WNBA players are wearing black t-shirts with the words “Vote Warnock” on it this week to help Raphael Warnock who is running for Senate in Georgia. He is running against incumbent Kelly Loffler, part-proprietor of the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream and who has been vocal about her resistance to the league’s attention on the Black Lives Matter movement.
While the WNBA talked about approaches to feature social equity before the beginning of the period, Loeffler composed a letter to commissioner Cathey Englebert communicating her restriction to the thought. WNBA players, who are prevalently Black, called for Loeffler to be expelled as proprietor of the Atlanta Dream. The league reacted by saying that the incumbent senator from Georgia “is no longer involved in day-to-day business.”
The public contention between her and the players gave Loeffler a bigger platform to make light of the players’ efforts in featuring social justice issues, with dog-whistling political rhetoric, for example, saying the WNBA’s help of Black Lives Matter doesn’t speak to “American values.”
As indicated by Ramona Shelburne of ESPN, supporting Raphael Warnock’s senate campaign was raised via Seattle Storm star Sue Bird. The campaign to help Raphael Warnock is voluntary, however whole groups like the Phoenix Mercury and Chicago Sky have worn the shirts before their games.
Elizabeth Williams, who plays for the Atlanta Dream, additionally wore the shirt and tweeted out her help for Raphael Warnock.
Sue Bird likewise clarified how Loeffler’s public opposition to the league’s Black Lives Matter movement was done to profit her politically. “But very quickly we started to realize that this was only happening for her political gain. This was something that she wanted. And the more noise we made, whether it was a tweet saying to get her out, that was just playing into her hands.”
