WNBA Strikes to Protest the Police Shooting of Jacob Blake

In response to the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the NBA and WNBA have postponed all of their Wednesday night games, after multiple teams announced they would not be playing.

It started with the Milwaukee Bucks, who sat out Game 5 of their first-round series against the Orlando Magic. Not long after the NBA made its decision, the WNBA announced it would be doing the same.

“The WNBA announced that the three games scheduled for this evening have been postponed. Information regarding rescheduling of the games will be provided when available,” the league announced, according to The Hill.

Images circulating social media show players from multiple teams taking a knee while wearing shirts that spell out Blake’s name on the front, with seven holes on the back, representing the number of times he was shot by police:

The Atlanta Dream, one of the teams to announce its intention to strike, has locked horns recently with senator, part-owner and all-around troll Kelly Loeffler, who has spoken out against the WNBA’s support of Black Lives Matter, and even wrote a letter to the league’s commissioner asking that players be banned from wearing BLM shirts or kneeling during the national anthem.

In response, the team donned shirts reading “Vote Warnock,” in reference to Loeffler’s Democratic rival Raphael Warnock.

“We wanted to make sure we could still keep the focus on our social justice movement, and funny enough, Rev. Warnock is somebody who supports everything that we support and just happens to be running in that seat,” Elizabeth Williams, a forward for the Dream, explained to ESPN.

This moment isn’t limited to basketball. Tennis prodigy Naomi Osaka announced that she would not play her semi-final match at the Western & Southern Open, writing in a statement that “Before I am an athlete, I am a Black woman. And as a Black woman I feel as though there are much more important matters at hand that need attention, rather than watching me play tennis.”

“I’m exhausted of having a new hashtag pop up every few days and I’m extremely tired of having this same conversation over and over again,” she wrote. “When will it ever be enough?”