a student artist at Yale who Kanter found through the organization Students for a Free Tibet. Alling said in a DM her only instructions were to make a shoe for the No Beijing 2022 campaign. She chose a light blue to reference winter and juxtapose against the red dripping blood, which serves as “a reminder of ongoing violence” by the Chinese Communist Party, she said. The flags on the shoes represent “the five nations oppressed by China,” Alling said: Tibet, East Turkestan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Southern Mongolia, with alternative pro-independence protests flags used for Hong Kong and Taiwan.
“As a Tibetan, I am accustomed to the struggle of my people being overlooked by mainstream media and public figures,” Alling wrote on Instagram. “So to me, having such a courageous athlete wear shoes with the Tibetan flag represents a milestone in our movement to free Tibet and to boycott the Beijing Olympics.”
Since the 2021-22 NBA season started last month, Kanter has dressed out in multiple shoes created by dissident Chinese artist Badiucao criticizing China for the occupation of Tibet, internet censorship, and Uyghur oppression. We’ve seen athletes use their shoes to speak out before, but I’ve never seen anyone with Kanter’s commitment game after game. Impressive.
The 6’10” Celtics star even called out Nike last week in a pair of the brand’s Air Jordan 11s customized with red splatters and the phrases “Made With Slave Labor,” “Hypocrite Nike,” and “No More Excuses” (Nike and other companies were accused of using Uyghur slave labor to produce their products in a report last year, which Nike denied, and the company lobbied against the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in Congress).
Kanter’s activism has even gotten his team’s games banned in China after he posted a video on opening day calling on China to free Tibet. The Chinese app Tencent Sports pulled all Celtics games and highlights from its platform shortly after.
Kanter is a longtime critic of authoritarianism in his native Turkey and beyond. In a post about his No Beijing 2022 shoes, he was unequivocal, writing, “The genocidal Chinese government and the insecure tyrant behind it all, Xi Jinping, must not be allowed to host the upcoming Winter Olympics.”
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This post first appeared in the Nov. 2, 2021 newsletter.