WNBA players are committed to promoting social justice and Black Lives Matter. Atlanta Dream co-owner and U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler is trying to win an election. During a basketball season like no other, the sides are engaged in a game of political chess.
A FEW MONTHS ago, WNBA player Elizabeth Williams might not have posted the photo to her Instagram account. A few years ago, she might not have gone to the Black Lives Matter protest on June 3 at Centennial Park in downtown Atlanta. «She’s not usually the one to be the first out there, to put her name or her face out there,» says Jaimee Stoner, Williams’ friend. «Not because she doesn’t care. That’s just her personality.» Williams plays for the Atlanta Dream, a franchise in the birthplace of Martin Luther King Jr. The team is named for his famous «I Have a Dream» speech, which he gave 57 years ago, on Aug.28,1963. And like so many others — before much of professional sports shut down Wednesday in protest of the police shooting of Jacob Blake — she had been deeply affected by the police killings of Black Americans such as George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and she wanted to do something about it. With mask on and hands up, Williams walked the streets of Atlanta, chanting and pleading for social justice. The longer she marched toward the Georgia State Capitol, the louder her normally quiet voice grew. Stoner pulled out a phone and discreetly snapped a picture. «I just wanted her to be able to see for herself, ‘Look at how powerful it is when you speak up, when you show up, when you’re using your platform,'» Stoner says. «And you can feel that in this photo.» When they got home from the march, she showed the black-and-white photo to Williams. Williams’ long arms are raised plaintively along with those of thousands of others as the marchers chant, «Hands Up, Don’t Shoot.» Her face, partially hidden behind a mask, is serious. Her «Equality» shirt stands out among a group of homemade signs. The tips of three tall buildings and a crane peek out from behind her, jagged and dissonant. Williams posted it to her IG account with the Black Lives Matter hashtag. The evocative photo struck a chord, and Williams has a pretty good idea why. «I see people not just wanting change but demanding it,» Williams says. «I also see history repeating itself. That’s why I liked it in black and white, because these protests aren’t new. «And I see a combination of bravery, with a little bit of fear.» Little did Williams know that just a month later she would be using her voice to stand up to and campaign against the owner of her WNBA team, U. S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), who, in a letter to commissioner Cathy Engelbert on July 7, objected to the league’s embrace of the Black Lives Matter movement. In part, the letter read: «I believe it is totally misaligned with the values and goals of the WNBA and the Atlanta Dream, where we support tolerance and inclusion…. This is not a political movement that the league should be embracing, and I emphatically oppose it.» For a league that had spent months planning how to make its season feel meaningful amid the coronavirus pandemic and nationwide protests, the letter was a dagger to the heart of what the WNBA and its players had just declared they cared about most. «It was like, ‘Hey, what are you going to do about your owner?'» Williams says. «Like the burden had been put on us.» They could not stay silent or wait until the conflict blew over. Because America in 2020 is a country divided: by politics, a pandemic and protest. It is socially distant but yelling at the top of its lungs. It is shaken by all of it but also stirred by the opportunity for change. It is scared but also brave. It is the Atlanta Dream. A FEW MONTHS ago, Loeffler might not have felt the need to send the letter. A few years ago, her words might not have had the power to divide so thoroughly. But Loeffler,49, became a U. S. senator in January after she was appointed by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp to replace Johnny Isakson, who resigned because of health reasons. The seat is up for grabs in a special election in November. It was a challenge from the start. Georgia, once solidly a Republican stronghold, had shown signs of turning purple in recent elections, with Democrat Lucy McBath flipping a congressional seat in the Atlanta suburbs in 2018 and Democrat Stacey Abrams mounting a strong challenge to Kemp in the 2018 governor’s race. Loeffler’s association with the WNBA, which for years had staked a claim as a leader among LGBTQ+ causes (the WNBA began promoting league-wide Pride nights in 2014) and racial and social justice movements, was a liability to her conservative credentials. She stepped down from her seat on the WNBA board of governors in October of 2019 and is no longer involved in the daily operations of the Dream. But to Dream players like Williams and Renee Montgomery, who had been tracking Loeffler’s political statements and actions throughout the spring, it was only a matter of time before Loeffler and the WNBA clashed on a national stage. «Politics, they call it mudslinging for a reason,» says Montgomery, the Dream point guard, who is sitting out the 2020 season to focus on her foundation and social justice initiatives. «She’s doing what most politicians do. They find something that they think they can win off of and they exploit it.» That this confrontation happened with Atlanta’s WNBA owner and team is probably no coincidence either. The city is at the epicenter of Georgia’s political and demographic changes. Which means that power is shifting, and that there are those who like it the way it was and those who want even more change. The sports world has mirrored that societal shift, as athletes have increasingly stepped into and led political discussions they might have ducked a few years ago. And like Williams, many were at the front lines of the protest marches this spring. That put pressure on the teams they played for to issue statements of support. Those that hesitated, like the New York Knicks, faced heavy criticism. The Dream made Juneteenth a paid company holiday, and Montgomery said several team officials attended her event, on June 19, to feed protesters in Centennial Park. ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne joins Pablo Torre to talk about the WNBA’s commitment to fight for social justice and U. S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s bid to win a November election. And how those two missions were always bound to clash. Listen «The coaches, the GM, my teammates, they all have publicly shown their support for me,» Montgomery says. «I think that owners do different things that are political. I’m sure that there’s other owners that are Republicans and support what she supports as well. We’ve seen that. That’s just a norm in sports. That’s not something that the athletes have gotten into before. It’s just getting highly publicized now.» Loeffler contends that the WNBA players made the first political move by dedicating their season to social justice and the Black Lives Matter movement on July 6. The players contend that Loeffler played the first political card when she sent the letter to Engelbert on July 7. «The statement ‘Black lives matter’ is very different than the organization Black Lives Matter,» Loeffler said in a July interview with ESPN. «I think we all agree the life of every African American is important. «But the Black Lives Matter political organization advocates things like defunding and abolishing the police, abolishing our military, emptying our prisons, destroying the nuclear family. It promotes violence and anti-Semitism. To me, this is not what our league stands for.» Loeffler’s claims, like most things in politics, depend on a person’s perspective. The organization says it is a frequent target of disinformation and is committed to creating a world «where every Black person has the social, economic and political power to thrive.» Still, the WNBA players have continually stressed that they are not endorsing the organization or its policies but are instead trying to highlight systemic racism and violence against Black people. «We literally say it’s not about the organization,» Montgomery says. «And [she’s] like, ‘But what about the organization?’ «I don’t think people are confused about what we’re talking about.» VERY QUICKLY, IT became apparent that the WNBA players and Loeffler were talking at each other, not with each other. In the first few days after Loeffler registered her objections to Engelbert: Montgomery wrote an article on Medium; Loeffler did an interview with Laura Ingraham on Fox News; Engelbert issued a statement saying the league would continue to advocate for social justice; New York Liberty guard Layshia Clarendon wrote an essay for The Undefeated; Loeffler wrote an op-ed for the Daily Caller; the players’ union account tweeted «E-N-O-U-G-H! O-U-T!» «This isn’t about me, this is about every American’s right to speak out, to enjoy free speech, to support whatever cause and not be canceled,» Loeffler said on Ingraham’s show. «We have this cancel culture that is threatening America.» Williams and her Dream teammates watched as it all unfolded, then organized a Zoom call to discuss a unified response. On July 10, three days after Loeffler’s letter, the Atlanta players issued a statement that sources said was not shown to either Loeffler or her co-owner, Mary Brock. «Black lives matter. We are the women of the Atlanta Dream. We are women who support a movement. We are strong and we are fearless. We offer a voice to the voiceless. Our team is united in the Movement for Black Lives. It’s not extreme to demand change after centuries of inequality. This is not a political statement. This is a statement of humanity.» Then players tweeted from their own accounts: «We’ve read the letter. We reject the letter. Black lives matter. Vote in November.» Loeffler’s name was never mentioned. That was intentional. Voting in November was mentioned. That was intentional too. For months, Williams had been monitoring news around Loeffler and talking to the other players on the union’s executive committee about her concerns. In March, the Justice Department announced it was investigating lawmakers who had dumped stock following a Jan.24 coronavirus briefing with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Robert Redfield and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert. Loeffler was cleared of wrongdoing in May. In June, Loeffler tweeted «We must not allow mob rule» after armed protesters gathered near the Atlanta Wendy’s where police had killed Rayshard Brooks. The tweet included a clip from a Fox News interview in which she called the protests «totally unacceptable.» Several high-profile WNBA players, including Natasha Cloud and Skylar Diggins-Smith, called for Loeffler to sell the team after the «mob rule» comment. Eleven days later, Loeffler sent the letter to Engelbert. This had become a WNBA issue, Williams argued, not just an Atlanta Dream issue. And so the players consulted over Zoom with former first lady Michelle Obama and seasoned politicians like Stacey Abrams. They consulted former WNBA president Lisa Borders, who knew Loeffler well as one of the key players in bringing the Dream to Atlanta. The advice they got was straight out of a Politics 101 seminar: Stay focused on your mission and what you believe in. Do not get pulled into a fight you didn’t go looking for. And whatever you do, do not say the name of your opponent. There was something profound about deliberately not saying the name of their adversary, in a season with the theme «Say Her Name» to recognize all the women of color who had been killed by police or racial violence. «We started to realize that this was only happening for her political gain,» says Seattle Storm guard and union vice president Sue Bird. «This was something that she wanted. And actually, the more noise we made, whether it was a tweet saying to get her out, that was just playing into her hands.
