The words “Black Lives Matter” are also seen in bold white lettering on the back of the shirts just below the two most recent victims’ names. In Minneapolis, the shirts caused an uproar among off-duty cops, as they dramatically walked out of a Lynx game. After wearing shirts with the hashtag Black Lives Matter and Dallas5 for one game, the Liberty reached what the players said was a compromise, wearing plain black shirts bearing only the Adidas logo. As such, the WNBA handed each team a $5,000 fine and each player who took part in the protest a $500 fine.
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The president of WNBA, Lisa Borders in an attempt to protect the position of the league, released a statement to the AP saying, “We are proud of WNBA players’ engagement and passionate advocacy for non-violent solutions to hard social issues but expect them to comply with the league’s uniform guidelines”. “You can support both things, but at the same time, this issue is important to us”. Wright said. “We don’t want to let anybody silence us in what we want to talk about”. Its a right or wrong issue.. WNBA rookies such as New York’s Adut Bulgak make roughly $40,000, so the fine is about one-eightieth of a first-year player’s salary. The Mercury’s Kelsey Bone, the Fever’s Briann January and the Seattle Storm’s Alysha Clark spoke out about what they called the WNBA’s hypocrisy.
The Liberty’s play on the court has been strong this season, but the players’ commitment to social activism is perhaps even stronger – and a bit costly.
Liberty guard Tanisha Wright told the New York Times that it is unfortunate that the WNBA isn’t supporting players when they want to use their voices and platform to advocate about police brutality.
ESPN’s Anita Marks thinks Anthony and his fellow athletes calling for change should step up in solidarity and pay the fines for the WNBA players.
“We want the players to know that we have supported them in the past, support them today and will continue to support them in the future”, she said. Directly. And we need them to be just as supportive with this issue as they were with any other issue. The WNBA president, who just weeks earlier complimented players for their willingness to take a stand, has to protect the brand and enforce WNBA rules. “Knowing the player I am representing this organization, if anybody was going to wear it, it had to be me”. “We made an effort to support them and we were trying to get them to come to the table to have a conversation”.
“While we recognize that the National Basketball Association cannot choose the law in every city, state, and country in which we do business, we do not believe we can successfully host our All-Stars festivities in Charlotte in the climate created by HB2”, said the statement. We believe in them.
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Shortly after Silver’s statement, the players stopped wearing the shirts but have continued discussions with the league on engaging in a public dialogue on the issues. “I don’t think anyone should be fighting that at this moment”.
