Atlanta Dream co-owner Kelly Loeffler found herself drawing scorn from numerous WNBA players and the league’s players association earlier this week. Loeffler, a Republican who was appointed to fill Georgia’s vacant seat in the United States Senate earlier this year, expressed her opposition to the Black Lives Matter movement getting celebrated when the WNBA begins its restart at IMG Academy in Florida a little later this month.
Following the response, Loeffler offered up a response of her own, going onto Fox News and saying that Black Lives Matter seeks to “destroy American principles.” This, again, drew plenty of scorn, and on Friday afternoon, the Dream’s players decided to address Loeffler’s collection of comments with a statement of their own, one which was tweeted out by the Dream’s official Twitter account. In the statement, Atlanta’s players declared that saying Black Lives Matter is not “a political statement,” but rather, it is “a statement of humanity.”
— Atlanta Dream (@AtlantaDream) July 10, 2020
Several players followed this up by tweeting out the letter, with center Elizabeth Williams saying, “We’ve read the letter. We reject the letter.
We’ve read the letter. We reject the letter. Black lives matter. Vote in November. #BlackLivesMatter#SayHerName#BetOnWomen pic.twitter.com/kPFkPkKiVk
— Elizabeth Williams (@E_Williams_1) July 10, 2020
We said what we said. #SayHerName pic.twitter.com/xpuFiLmO9r
— Monique Billings (@moniquebillings) July 10, 2020
While Williams did not specify any races in which individuals should vote this November, Loeffler will participate in a run-off election against four other individuals for her Senate seat on Election Day this year.