Sports

Gulf widens between WNBA and players over protests

Bob CollinsBob Collins Jul 22, 2016
18

People who wanted WNBA players to just shut up and play basketball have gotten their wish. Sort of.

At least two teams are vowing to stop talking. About basketball.

After the New York Liberty’s game against the Indiana Fever on Thursday, Liberty veteran Swin Cash announced that players from both teams would refuse to answer questions about basketball.

The rift between the WNBA and its players appears to be widening after the news yesterday that the league fined players on three teams for wearing blank, black T-shirts as part of an ongoing statement on violence surrounding police and people of color.

“What we’re saying is black lives matter too,” Liberty player Tina Charles said.

Charles, who is going to the Olympics, says she’s hoping to get other WNBA teams to join in the expanded protest.

“If they’re trying to silence us on our platform wearing our t-shirts, then we can use [the media] as a platform and just use you guys to try to force this matter,” she told reporters.

“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. “A lot of women in this room and across the WNBA have family members who are in law enforcement and family who are in the military, and, so, that is not true.

“The fact of the matter is: there is an issue at hand and as much as we can grieve and feel sorry for those families that are losing the police officers, we also have the right and the ability to have our voice be heard about an issue that goes back even further than the deaths that happened lately. People need to understand it’s not mutually exclusive.”

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