So a lot has happened in the past couple of days. As I write this, we’re actually in a second day of a work stoppage for the NBA and the WNBA.
Here’s the recap: right before Game 5 between the Orlando Magic and the Milwaukee Bucks was supposed to take place, the Bucks no-showed their game as the pregame clock winded down. There had been talk about a walkout by the Toronto Raptors and the Boston Celtics due to the terrible shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Some of you had already seen the video. Either way, police shot poor Blake 7 times in the back. For what? It’s senseless. It’s not like Blake was trying to attack anybody. He wasn’t armed. It’s just another event where cops abuse their power on poor black people.
The pro basketball league bubbles were made not only to resume games during this horrible pandemic but to also raise awareness about black lives and to also hopefully help change this broken system that has plagued people of color for centuries. And it had to bother everyone in both bubbles about the Kenosha shooting.
Of course, this is bigger than basketball. I mean, whatever; Jamal Murray scored 42 points. Sure, the Clippers defeated the Mavericks by 43 points. And it’s great that Layshia Clarendon made two free throws to give the New York Liberty their second win. And it’s awesome that Satou Sabally had a breakout game and the MVP race between A’ja Wilson and Breanna Stewart is heating up. (I was on the verge of writing about this before news broke out about the Bucks.)
None of that stuff matters when black people are being senselessly murdered and shot at by people that are supposed to “serve and protect.”
So the Bucks, who have a history of being targeted by police and are based in Wisconsin, decided to do something about it. Sterling Brown wrote about being brutalized by police. Former Buck John Henson got the cops called on him for basically being black. Kyle Korver is doing his best to be an ally but obviously, we need more voices than that. Korver’s former teammate in Atlanta, Thabo Sefolosha, got his leg broken by the New York Police Department! And this was during the time his team was playing in the playoffs!
The Bucks walked out. The Orlando Magic followed through. And the game was postponed. The other teams playing on Wednesday (Rockets, Thunder, Blazers, Lakers) refused to play as well. It had a ripple effect in sports as the WNBA (whose players have been in the forefront in activism forever), Major League Baseball, and Major League Soccer postponed games. Tennis superstar Naomi Osaka dropped out of her games as well.
It’s a big deal. It got the attention it needed. The Bucks even got in touch with the Wisconsin Lt. Governor and Attorney General. Simply put, changes have to be made. It sucks that they can’t happen overnight but steps must be taken to get to that change.
The NBA and WNBA have also postponed games for Thursday. No word yet on when the WNBA will resume while the NBA players have decided to resume this weekend (likely Saturday). The message that the players wanted to do seemed to get more and more lost as the games went on but they took it right back with this walkout and break in the league. Is it the right thing to do? I don’t think there’s really a right or wrong answer here as long as they can get the message across however they can. Just the walkout alone did a LOT.
But this is the reality we’re in. Believe me; we want our biggest worry to be whether the Los Angeles Lakers or the Milwaukee Bucks can win the 2020 championship. But it’s just so hard to concentrate on basketball (or anything, really) when we see police killing black people like it’s a game to them. No. Basketball is a game. Killing people is straight-out evil. All black people really want is to live without fear. And yet there are just people that hate others simply because they have a different skin color. It’s just so so awful.
We’re a long way to go from this. These athletes just want to do their job. Instead, they have to worry about their families and friends getting murdered simply for existing.
Rey-Rey is on Twitter at @TheNoLookPass.
TNLP on FaceBook.