Players for the Atlanta Dream, which is co-owned by Republican Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler, publicly backed one of her Democratic challengers.
They showed up to Tuesday night’s WNBA game, which the team ultimately lost to the Phoenix Mercury, in T-shirts that said, “Vote [for Rev. Raphael] Warnock” and “Black Lives Matter.” Some of the Phoenix players participated in the protest given Loeffler’s repeated unapologetic rejection of the Black Lives Matter movement.
One Dream player, center Elizabeth Williams, posted a photo of herself in a “Vote Warnock” shirt and captioned it with a quote from the late Rep. John Lewis, who had represented Georgia’s 5th Congressional District for decades until his death last month.
We are @wnba players, but like the late, great John Lewis said, we are also ordinary people with extraordinary vision. @ReverendWarnock has spent his life fighting for the people and we need him in Washington. Join the movement for a better Georgia at https://t.co/hC8iF9urak pic.twitter.com/mvN5e9m4oO
— Elizabeth Williams (@E_Williams_1) August 4, 2020
Warnock posted a tweet that said he was “honored and humbled” by the show of support from the WNBA players.
Loeffler, a partial owner of the Dream for nearly a decade, said the players were trying to make her the latest casualty of “cancel culture.”
“This is just more proof that the out of control cancel culture wants to shut out anyone who disagrees with them,” the lawmaker wrote in a statement. “It’s clear that the league is more concerned with playing politics than basketball.”
The Georgia senator, who has repeatedly accused the Black Lives Matter movement of being a Marxist organization, sent a letter to league Commissioner Cathy Engelbert last month urging her to reconsider the social justice stances that have been implemented into the game.
Loeffler said allowing political rhetoric on the court “undermines the potential of the sport and sends a message of exclusion.” The letter came shortly after the league announced that it would be starting the new season with a first week of competition “centered around the Black Lives Matter movement.”
Loeffler, appointed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp to replace retired Sen. Johnny Isakson in January, is in a tough race to keep her seat against Warnock and a couple of others, including Republican Rep. Doug Collins, in November.
