On our first nationally televised sport of the 2020 WNBA season, my staff — the Atlanta Dream — determined to grab the second. We walked into th
On our first nationally televised sport of the 2020 WNBA season, my staff — the Atlanta Dream — determined to grab the second. We walked into the world sporting tees that stated Vote Warnock, a sea of black shirts of solidarity. On the time, Rev. Raphael Warnock was an extended shot in Georgia’s Senate election, a Democrat polling at fourth in a historically purple state. What made our endorsement further daring is that his opponent, Kelly Loeffler, the sitting senator, was a co-owner of our staff.
Flash ahead to 5 months later, and I’m mendacity in my mattress in Ankara, Turkey, the place I’m taking part in within the Turkish league for the winter, scrolling anxiously by means of Twitter. I had barely slept the night time earlier than, waking up each couple of hours to test the information of Georgia’s Senate race. That’s after I noticed the tweet.
“Warnock has been declared the winner of Georgia’s runoff election.”
Nearly instantly, I opened up our Dream staff group chat. Congratulations have been pouring in from our coach, our basic supervisor, and our teammates. The candidate we endorsed would give Georgia its first Black senator. All I might really feel was reduction.
Since I began taking part in on Atlanta’s WNBA staff, I’ve witnessed our league proceed to face up and arrange round social justice. From our union’s negotiations over honest pay to this summer season’s racial justice protests, we within the WNBA have been making our voices heard over the previous yr. Atlanta Dream’s endorsement of Rev. Warnock in Georgia’s Senate race was our newest motion, and considered one of our most necessary moments this yr — this was our dwelling turf, and our state had the possibility to flip the Senate blue.
The story behind our endorsement is the results of lots of of choices and networks that constructed on each other over the course of final yr. Nevertheless it formally began final summer season. Our staff, together with the entire league, had determined to make an announcement through the George Floyd protests by sporting Black Lives Matter shirts honoring Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old Black girl killed by police this summer season in Louisville, and different Black girls killed by the police. This prompted our co-owner, who was appointed as Georgia senator after the earlier senator resigned, to make an announcement about us. She stated she opposed Black Lives Matter and that we’d like much less, no more, politics in sports activities.
We had not come to advertise Black Lives Matter as a staff with out a variety of consideration and thought, and we now felt like our voice was getting used as a prop by our co-owner to drum up assist amongst her conservative base. Our staff, and the bigger WNBA league by means of our union, began speaking about what we might do. We determined that relatively than make an announcement about it, we’d do the other of our co-owner: use our actions as a substitute of our phrases.
Inside our union’s govt committee group chat, we began throwing out concepts, together with the upcoming Senate race. We began candidates, and had a cellphone name — open to all gamers on our staff — with Rev. Warnock. It was a chance for us to see what he was about, ask him questions, and vet him for a possible endorsement. After chatting with him, we mentioned him as a candidate amongst our gamers, ensuring everybody was snug with throwing their assist behind him. After a few month of dialog, all of us selected sporting our Vote Warnock T-shirts, not simply to our first nationally televised sport however at different video games as nicely. It wasn’t simply us — different WNBA gamers jumped in and wore the shirt, too. We took photographs and posted about it.
Warnock began to rise within the polls, and donations began pouring in as nicely. So we saved up the stress. We made positive we had correct voter registration and site info and amplified that on social media, too. All through all of it, I don’t suppose I or any of my teammates introduced up our co-owner as soon as, selecting as a substitute to maintain our eye fastened on the Senate race.
Now that Warnock has gained, serving to to flip Georgia and our Senate blue, I can’t assist however really feel cautious optimism about what’s to come back. However we have been only one in so many teams working collectively to assist get Warnock elected, together with the New Georgia Challenge and Truthful Combat. And with out the unimaginable activism of Stacey Abrams, who sits on the WNBA’s union Board of Advocates, and Lisa Borders, former WNBA president, this wouldn’t have occurred.
The election comes after years of the WNBA, and so many different leagues, pushing for social change. This summer season, all of our groups have been contained in the bubble as a pandemic and racial justice protests raged on the surface, which helped facilitate so many conversations amongst us about what was taking place. We had a social justice council that talked with organizers and other people like civil rights lawyer Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the phrase intersectionality, to verify we have been being intentional with our activism. Whilst we transitioned out of the bubble, we have been used to having these sorts of conversations, and we had these networks of organizers that we saved involved with just about. It helps that there are solely 12 groups inside the WNBA — everyone knows one another and all of us discuss.
On the finish of the day, a variety of this simply got here all the way down to who we’re. We’re girls athletes. Many people are Black girls. We’re at all times judged extra harshly and, inside the world of sports activities, handled because the butt of the joke. And that’s made many people extra attuned to the injustice of the world. Individuals will at all times decide us anyway — why not make our voices heard?
When the American season ends, many people head overseas to Europe or Asia to play in leagues around the globe. It’s at all times been hanging to me after I communicate to my teammates from different international locations about what it feels wish to be Black in America. Whether or not it’s run-ins with the police or backlash after we protest, we’re handled otherwise. Lots of my teammates are shocked after I inform them what we expertise.
I’ve to be sincere: I’ve at all times been a fairly introverted particular person. I’m not one to attempt to shake the bushes with my phrases. However the previous couple of years has modified every little thing. I not really feel like I’ve a alternative however to take a stand.
However my staff and I are going to do it our method — with actions, not phrases. And that is how I plan to maintain going.
—As instructed to Karen Turner
Elizabeth Williams is a participant on the Atlanta Dream and secretary of the WNBA Gamers Union.