Wemby gets the protest ball rolling
Maybe sports will save us.
It would be nice if music might, too, as it tried the last time we were in such peril, a president prosecuting an unwinnable war and his successor, a domestic criminal, doing it, too.
Already, I digress.
Because what we’re watching each day, right before our eyes, is too painful to fathom, too impossible to believe, but keeps happening anyway.
Last Friday it was Alex Pretti, assassinated on Minneapolis pavement.
There only to document, then coming to the aid of another, he found himself accosted, pepper-sprayed, punched, kicked, disarmed of a concealed gun he never brandished and was licensed to carry and shot dead by two ICE agents.
Four or five bullets hit him, three in the back, among 10 fired.
It happened in seconds.
ABC News explains it clearly in this second-by-second account of the tragedy.
Pretti, of course, was no threat — just as Renee Good was no threat on Jan. 7, shot dead as she turned her vehicle away from an ICE agent who murdered her nonetheless, firing through both her windshield and driver’s-side window.
If you subscribe, you know this is the first time I’ve waded into these waters, created by a despotic president literally invading Middle America. Despite boiling blood, I’ve felt paralyzed about what to say.
Bound to fall short of the moment — when the executive branch of our federal government is lifting entire chapters from books written by regimes we defeated in World War II and the Cold War — I’ve stayed silent.
Until now, finally finding something resembling good news on the horizon, giving me a way in.
Thank goodness for the NBPA.
It’s the NBA players’ union, and it didn’t issue some sweeping manifesto, but did say something.
The ball is finally rolling and with an athletic calendar chock-full of moments the Trump administration’s destined to screw up, who knows where it might stop.
Issued Sunday, here is that statement:
Following the news of yet another fatal shooting in Minneapolis, a city that has been on the forefront of the fight against injustices, NBA players can no longer remain silent.
Now more than ever, we must defend the right to freedom of speech and stand in solidarity with the people in Minnesota protesting and risking their lives to demand justice.
The fraternity of NBA players, like the United States itself, is a community enriched by its global citizens, and we refuse to let the flames of division threaten the civil liberties that are meant to protect us all.
The NBPA and its members extend our deepest condolences to the families of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, just as our thoughts remain focused on the safety and well-being of all members of our community.
Did the NBPA explain how it would no longer remain silent?
It did not.
Can it protect the civil liberties of a nation?
It cannot.
What it can do is give reporters a reason to ask NBA players about it.
If he’s not the league MVP this season, the 7-foot-4 San Antonio center will be in seasons to come. He’s also the biggest thorn in the side of the Oklahoma City Thunder and, as it turns out, a thoughtful young man capable of speaking truth to power despite well-meaning warnings from his own team.
He is also French, a non-American living in America, which can be dicey.
“[Spurs] PR has tried, but I’m not going to sit here and give some politically correct [answer],” Wembanyama said after Tuesday practice. “Every day I wake up and see the news and I’m horrified. I think it’s crazy that some people might make it seem like, or make it sound like, the murder of civilians is acceptable.
“I read the news and sometimes I’m asking very deep questions about my own life. I’m conscious that saying everything that’s on my mind would have a cost that’s too great for me right now.”
Still, he kept going.
“That’s kind of a big factor in this, that people have that fear that if they speak openly about injustice, they see there can be repercussions,” Wembanyama said. “It’s terrible … I’m a foreigner. I live in this country and I am concerned.”
When I first watched what he said, I felt gratitude. We need more people in the public eye willing to speak.
When I went back to it, I felt anger, as all of us should.
The United States was founded on freedom of speech. It wasn’t until that freedom was codified — the first of 10 amendments to the Constitution — the Constitution became ratified in the first place, replacing the Articles of Confederation in 1789.
But Wembanyama doesn’t feel it.
I’m not feeling it.
Minnesotans aren’t feeling it.
And those who have exercised it through public protest of this administration have too often had that administration try to strip it away by slander, investigation, criminal charges or violence.
Here’s the good news.
There’s more where Wembanyama came from.
Breanna Stewart, one of the WNBA’s best, brought an “Abolish ICE” sign to player introductions in Unrivaled, the three-on-three league now in season.
Next comes the Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina, Italy, with competition beginning Feb. 4, two days before the opening ceremonies. I can’t know who might use that stage to speak, but I know this administration’s incapable of celebrating anyone who disagrees with it, creating unending opportunity for it to showcase its smallness.
In June, the World Cup arrives on American soil, an event incapable of not being political and yet another event for the administration to flunk.
Finally, the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles — and Oklahoma City, too — may just finish this administration off, presuming it makes it that far. Because Americans will come together behind our athletes and all Trump and his minions understand is division.
It’s a lot to ask.
It might even happen.
Thank you, Clay, for putting into words what so many of us think and feel.
It’s horrific. It’s the American Gestopo, how can we all not protest?