Players on Senator's WNBA Team Back Her Opponent

Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler does not support BLM
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 5, 2020 10:17 AM CDT
Players on Senator's WNBA Team Back Her Opponent
Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Georgia, waits to speak in a television interview on Capitol Hill in Washington on March 20, 2020.   (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

With t-shirts reading "Vote Warnock," players across the WNBA came out against Atlanta Dream co-owner and GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler before their games on Tuesday—including members of Loeffler's own team. It was the latest show of opposition to Loeffler, who faces Democratic challenger Rev. Raphael Warnock in a November special election in Georgia, and it follows her criticism of the league's decision to dedicate the 2020 season to Breonna Taylor and the larger Black Lives Matter movement. Loeffler—appointed to the Senate by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp earlier this year—objected in a letter sent to WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert last month. She kept up the criticism Tuesday, saying "this is just more proof that the out of control cancel culture wants to shut out anyone who disagrees with them," per the Hill.

Dream center Elizabeth Williams on Tuesday posted a photo of herself wearing a black t-shirt with the words "Vote Warnock" in white, per CNN. She urged voters to "join the movement for a better Georgia" by voting for the Black pastor at the Atlanta church where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached, who "has spent his life fighting for the people." Players with the Seattle Storm, Chicago Sky, and Phoenix Mercury wore the same shirt, per the AP, which reports the idea sprang from Storm point guard Sue Bird, who echoed Williams' message. Players had conference calls with Warnock before the reveal. "Loeffler and those like her who seek to silence and dismiss others when they speak up for justice have planted themselves on the wrong side of history," Warnock later said, adding there is "no place ... for bigotry" in this movement of "generational, transformative change." (More Sen. Kelly Loeffler stories.)

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