Pro sports teams take a stand against the police shooting of Jacob Blake and racial injustice

More than a dozen games from Thursday night were postponed across professional sports. Basketball, baseball, soccer, and tennis — athletes all refused to play. This followed days of protests in Wisconsin and nationwide after a Kenosha police officer shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back.

Today the NBA and WNBA players decided today to resume games soon.

Sportswriter Erica Ayala says, “What’s at stake here for the WNBA players is that in a lot of ways — even before entering the Wubble, as it’s affectionately known — WNBA players felt that the best way to get their message across for social justice was to actually enter into a single site and to have everyone on that united front. … I get the impression that that’s not the same conversation that NBA players have. … A lot of them wonder … if it makes sense to have NBA players playing games at all.”

She continues, “I think the conversation is a little bit different for WNBA players, who feel that this is an opportunity. They have a number of their games on national television, which unfortunately does not happen in a season that’s played under what we would consider now pre-coronavirus normal circumstances.”