Tensions continue to rise between Atlanta Dream players and co-owner, Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who is a vocal advocate for President Donald Trump and against the Black Lives Matter movement. Since her criticism, Dream players have been trying to get Loeffler out of the ownership group.

On Tuesday, the players took their disdain of Loeffler to another level – they sported tee shirts encouraging fans to vote for Loeffler’s Democratic opponent in November, Rev. Raphael Warnock.

Dream forward Elizabeth Williams told ESPN that she wanted to support Loeffler’s opponent without directly talking about Loeffler.

“I think when all this stuff started happening with her, we didn’t want to feel like we were pawns,” Williams said. “We can only control so much about what the league does [in regard to Loeffler], and so for us, we wanted it to be bigger than that,” she said. “That’s kind of been the theme of this season. So we wanted to make sure we could still keep the focus on our social justice movement, and funny enough, Rev. Warnock is somebody who supports everything that we support and just happens to be running in that seat. So it just worked out really well.”

The backlash to the NBA restart’s message of social justice and racial equality has begun with Oklahoma state Rep. Sean Roberts threatening Oklahoma City Thunder players that if they kneel it could have negative tax implications for the team. “If the Oklahoma City Thunder leadership and players follow the current trend of the NBA by kneeling during the national anthem prior to Saturday’s game, perhaps we need to reexamine the significant tax benefits the State of Oklahoma granted the Oklahoma City Thunder organization when they came to Oklahoma. Through the Quality Jobs Act, the Thunder is still under contract to receive these tax breaks from our state until 2024,” Roberts said in the statement.

He went on to make some other wild allegations in the statement tying the BLM movement to Marxism. “By kneeling during the playing of the national anthem, the NBA and its players are showing disrespect to the American flag and all it stands for,” he said. “This anti-patriotic act makes clear the NBA’s support of the Black Lives Matter group and its goal of defunding our nation’s police, its ties to Marxism, and its efforts to destroy nuclear families.”

This is pretty abhorrent behavior from a public servant trying to strong-arm a bunch of basketball players out of their constitutional right to protest through extortion. It was clear that his threats did not do much to the Thunder players who all kneeled during the national anthem.

The San Francisco Giants, who were the first team to show solidarity with the BLM movement in calling for racial justice for systematic racism and police brutality in America when the MLB season resumed last week and have again shown a form of protest by playing “Lift Every Voice and Sing” which the NAACP declared as the “Black National Anthem.”

The Giants public address announcer Renel Brooks-Moon led the ceremony saying, “In 1919, the NAACP proclaimed it as the Black National Anthem, for as you will hear, it is a rallying cry for freedom. The song is also a prayer, and a protest, and a reminder that the struggles of the past are still alive today, and that these struggles must be met with hope, with courage, with perseverance, with faith.”

With the NBA restarting it’s season Thursday night for eight seeding games before they start the playoffs, every player and member of the coaching staff involved in the night’s festivities locked arms and kneeled during the national anthem.

This is part of a concerted effort that the NBA has made to bring light to issues of social justice and racial equality during the season restart. Along with this powerful show of solidarity in the kneeling, players’ warmups had the phrase ‘Black Lives Matter’ printed on them and on the top of the court. Players were allowed to replace their last names on their jerseys with phrases that promote issues that they are concerned about with examples like “Freedom,” “Equality,” and “Education Reform.”

What was also encouraging was the NBA foregoing its policy to penalize players for kneeling during the national anthem with Adam Silver supporting their rights to peacefully protest.

Although these were powerful statements, there was also some basketball played with two games between the Jazz and Pelicans and the Lakers and Clippers. Both games were nail-biters with the Jazz and Lakers winning by two points each. With the powerful messages about racial equality and the great games, re-opening night for the NBA couldn’t have gone much better.

On Tuesday, Oklahoma State Chuba Hubbard who rushed for over 2,000 yards last season announced on Twitter that he would be taking a social media break citing that his accounts and the platform had become a “playground for hate.”

This move is likely a reaction to the backlash that Hubbard faced after he tweeted calling for Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater to resign when protesters for the BLM movement were arrested at his home. In his statement, Hubbard said, “I have never incited or promoted violence or hate. All I’ve done is voice my opinion on issues that I feel are not ethical! I love all! Even those that don’t see eye to eye with me! I will continue to play football at the highest level! But I also won’t stop pushing for what I feel is right!!!!”

He continued on saying, “I am a man, a black man, a human. Everything I’ve ever said or done in my life I own! All the love and hate I’ll own. The consequences I’ll own!”

Hubbard has not shied away from controversy on his Twitter before, one time threatening to boycott the 2020 season, but this reaction to a more than reasonable demand is more of a reflection on the divisiveness that permeates through platforms like Twitter.

Hubbard has since deleted the tweets calling for Prater’s resignation. It is unclear when he will return to the platform.

Displays of solidarity from the NBA for the Black Lives Matter Movement continue. When the league unveiled the courts that games will be played on during the Orlando restart, the words “Black Lives Matter” were printed near the top baseline.

This continues the theme that the NBA has been following during its entire restart that it will be using its platform to raise awareness about systematic racism and police brutality and show solidarity with the Black Lives Matter Movement. Earlier this month the NBA also announced that they will have a set of phrases promoting racial equality that players can choose to have on their jerseys in place of their last names. It will be interesting to see what they do during the broadcast to raise awareness and also what the players will say on TV with most of them already making statements about racial injustice and police brutality during media sessions.

Over the course of Sunday and Monday, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban went after, as he put them, the “National Anthem Police” who have been criticizing the NBA for kneeling during the national anthem. This, along with other protests by NBA players when the season restarts next week, is expected since many players have stated that they have opted into the restart partly to use the platform to show support for the Black Lives Matter movement.

The tweet storm started a battle with Dallas radio personality Mark Davis – not to be confused with the Raiders Owner – who tweeted at Cuban, “I am so ready to be in on this year’s #Mavericks home stretch: so much promise, so much personality. But the minute one player kneels during the anthem, I am OUT. Surely” To this Cuban curtly quote tweeted “Bye.” And then went on a series of tweets criticizing the “National Anthem Police” and eventually got into a war of tweets with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) who criticized Cuban, and the NBA’s overall silence, about the injustice in Hong Kong after the Daryl Morey controversy that occurred late in 2019. 

Although a fair point by Cruz, I fail to see how the BLM movement and the injustices in Hong Kong contradict each other. At such a tense time in terms of racial justice in America, it would frankly be odd for a league that is predominately African-American not to use its platform to speak out about racial injustice. Some of this awareness-raising has already begun with many players and coaches spotted wearing apparel with “Black Lives Matter” printed on them, including, the Raptors putting it on their post-game press conference and the league just announcing that the logo will be on every court.

I doubt the NBA will miss these people’s viewership if they chose to abstain from watching games due to the flag protests. How do these critics expect the players to remain silent and not use their platform to speak out? And while the NBA clearly has been keeping silent on the Hong Kong protests because they want to maintain a good relationship with the Chinese government, I don’t see any of the people complaining about BLM protests championing the citizens of Hong Kong. With scrimmages later this week, and a full restart on July 30, I don’t expect confrontations between people on either side of national anthem protesting to go away.

San Francisco Giants manager Gabe Kapler along with four other players took a knee and put their hands on each other’s shoulders during the national anthem before a preseason game against the Oakland Athletics. This does not come as a surprise given the racial tension and resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States over the past few months. What did come as a surprise though is that they didn’t wait for opening day where there would be a much larger audience.

It is expected that when the MLB 60-game season begins on Thursday that there will be protests around the league that will help raise awareness for the BLM movement and it appears as though they have the support of the league when the MLB’s official Twitter responded to a fan criticizing the kneeling, “It has never been about the military or the flag. The players and coaches are using their platforms to peacefully protest.”

This is a refreshing departure from the usual business model that professional sports leagues used to take towards political matters epitomized by Michael Jordan‘s famous quote “Republicans buy sneakers, too.” Where they used to stay out of political matters and encourage their players to do so as well, now we are seeing a shift where these leagues refuse bow down to angry guys on Twitter who don’t understand why these players feel the need to protest the systematic racial injustice that still plagues this country.

Some of these protests may see a dip in numbers, but I doubt that for a couple of reasons. One: there haven’t been any sports in four months and that means that there will be a lot more casual fans that are very hungry to see any kind of competitive sport. Second, I don’t think any person sensitive enough to boycott a sport because the players of a sport disagree with their political views have the moral constitution to be a serious fan of something with such high variability as sports.

During the national anthem before the second game of the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) Challenge Cup on Saturday between the Chicago Red Stars and the Washington Spirits, Julie Ertz consoled her Red Stars, and Team USA teammate Casey Short, who was visibly emotional. 

Players were showing support of the Black Lives Matter movement that is sweeping across the United States. Players also wore t-shirts during the pregame and arm bands during the game with ‘Black Lives Matter’ written on them.

The same scene took place prior to the first game of the day as all 22 starters as well as some reserves took a knee during the national anthem. 

In a statement prior to the first match on Saturday between the North Carolina Courage and Portland Thorns, the two squads issued a statement to comment on the ongoing issues in the U.S. “We took a knee today to protest racial injustice, police brutality, and systemic racism against Black people and people of color in America,” they said. “We love our country and we have taken this opportunity to hold it to a higher standard. It is our duty to demand that the liberties and freedoms this nation was founded upon are extended to everyone.”

This is not the first time that players knelt during the national anthem of an NWSL game, as back in 2016, Megan Rapinoe knelt prior to her game as a member of the Seattle Reign. In addition, Rapinoe knelt during the anthem while playing for Team USA. She took to Twitter to comment on what transpired Saturday.

https://twitter.com/mPinoe/status/1276923017025576962