Serena Williams: Here's Why I'm Speaking Out on Police Brutality

'There comes a time when silence is betrayal'
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 28, 2016 3:42 PM CDT
Serena on Police Brutality: Silence Can Be 'Betrayal'
Serena Williams poses for photographers prior to the start of the Giorgio Armani women's Spring-Summer 2017 fashion show that was presented in Milan, Italy, Friday, Sept. 23, 2016.   (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Tennis star Serena Williams vowed in an emotional Facebook post Tuesday to no longer "be silent" about police brutality of black people. She told the story of recently asking her 18-year-old nephew to drive her somewhere, then noticing as he drove that there was a police car stopped on the side of the road. "I quickly checked to see if he was obliging by the speed limit. Than I remembered that horrible video of the woman in the car when a cop shot her boyfriend. All of this went through my mind in a matter of seconds," Williams wrote. "I even regretted not driving myself. I would never forgive myself if something happened to my nephew. He's so innocent. So were all 'the others.'"

After wondering why any of this is still an issue in 2016, "I than [sic] wondered than [sic] have I spoken up? I had to take a look at me. What about my nephews? What if I have a son and what about my daughters? As Dr. Martin Luther King said 'There comes a time when silence is betrayal,'" she concluded. "I Won't Be Silent." (More Serena Williams stories.)

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