The 2020 Women’s National Basketball
Association (WNBA) WNBA Season, which is taking place at the IMG Academy in
Bradenton, FL because of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic has been about
speaking out for social justice, especially against minority women, who have their
lives taken by those sworn to protect them. Along with that, the WNBA has also
taken this time to show their respect to an NBA great, who we lost late into
the first month of this year, who made it his business to show his love and
respect to a league that had a real impact on his second oldest daughter.
The WNBA began this season by paying their
respects as part of the “Say Her Name” campaign to Breonna Taylor, a
26-year-old Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) of Louisville, KY who was killed
in her own home by plain closed police officers, who shot into her home while
she was sleeping on Mar. 13 in a no knock warrant execution. The officers who
took her life are still walking free and have not been arrested for over
150-plus days.
Since the beginning of the WNBA’s 23rd
season, the league has kept the name of Ms. Taylor on the minds of the public
that has been watching their games by having her name on the back of their
jerseys right below their last names.
Two weeks back, the WNBA honored Sandra
Bland, a 28-year-old African American woman, whose body was found hung in her jail
cell in Waller County, TX on July 13, 2015, three days after she was arrested during
a pretextual traffic stop, which allows police to briefly detain a person solely
based on the suspicion of that person’s involvement in criminal activity.
Last week, the WNBA honored Michelle
Cusseaux, who in 2014 was shot by police in her home in Phoenix, AZ while they
attempted to take her to a mental health facility. She died at the age of 54,
and if she were still alive, she would have turned 50 years old last Monday.
That exchange Ms. Bland had with Texas
State Trooper Brian Encinia resulted in Bland’s arrest and a charge of assaulting
an officer of law enforcement. The arrest was recorded by Encinia’s dashcam and
the cell phone of a bystander, and Bland’s own cell phone.
After the dashcam video was reviewed by Texas
authorities, Encinia was placed on administrative leave for his failure to
properly execute a traffic stop. They along with the FBI conducted an investigation
into Ms. Bland’s death and came to the conclusion that the Waller County jail
as well did not follow required procedures that consisted of checking on
inmates in a timely matter, along with ensuring that employees fully completed
the required mental health training.
When the case went to the grand jury in
December 2015, they declined to indict the county sheriff and jail staff for felony
charges related to Bland’s death.
In September of 2016, Bland’s mother did settle
a wrongful death lawsuit for $1.9 million and some procedural changes against
the county jail and police department in the death of her daughter.
While Encinia did get indicted for lying
under oath because of the false statements about the circumstances surrounding
the arrest of Bland, the Texas Department of Public Safety did fire him but he
was never brought up on charges for her murder. The charge of perjury against
Encinia though was dropped because he agreed to conclude his career in law enforcement.
In the case of Ms. Cusseaux, it has been
2,201 days since she was killed and charges have yet to come to those that took
her life.
Watching a film about who Ms. Bland was
and how her life was taken, and how the people responsible for that was one of
the many things that have been going on during the WNBA’s season at
aforementioned IMG Academy.
This past week, players like perennial
All-Star league MVP and WNBA champion Candace Parker of the Los Angeles Sparks
and her teammate in fellow perennial All-Star Nneka Ogwumike; three-time WNBA
champion and perennial All-Star Sue Bird and her teammate in 2018 WNBA MVP
Breanna Stewart of the Seattle Storm; fellow perennial All-Star and WNBA MVP
and her teammates in two-time WNBA champion and 2017 WNBA MVP Sylvia Fowles and
reigning WNBA Rookie of the Year Napheesa Collier participated in the “#SayHerName”
campaign where they each said Michelle Cusseaux name in a video.
This is something though that the league
is not doing. All 12 of its teams have participated in the “Say Here Name”
campaign.
Another step the WNBA has taken in the
fight for social justice is forming the Social Justice Council, which consists
of Layshia Clarendon of the New York Liberty, Sydney Colson of the Chicago Sky,
Tierra Ruffin-Pratt of the Los Angeles Sparks, rookie Satou Sabally of the
Dallas Wings, perennial All-Star and 2018 WNBA MVP Brenna Stewart of the
Seattle Storm, and two-time WNBA All-Star and 2018 WNBA Rookie of the Year A’ja
Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces.
In a virtual interview with NBATV’s Chris
Miles on the Aug. 9 premiere of “WNBA Weekly with Ruffin-Pratt, she talked
about how her being a part of the “Social Justice Council,” which was formed by
the WNBA players themselves stems from her cousin Julian Dawkins being killed
in 2013 when she made the now defending WNBA champion Washington Mystics as an
undrafted player by an off-duty police officer in their hometown of Alexandria,
VA.
“So it’s something that me and my family
have been big on since then, and trying to get justice for those who can’t
speak for themselves,” Ruffin-Pratt, affectionally called TRP since she began
her career with the Mystics said about her and her family’s involvement in the
fight for social justice.
“I think with the ‘Social Justice Council’
we’ve been able to come up with a few ideas, especially with the names on the
back of the jerseys because its bigger than just Breonna Taylor. She’s been the
most recent one, but its been a lot of other lives, especially women’s lives
that have been lost. This week, we’re speaking for Sandra Bland, but there’s been
a lot of people and women that have been killed that we don’t even know about.
A lot of people don’t even know their names. So, we’re trying to get that information
out there and use our platform right now just for the women and the ‘Say Her
Name Movement,’ and just kind of grow that.”
How the WNBA players and coaches have made
sure that those that watch the games on ESPN 2, NBATV and CBS Sports Network
keep in mind the names of those that lost their lives, especially the women who
have been killed by law enforcement is by wearing T-Shirts during warmups that have
on the back of them “Say Her Name.”
Ruffin-Pratt said the idea came from that
came from a college professor, activist, co-founder and executive director of the
African American Policy Forum Kimberle Crenshaw, who started the “#SayHerName”
campaign to raise awareness about the number of women and girls that had their
lives taken far too soon by those sworn to protect and serve them.
We have heard of all the men that have
been killed by law enforcement like Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Freddie
Gray, George Floyd, and Rayshard Brooks to name a few. Unfortunately, the likes
of Natasha McKenna, Tanisha Anderson, Michelle Cusseaux, Aura Rosser, and Maya
Hall have slipped through the consciousness of all of us.
To make society more aware of the injustice
that minority women face just as much as their male counterparts, Professor
Crenshaw created a website https://aapf.org/sayhername
that consist of a plethora of names and stories of so many African American
women that were killed in some form by law enforcement.
“We just kind of used that and piggybacked
off it and tried to make it even greater than what it already is,” Ruffin-Pratt
said.
Among those that have joined the WNBA’s “Social
Justice Council” in their mission are former candidate for Governor of the
state of Georgia Stacey Abrams and former First Lady Michelle Obama on board as
well, Ruffin-Pratt has said that the conversations that have taken place so
far, via Zoom with Mrs. Obama and Ms. Abrams and what they have been done
outside of the WNBA bubble to make the public aware of this injustice has been “great.”
Those conversations have also allowed the
WNBA players to learn and formulate more ideas on to use their own individual
platforms to make the public aware.
One of the things that the Ruffin-Pratt’s
team the Sparks have done is come up with a new team slogan in their
contribution to social justice of “Change Has No Offseason.”
There have been movements and times like
this where everyone has a level and heightened sense that change needs to
happen but get to a point where their focus and energy that it takes to keep it
going to really create the type of change that necessary for all of us to thrive
as a whole slowly dies down.
Ruffin-Pratt said that the death of George
Floyd back in May along with how the COVID-19 Pandemic, which has impacted the
world on a global scale, but even more on minority communities that we have to
find a way to keep the pressure up on those empower to enact real change that
will make the United States of America live up to the ideal of being more
inclusive and more equal for all of us and not just a certain few.
“This is something that’s been going on
for generations and generations for Black people. So, we can’t let it die, and
they came up with the ‘Change Has No Offseason’ slogan and I was like ‘that’s
great’ because it’s so true,” Ruffin-Pratt said of the Sparks new slogan. “Basketball
and sports, we have time to take off and rest our bodies and our minds but with
change and racial injustice, and social injustice, we can’t take days off
because this is our life. This is our livelihood. This is how our kids, our
grandkids, and people coming up after us will see the world. So, if they see us
working really hard to try to make change, then they’ll continue to do the same
thing.”
Another WNBA player that has been affected
by the impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic and the systemic racism that has been
around in our nation for a little over four centuries has been the previously
mentioned Sabally.
The No. 2 overall pick in this year’s WNBA
draft out of the University of Oregon said in her virtual interview with NBATV analyst,
13-year NBA veteran and Vera Institute of Justice board member Caron Butler
that she has always been ambitious about civil rights and the lives of minorities
because of her dad being an black and growing up around a black family.
“It just affects you when you see that
someone is killing a man who looks like you. Who looks like your father, your
brothers,” Sabally, said, adding, “It just goes deep and its traumatizing?”
Sabally, who was born in New York, and
raised in Gambia and Germany also said that because of the stigma around black
people not being smart that she had to always work even harder in school and
justify that she could take care of her business in the classroom, getting
snarky comments from her peers about if she scored A for her school work.
When she would visit the zoo with her
brothers, someone would always make a comment to her to “go back where you came
from” or “go into the monkey cages.”
Growing up in Germany, Sabally said that
being African American she would always get asked where she was from, and while
she gets asked that same question by some here in the U.S. because of her
accent but do not ask why are you black, which she said she gets asked a lot in
Germany.
It might be minor but Sabally said it
happens all around. Particularly in Gambia, she gets asked the question where
she is from because her skin is lighter.
“Without knowing anything about a person,
people ask where are you from? And that’s just something minor but it happens
all around,” Sabally said.
One particular thing that Sabally said about
the kind of racism minorities in America face as well as the like Turkish and
Arabic folks overseas. is getting pulled
over because they drive a nice car.
Sabally said that she had Caucasian
friends that would talk bad about Turkish and Arabic folks and she would say to
them, “you know I’m a minority too, right?”
She added, “One common thing that I have
about Americans and Germans is that people always like to point fingers. Countries
like to point fingers at each other and distract from their own wrong doings in
their own countries.”
No matter whether she was in Germany or
here in the United States, Sabally always gets asked if she is safe being an
African American?
She is very aware that she has certain
privileges over her minority male counterparts but both Germany and the United
States each have their form of discrimination and racism but Sabally said it is
important to put the focus on what is happening in your own country and deal
with that instead of worrying what is going on in another part of the world
when it comes to racism.
What gives Sabally hope that we will be on
the other side of this struggle for true love and acceptance between minorities,
particularly African Americans and Caucasians across the globe is the countless
demonstrations and peaceful protests in Germany and in Portland, OR where
people are literally taking to the streets in the fight for social justice.
While she has been treated differently and
not always in the best of ways wherever she has been, Sabally has been comes to
the perspective that COVID-19 and racism are the same. It just one has been
around longer in racism than the Coronavirus.
When asked by Butler what she would say to
those who are done talking about racism, Sabally said she would ask those
individuals, how do you think most African Americans and minorities feel about
dealing with racism every day?
Caucasians can just turn it off if they
see it being discussed on television or unfollow those talking about racism on
social media. Minority communities have to live through these experiences and speaking
up about them for centuries.
“We’re tired of having to speak up every
time, having to say the same things over and over again for one more person
listen, but it’s worth it,” Sabally said. “Just learning more would be worth it
too.”
That is why Sabally said that she plans on
having live conversations on her Instagram page with experts on the topic of
racism so she can be a more informed 22-year-old who is trying to figure out
the world that is trying to be on the right side of history while hopefully
bringing those that fall her and fans of hers and the Wings basketball team.
“So I want to be able to use my platform
to share the connections that I have through, you know my sports and I want to
share those connections and that knowledge that I would gain from them,” she
said. “I want it to be out in the world and I want other people to have access
as well.”
Two-time WNBA champion and seven-time
All-Star in her 13-year career (2006-2018) with the Phoenix Mercury, Liberty,
Sky, Sparks, and Indiana Fever Cappie Pondexter said this time better than ever
to have those tough conversations on the issues between minorities and Caucasians
because it is necessary for us to allow this country to live up to the ideal in
what is said in this country’s national anthem of “indivisible with liberty and
justice for all.”
Like Ruffin-Pratt, Pondexter saw up close
what social injustice looks like when she lost her cousin at age 16 and going
through the process of figuring out who killed her cousin was a difficult on
because justice was never served.
The second time it happened, Pondexter and
her family were able to put pressure on the Chicago justice system because they
were laser focused on bringing to trial those who took another family member of
hers from this world, see them found guilty and sentenced to prison.
“From those experiences I’m just, you
know, passing it along to everybody else. Just trying to join organizations that
are dedicated to doing the right things to make this place better for all of us,”
Pondexter said in her virtual interview with Butler.
Pondexter also said that our nation needs
to make being a nerd, meaning a lawyer or a judge cool again.
As good as it is being an athlete or an
entertainer because of the opportunity to make a lot of money, those that are in
power are those that are educated, and the only way our country will be better
post Coronavirus is for the country at large to get up to speed on who they
elect at the local, state, and federal level from the history of the people
elected before that individual and what are their core principles that make
them tick.
“There’s so much you have to learn about a
person before you elect them,” Pondexter said. “I’m just hoping that we’re all
patient through this process because I think that’s the most important thing because
if we’re not patient and we’re just saying, ‘Oh well I’m going to vote for this
person because this person said that we should vote for them,’ then it’s kind
of like, ‘Well nobody’s paying attention,’ you know. And it’s time that we all
pay attention.”
One of the most important ways to really
create serious social change is to elect officials that want to make our
country more equal at the local, state, and federal levels.
Junior Senator Kelly Loeffler (R) from
Georgia since 2020, who was appointed to her seat in the upper chamber of
Congress, who is also a co-owner of the Atlanta Dream back in early July was very
critical of the “Black Lives Matter” movement, despite the WNBA’s dedication of
its season in honor of the aforementioned Breonna Taylor.
Senator Loeffler faced major scrutiny
because of a letter she wrote that warned the league that “subscribing to a
particular political agenda undermines the potential of the sport and sends a
message of exclusion.”
She also advocated that all 12 WNBA team’s
add American flags on their jerseys saying in a tweet, “@WNBA should stand for
and unite around the American Flag—not divisive political movements like BLM
that unapologetically seek to defund the police.”
In a show of solidarity, the WNBA showed
their opposition to Senator Loeffler’s comments by wearing shirts with the name
of her opponent that is running against her for that Senate seat in the Rev.
Dr. Raphael Warnock, the senior pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in
Atlanta, GA, the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s former congregation.
WNBA Commissioner Kathy Engelbert did say
that Senator Loeffler despite her comments that caused a firestorm will not be
forced to sell her portion of the Dream.
“Saying Black Lives Matter is nothing
political. It is a human rights issue,” Sabally said. “So, when people are
still up to this day taking to the streets on protests, which is not really
covered by the media, I am hopeful because I see that and I’m like, ‘Yeah, man.
People are out there. People are fighting. People are speaking up and I just
love how this conversation has not died out on us.”
So far in the month of August, we had the
55-year Anniversary when the month of August, we had the 55-year Anniversary of
the Voting Rights Act of 1965 back on the 6th; the 100-year Anniversary
of Women’s Suffrage and this Friday will be the 57th Anniversary of
the March on Washington, which will be commemorated with another major march on
the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
The Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic has
brought many issues that have been swept under the rug for far too long. At the
forefront of taking on these issues, especially those that come to social injustice
against minorities, especially African American women has been the WNBA. They
have made it their mission to use this season to put a major spotlight on those
issues by honoring those black women whose lives have been taken at the hands
of law enforcement. The players have formed the “Social Justice Council” where
they can plan formulate ideas on how to get the word out on those that have
lost their lives at the hands of law enforcement and what will be required to start
to put an end to this unnecessary carnage against minorities, especially women
of color.
That is why the Mystics, in conjunction
with the Washington Wizards and Monumental Sports and Entertainment have teamed
up to send a message on the importance of exercising the right to vote on
November 3 with the website WhenWeAllVote.org/Wizards and WhenWeAllVote.org/Mystics.
The WNBA has been at the forefront of confronting
these issues since 2016 and have made a full fledge commitment to be in this fight
for social justice for all minorities, especially minority women until it becomes
a reality.
As NBA on ESPN analyst Kendrick Perkins,
who helped the Boston Celtics win a title in 2008 said on the Aug 5 edition of
ESPN’ “NBA: The Jump,” “Women, they don’t do a lot of talking, they take
action. Men do a lot of talking, and then action comes a little later Because
women, they are feisty and they mean business, and I want to applaud all those
women in the WNBA. Great job.
“It’s just time that inclusion and
diversity happens because it’s important that we all see somebody that looks
like us on all fronts,” Pondexter said about how our nation needs to put an end
to racism and sexism. “It feels good to know that somebody is doing something
successful that you look like.”
Information and
quotations are courtesy of 7/7/2020 https://www.wxxines.org
story “Say Her Name: How The Fight For Racial Justice Can Be More Inclusive of
Black Women,” by Mary Louise Kelly & Heidi Glenn; 7/8/2020 https://www.cnn.com story “WNBA Revolts Over
Atlanta Dream Co-Owner Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s Comments About Black Lives Mater,
by Allison Gordon; 8/1/2020 6 p.m. “Washington Mystics versus Chicago Sky,” on NBATV;
8/3/2020 8:30 p.m. NBATV’s “1-On-1 with Caron
Butler:” with Satou Sabally and Clint Smith; 8/4/2020 7:30 p.m. NBATV’s “1-On-1
With Caron Butler:” Cappie Pondexter and Charles Ramsey 8/5/2020 1 a.m. edition
of ESPN’s “Sportscenter,” with Steve Levy and Zubin Mehenti; 8/5/2020 3 p.m.
edition of “NBA: The Jump” on ESPN with Rachel Nichols, Zach Lowe, and Kendrick
Perkins; 8/9/2020 10:30 a.m. edition of “WNBA Weekly,” on NBATV with Matt Winer
and Renee Montgomery; 8/15/2020 11 a.m. edition of “WNBA Weekly,” on NBATV with
Kristen Ledlow and Renee Montgomery; https://aapf.org/sayhername;
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Sandra_Bland;
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cappie_Pondexter;
and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_Fowles.
