Brittney Griner is afraid of #SayHerName.
“It was amazing to be able to pass out in the box and bring the so-called Breonna Taylor on my back,” Phoenix Mercury said. “It meant everything to me, honoring her and trying to get justice for her.
The other people who have the women’s rights hashtag are grateful for the support, and those who know Griner are not surprised that she lends it.
The global game is at the heart of a major cultural shift, where players, coaches and leagues speak for the first time against anti-black racism and other social injustices. But Griner’s been doing this for years.
“BG has been a pioneer,” Said Mercury archer Diana Taurasi.
Griner spoke about his sexuality years before the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage across the country.
She talked about the bullying and suicide of teenagers.
And as his fellow NBA men kneel the national anthem to protest racism and police brutality, Griner and his WNBA sisters left the box on the first day of the 2020 season.
It is a provocative gesture that will surely attract attention, even though she insists that she has no preference for disrespecting the country and says her father is a Marine who followed a 30-year career in law enforcement.
Then why are you doing this?
Reading his press clippings and watching his interviews over the years leaves the transparent impression that basketball stored Griner when he couldn’t save himself, and all he needs to do now is pay that debt through those who can’t.
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And right now, it’s Breonna Taylor.
“It’s unhappy that we’re still waiting, your family circle still waiting for justice to be done,” Griner said. “I can only believe how they feel. And my center is going to the total circle of relatives and all those who have been affected by police brutality and who have not yet received justice.”
Taylor, a black woman, was murdered in her Kentucky home, and the federal government is investigating imaginable civil rights violations through the Louisville police.
An officer in question fired. Two others are on administrative leave.
Activists say the involvement of WNBA stars like Griner will make sure the case is not overlooked.
Taylor died in March, however, the great wave of Black Lives Matter protests did not stop until George Floyd died two months later.
It’s similar to 2014.
Mike Brown’s death in Ferguson, Missouri, that year sparked protests across the country, but “how many people?” asked Kimberle Crenshaw, director of the African American Policy Forum, “Do you remember Michelle Cusseaux?”
Cusseaux was killed by police in Phoenix, a few days after Brown. When the case failed to gain ground, Cusseaux’s mother, Fran Garrett, took her daughter’s coffin to City Hall, triggering the movement #SayHerName, Crenshaw said.
“#SayHerName just say, recognize that black women also experience police violence against black people,” Crenshaw said. “They recognize that their families are crying for them. their lives lost are no less an injustice.”
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Crenshaw’s AAFP, a group of social justice experts, paints with the WNBA and the league syndicate to teach players, magnify their messages and paint for change.
This has led Breonna Taylor Patches in uniforms and opportunities for players to listen to Michelle Obama, Valerie Jarrett, Stacey Abrams and others about issues ranging from police reform to voting rights.
Griner hesitated to make his message public.
“Go out and vote!” she said, spontaneously at the end of a recent media session. “Go out and vote! Make a difference, for God’s sake! Not for the president! Go out and vote! Do it! Make a change!”
Angela Hughey, president of ONE Community, a Phoenix-based coalition of businesses and organizations that diversity, inclusion and equality, has been working with Griner for years.
“She’s an herbal leader, she’s not being,” Hughey said. “She’s being the first.”
Throughout his career, Griner has made his project the example he would have liked to have in his young people. She told how basketball gave her an identity at a difficult time. And it has made raising awareness among homeless youth and LGBTQ a priority since its rookie season.
But she raised the budget for aid from COVID-19 and Arizona animal shelters.
Now, it is drawing attention to activists seeking to replace Breonna Taylor’s call, calling for the prosecution of officials concerned about her death and U.S. Senator Rand Paul of R-Kentucky in their attempt to ban police orders without strike.
This is new to BG, even if it’s for everyone.
She’s who she is.
“When it’s authentic, it can’t be hidden,” Mercury goalkeeper Shatori Walker-Kimbrough said. “She’s a smart, humble user and player.”
Contact Moore at [email protected]. Follow him on Instagram and Twitter @WritingMoore.