J-Speaks: WNBA Players Opting Out Season In Fight For Social Justice

In the middle of June, the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and the Women’s National Basketball Players Association (WNBPA) ratified a plan for all 12 teams to play a 22-game season in Florida later this month. Because of the their concerns being in the latest hotspot of the global Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic, the focus on making sure social justice actually takes place in the wake of many minorities being killed at the hands of those that are supposed to protect and medical concerns, many players will be sitting this season out, including two recent guests of NBATV analyst and a prominent board member of the Vera Institute of Justice Board.

One week from yesterday, NBA champion and 14-year NBA veteran Caron Butler did a virtual interview with two-time WNBA champion and current Atlanta Dream guard Renee Montgomery on his virtual NBATV show, “1-On-1 With Caron Butler” about why she decided to sit out the WNBA’s 2020 campaign which will be at IMG Academy in Bradenton, FL.

“After much thought, I’ve decided to opt out of the 2020 WNBA Season. There’s a lot of work to be done off the court in so many areas in our community,” Montgomery, whose played two stints with the Minnesota Lynx twice, Connecticut Sun, Seattle Storm, and Dream in her WNBA career since getting drafted No. 4 overall in 2009 said about sitting out this season on her Twitter page @itsreneem_ back on June 18. “Social justice reform isn’t going to happen overnight but I do feel that now is the time and Moments equal Momentum. Lets keep it going!”

Montgomery’s teammate in guard Tiffany Hayes also announced she will be sitting out the 2020 WNBA season, with the plan to return in 2021.

Also deciding to sit out this season to be in the fight for social justice was Butler’s guest this past Thursday in starting guard Natasha Cloud of the defending WNBA champion Washington Mystics, saying on her Instagram page t_cloud9 back on June 22, “This has been one of the toughest decisions of my career. But I will be foregoing the 2020 WNBA Season. There’s a lot of factors that led to this decision, but the biggest being that I am more than an athlete. I have a responsibility to myself, to my community, and to my future children to fight for something that is much bigger than myself and the game of basketball. I will instead, continue the fight on the front lines for social reform, because until black lives matter, all lives can’t matter.”

Also sitting out this season for the Mystics is forward LaToya Sanders, who missed out on the 2017 season and dealt with anemia during the 2018 season but played in 28 of the 34 games and nine games that postseason.

Las Vegas Aces’ All-Star center Liz Cambage is expected to miss this season as a report from her agent said, “that she is at high risk of severe complications if she attracts COVID [19].”

It did not stop her though from getting on top of a building in Melbourne, FL to route on those peacefully protesting for social justice reform on June 9 saying on her Instagram page @ecambage, “keep pushing, we’re just getting started.”

There was also a quote in that post that said, “Non-Black people must do better. To learn to listen. Keep I mind that Black people are not obligated to teach us how to care for them. Look into your honest self, your discomfort, your learned anti-blackness, and your family history. Call your racist family members out. Move beyond the internet to show your outrage and grief. Take action and do not remain complicit. Remember that Black communities have supported and taught every radical movement in history. It has long been our time to play our part in destroying white supremacy and everything that upholds it. This reminder can no longer be gentle.”

Los Angeles Sparks forward and basketball analyst for ESPN, who is frequent contributor on the network’s show “NBA: The Jump” Chiney Ogwumike, the younger sister of her teammate Nneka opted out of the 2020 season for medical reasons, saying in a statement, “If you know me, you know that I have overcome some of the biggest challenges an athlete can face on the court. My previous injuries [microfracture on her right knee in 2015 and her Achilles in 2017] have given me strength and built character, but unfortunately they require me to be careful with my preparation leading up to a season.”

The Vice President of WNBPA also said, “This year is unprecedented in many ways therefore my team and I have come to the decision to be proactively cautious and put my body first.”

Ogwumike’s teammate Kristi Toliver, who helped the Mystics win their first title last season will opt out of playing this WNBA season as well.

In his virtual interview with Montgomery, who like Butler played collegiately at the University of Connecticut said while sporting a long sleeve black T-Shirt that said “The Black Athlete” that she has been okay during this pandemic, and her decision to sit out this season, while finding her rhythm to how she is going to contribute to the cause of social justice reform.

The first people the 33-year-old St. Albans, WV native told of what she called “a well thought out” decision were her parents, who told her to pray on her choice and to really think hard about it.

This was something that the 2011 WNBA All-Star and 2012 WNBA Sixth Woman of the Year had been mulling over for a while and made it official on June 14 she called head coach of the Dream Nicki Collen to express her feelings about opting out of the upcoming season.

“My feeling are that every time someone asked me, ‘am I excited for the WNBA season,’ I got uncomfortable because I wasn’t,” Montgomery said. “And I knew that’s not the answer that they were expecting. So, it made me a little bit uncomfortable because I wasn’t even thinking about it.”

She also said how tough it has been seeing the likes of Georgia residents in Ahmaud Arbery and Rayshard Brooks as well Breonna Taylor and George Floyd have their lives senselessly taken at the hands of either racist Caucasians or law enforcement.

This especially hits home for the 33-year-old Montgomery because she has family members in her nephews who are big in stature in terms of height from 6-foot-4 to 6-foot-5, similar to Mr. Floyd, whose was killed in late may when a Minneapolis Police officer put his knee on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds and killed him.

“So, when I see a big man like George Floyd and the justification was, ‘because he was so big’ that’s why so many cops were on him. That’s why, you know, they used excessive force. That’s hard to handle,” she said. “And I know that I have family members that look just like that. It’s hard.”

Montgomery also said that she has been pulled over twice by law enforcement in her hometown of West Virginia but both was let go both times. It did not stop her from asking herself why she is being pulled over?

She said that the WVPD let her go because they knew who she was both times. But that experience put Montgomery in a place where she thought that if her nephews or any of her other male family members were in that same position, the outcome might have been ended differently.

Montgomery is thankful those West Virginia officers let her go, but that bias against by those who are supposed to serve and protect everyone regardless of their race.

When Butler ask Cloud in their virtual interview on Thursday about if she had or anyone that she loved or close to here profiled or discriminated by law enforcement, she said yes.

Cloud, who was born in Broomall, PA and went to college at the University of Maryland said that every black person has a story of being profiled by law enforcement.

On top of that, she has heard countless stories growing up in a predominately white neighborhood, in a predominately white family, going from childhood into being a teenager just getting her license and getting pulled over because she was an African American driving a nice car, which belonged to her mother. Having to be asked by the cops where are you from, where are you headed, where you are going?  

Cloud also said that those encounters with the police included them asking for her license and registration to make sure she resided where she did because she was an African American who lived in the nicer areas of Delaware County.

The most recent and more serious encounter with law enforcement Cloud recalled recall was when she was pulled over by the police one year before the aforementioned Mystics championship season when she was leaving Capital One Arena at about 1 a.m. on her way back to her apartment in her care after an on court workout.

Cloud said that when she got pulled over, she was on the phone with her fiancée at the time, and she told her to stay on the line just in case something happens. Her window was already rolled down, her hands were on the steering wheel visible for the cop to see.

She said that the cop came over with his hand already over his gun, which made Cloud really nervous, especially since she said he came at her very aggressively.

“At this point, I’m a 27-year-old female by herself late at night. If anything, I’m more scared than you than you are of me,” the now 28-year-old Cloud said of that encounter with law enforcement.

It ended with Cloud, who has played her entire WNBA career with the Mystics being ticketed because of the tints on the windows of her car were too dark, which got her a date in court.

While she knew she was going to lose the case against her because the tint on her windows was too dark, Cloud appeared to approach the cop that she did not like how he approached her so aggressively.

Cloud said that she was lucky that the case was heard by a minority judge and a female judge, who ended up ripping into the officer for his approach to Cloud after she told the story of what happened.

“I represent this community. I play for D.C.,” Cloud said. “Yes, I’m from Philadelphia but I’ve been here for six years. The only I did was have too dark of a tinted but you approached me with your hand over your gun like I was a criminal already. And she ripped into him a little big, which I was happy about. So, I paid my ticket but it was a happy ticket pay.”

Montgomery said she really has noticed is the justification for the deadly use of force by police officers and racist Caucasians that has led to the deaths of the aforementioned Mr. Floyd, Mr. Brooks, Ms. Taylor, and Eric Garner.  

“That’s why we got to get these techniques out of the way because if that’s going to be the constant excuse why people get off, the technicalities,” Montgomery said. “Something with police brutality is wrong in the system if we can watch a murder and watch people get off.”

While the four officers involved in the death of Mr. Floyd and the one officer who took the life of Mr. Brooks have been arrested and charge, the question remains though will we get to the point where those officers involved are sent to trial, found guilty, and sentenced to prison. Also, the officers that shot and killed Ms. Taylor in her home have yet to be arrested and charged.   

Montgomery also said that people watching the death specifically of  Mr. Brooks either on social media or when it first was shown on the news in the days that followed, there were many steps of de-escalation that should have taken place, particularly with the fact that the Wendy’s in which Mr. Brooks was murdered, the home of a relative of his was close by, where the police if he was intoxicated could have escorted him to his relatives house.

Plus, any previous arrest or issues the subject had with the police in the past should not come into play in that moment.

That led Montgomery to ask, “If any of us had made a mistake before in life, did we think that’s okay to get killed because of it?”

“We need to get that out the way because if that’s the case then everybody should deserve to die when they get pulled over. It’s the thought process that needs to be-Why does things go from 0-100 every time? I don’t understand that.”

For Cloud, it was the death of Mr. Floyd and Ms. Taylor that were breaking points for her to put her basketball career on pause and really get into the fight for social justice.

“Those two murders proved to us in America that we cannot be safe anywhere,” she said. “We can’t be safe in our homes and we can’t be safe, you know, just out-and-about in public.

“For 8 minutes and 46 seconds you watched every single part of George Floyd losing his life. You see him begging for his life, pleading for his life, calling for his mom. You see nose start to bleed. You see air, he’s starting to labor his air. You see him pass out. You see him laying there dead. You see him thrown on a gurney with no care at all for his life.”

It shook Cloud to the point that it brought tears to her eyes like she watched her father, brother, or anyone else that she really cared for.

While she did not know Mr. Floyd or Ms. Taylor personally, she saw herself being in that same spot as both them, which brought her to step away from basketball to focus on something bigger than herself.

For far too long, over four centuries, our society has allowed systemic racism and the deaths they have led to be swept under the rug, and that wearing a T-Shirt in honor of minorities that have passed at the hand of law enforcement or playing sports in their honor just will not cut the mustard anymore.

Recently Montgomery had a conversation with 94-year-old Hall of Fame football and pioneer of the Georgia Interscholastic Association Raymond “Tweet” Williams about the progression of policing from being only white cops to having some African Americans in the police department of Atlanta, they had to change at the local YMCA instead of the police station and they could not arrest a white person for anything.

Meaning, if they say a white person breaking the law, they needed to call another white cop to assist in making the arrest.

Fast forward to now when African American patrolling in their own areas, they would threaten young men who were doing wrong by not arresting them initially but they would tell their mothers of what they were doing because they had a connection with those communities. They were not afraid of the people in the community because they knew who they were.

The biggest difference to Montgomery is the fact that law enforcement that is currently patrolling these communities have not established that important connection, which has led to the disconnect and distrust on both sides.

“The don’t know their parents. They don’t know their upbringing,” she said. “All they see is a kid on the streets, and they might be big in stature. So, they’re afraid.”

Speaking out against racism is nothing knew for the WNBA. Back in 2016, the league’s players were among the first pro athletes to protest against police brutality with the “Black Live Matter” movement by not standing at attention during the national anthem, which resulted in a number of players being fined by the league, but were later rescinded.

Cloud was one of the players in the WNBA four years back protesting for “Black Lives Matter” when Philando Castile was killed by police, and yet nothing has changed.

More minorities are losing their lives at the hands of those who are sworn to protect and serve them as well as Caucasians who see minorities as threats to their lives.

We see these deaths in Cloud’s word in a more “brutal, aggressive, blatant and out in public.”

“And so, for me, that was my calling to forgo this season and to really dive into social reform because we need it,” Cloud added. “We need it, I need it, our children, our future children, you’re future children need it. I want a change so they don’t have to feel afraid or fear every single day because simply the color of their skin.”

In watching what has been going on with the pandemic and all the protest that have erupted in the wake of Mr. Floyd’s aforementioned murder, Montgomery said that she is not built for the nine-hour grind of marching for social change. But believes in those that are. So, she decided to bring water to those that peacefully protested. That led to her organizing an event to honor “Juneteenth,” which occurred on the 19^th of last month, while still mulling about whether she wanted to play this upcoming WNBA season in Florida.

Montgomery named her event What Is Juneteenth?” because she began getting this question as she was putting together, she said it was an educational process first learning that this was a day where on Jan. 1, 1863, The Emancipation Proclamation was issued, making all slaves in confederate states. But was not until two years later that all slaves were freed with Texas being the last state to have the proclamation announced.

The event Montgomery said was peaceful and was done in the style of a Historically Black College/University (HBCU) where a drumline performed and steppers.

“We made it a real celebration, and I think that’s what people need to see,” she said. “We’re out there for a cause. We’re fighting it but year were angry, but we’re uniting. So, I wanted this energy where like, it was just like a block party.”

It was also at this point where Montgomery realized that if being in the fight for social change is where her heart is at, than making the decision to sit out the 2020 WNBA season was he right choice.

Along with doing the block party themed event for Juneteenth, Montgomery along with Butler are involved in the “More Than A Vote” campaign that is about creating a generation of athletes that are activists.

For a long time, athletes who spoke out against injustices were met with resistance and were looked at as if they were against the exceptionalism of our nation, even though a lot of minorities were treated like they were nonexistent for a long time.

It is because of four-time Kia MVP and three-time NBA champion of the Los Angeles Lakers LeBron James Montgomery said establishing a platform like “The Uninterrupted,” where athletes have a voice to express their opinions on what is going on in our nation to minorities.

She along with a couple of the WNBA players who are sitting out this season have plans to team up on projects in the fight for social justice reform. Montgomery also said that she plans on doing projects towards social justice reform that involve HBCUs.

In a time where it seems like there is no hope because of the Coronavirus has taken so many lives and how we continue to see African American men be murder by those who as mentioned are sworn to protect them, Cloud said she felt her personal power was taken away, especially after the deaths of aforementioned Mr. Floyd and Ms. Taylor and the 100-plus murders that have followed.

Her sense of hope though has been renewed by seeing people young, old, and of different races, out on the streets peacefully protesting for the greater good.

But then that hope got shattered when she hears that “All Lives Matter,” and we see and hear about minorities being hung from trees and nooses.

“You can’t be deterred. You can’t be willing to throw in the towel,” Cloud said in the fight for social justice. “It’s not going to happen overnight. It’s not going to happen in the few weeks to come. This is going to be years to come that we have to continue to work and to fight, and to claw for what is right and what we should have been giving years ago.”

“This is 400-plus years that we’re trying to change, and I feel like we have a starting point. We have so much momentum, we have leverage right now. But we can’t lose our stamina. And for that, this is where we lean on each other…What can we do moving forward? And so that’s what still gives me hope is that we’re in this together as a unified front.”

  

It is that unified front the WNBA has displayed since as mentioned 2016 why there has been so much push back by the league when junior U.S. Senator and co-owner of the Dream Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) earlier this week came out opposition against the WNBA honoring “Black Lives Matter” movement and urged WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert in a letter to her earlier this week to scrap the plan for the players from wearing warmup jerseys that read “Black Lives Matter” and “Say Her Name,” in reference to Ms. Taylor and instead put an American Flag on all WNBA uniforms and apparel.

Senator Loeffler warned in Tuesday edition of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that any promotion of a “particular agenda undermines the potential of the sport and sends a message of exclusion” and that “we need less-not more politics in sports.

Commissioner Engelbert in response said in a statement, “The WNBA is based on the principle of equal and fair treatment of all people and we, along with the teams and players, will continue to use our platforms to vigorously advocate for social justice. Sen. Kelly Loeffler has not served as a Governor of the Atlanta Dream since October 2019 and is no longer involved in the day-to-day business of the team.”

Sparks All-Star forward, WNBA champion and Turner Sports analyst said echoed the same sentiment on NBA on TNT Tuesday that night virtually from IMG Academy that what Senator Loefller said “has no place” in the WNBA, where 4/5 of it has African American representation.

“This is a league is 80 percent African American women,” she said. “You talk about socio- economic background, gender, women, black, socio-economic, you talk about sexual orientation—There’s no place in this league [for that].”

“I think we’ve had a number of people that have stepped forward and listened, and have taken initiative, taken action. And we had those that haven’t and continue to make comments and show why we’re still in this situation.”

There is no doubt that our world has a lot of growing to still do where we all can be treated equally. There are some that want to see our world change for the better, especially since the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic and the continued race of deaths of minorities at the hand of law enforcement has shown. But there are also many that have no problem with where our nation is.

It is that reason why the likes of Renee Montgomery and Natasha Cloud have put their WNBA careers on pause to get knee deep into this fight for social change that will make not just our nation but our world a better place to live and prosper.

This fight will not be easy and it will not be won in a short period of time. It will take monumental sacrifice and an undying commitment and will to do the necessary things for social justice to become a reality.

  

“Truthfully, I think this is one of those experiences where there’s no wrong answer. How you feel is how you feel, and there’s no wrong answer,” three-time WNBA champion and four-time Olympic Gold medalist and future Hall of Famer Sue Bird said Mike Golic, Sr. and Mike Golic, Jr. and Trey Wingo on earlier this week on ESPN’s “Golic And Wingo.” “I think the NBA and the WNBA are different. I think us together is powerful. Those guys have crazy platforms as it is. There’s a slight difference there.”

“But like I said, no wrong answer. Everyone should do what is right for them, their family and so on.”

Information, statistics, and quotations are courtesy of 9/19/2019 https://www.ajc.com story, “Four Questions With Former Coach, GIA Pioneer Raymond ‘Tweet’ Williams,” by Todd Holcomb; 6/15/2020 www.espn.com story, “WNBA’s 22-Game Regular Season, Playoffs Ok’d,” by Mechelle Voepel; 6/15/2020 www.nytimes.com story, “W.N.B.A. And Players Agree To Plan For 22-Game Season Starting In July,” by Howard Megdal; 6/22/2020 www.espn.com story, “Washington Mystics’ Natasha Cloud, LaToya Sanders To Skip WNBA Season,” by Mechelle Voepel; 7/2/2020 9:30 p.m. NBATV’s “1-On-1 With Caron Butler: Mark Cuban and Renee Montgomery;” 7/6/2020 3 p.m. edition of ESPN’s “NBA: The Jump” with Rachel Nichols, Scottie Pippen, and Brian Windhorst; 7/7/2020 https://www.ajc.com story, “Loeffler Opposes WNBA’s Plan To Spread ‘Black Lives Matter’ Message,” by Greg Bluestein and Bria Felicien; 7/7/2020, 8 p.m. “NBA on TNT Tuesday,” with Adam Lefkoe, Candace Parker, Dwyane Wade, Shaquille O’Neal, and Vince Carter; 7/9/2020 8:30 p.m. NBATV’s “1-On-1 With Caron Butler: Natasha Cloud and Shareef Abdur-Rahim;” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natasha_Cloud; and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renee_Montgomery.