His death and that of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge sparked protests across the country, including a Black Lives Matter march in Dallas that ended in the death of five police officers in a coordinated sniper attack.
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The New York Liberty, Phoenix Mercury and Indiana Fever were fined $5,000 and their players were fined $500 apiece for wearing plain black shirts instead of their normal warmup uniforms.
Liberty center Tina Charles responded to the fine by tweeting “I refuse to be silent” along with a pic of her wearing the black shirt.
“We really would appreciate the people stop making our support of Black Lives Matter and an issue that is so critical in our society right now, as our not supporting the police officers”, she said.
The basketball stars wore their uniform-approved Adidas Black t-shirts that read #BlackLivesMatter and #Dallas5 – but the messages did not comply with the league’s guidelines which state uniforms must not be changed in any way.
Anthony isn’t the only one speaking out against the fines the WNBA has levied against the teams. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver supported the players while noting that he preferred they “abide by our on-court attire rules”. You have a league that is 90 – if not above 90 – percent African-American and you have an issue that is directly affecting them and the people they know and you have a league that isn’t willing to side with them.
In their first games back since the fine, players for the Liberty and Fever, who happened to be playing against each other on Thursday, continued their protest by wearing ditching their team branded apparel and wearing black warm-ups. We want to be able to use our voices. Fever All-Star Tamika Catchings said that the league and the players are fighting each other.
“We were OK with that, we wanted to support that, but also they can’t pick and choose what initiatives to support and what not to support just because it doesn’t push their agenda”, Liberty guard Tanisha Wright said.
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I would hope the league would feel the same way about our desire 2 use this platform 4 the recent tragedies! “There’s a lot of women in this room right now, in the WNBA, who have family members who are in law enforcement…”
