Players Try To Chase Basketball Team Owner Out of the League for Opposing Black Lives Matter

Ah, yes. Nothing screams “inclusion” and “tolerance” like inclusion under only a very narrow umbrella and tolerance under the threat of, “Or else.”

And yet, keeping in trend with the chaos that is 2020, it appears that those are, in fact, the acceptable definitions of “inclusion” and “tolerance” these days.

Case in point, Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, co-owner of the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream, made a pretty benign statement about not being comfortable with some of the radical ideas presented by the far left and the Black Lives Matter movement. 

Now, people are demanding that she be thrown out of the WNBA.

This controversy began when Loeffler wrote a letter to WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert expressing concerns about the struggling league’s plans to promote the Black Lives Matter movement. 

Those plans, called “The Justice Movement,” included sporting “Black Lives Matter” and “Say Her Name” patches on warm-up shirts, as the WNBA outlined in a statement Monday.

Loeffler had the audacity to suggest that the players instead sport American flags on their apparel. Much like NFL star Drew Brees, she swiftly learned that honoring the flag is apparently an affront to black lives everywhere. 

“Though I was not consulted about — nor do I agree with the League’s decision in this matter, I am proposing a common-sense recommendation to ensure we reflect the values of freedom and equality for all,” Loeffler’s letter said, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“I believe we should put an American flag on every jersey. Include it in our licensed apparel for players, coaches and fans,” she wrote.

Loeffler also made a rather common-sense argument that sports should be a platform for unity, not division. Whether you oppose or support the BLM agenda, it’s inarguable that it’s a political movement. Politics, by its very definition and especially so in America’s two-party system, is divisive. Why bring that into sports, which ostensibly is the last bastion of true meritocracy in America and a place where people of all backgrounds come together to root for their team?

“The truth is, we need less — not more politics in sports. In a time when polarizing politics is as divisive as ever, sports has the power to be a unifying antidote. And now more than ever, we should be united in our goal to remove politics from sports,” Loeffler said. 

To be clear, she made no secret about her disdain for the BLM movement, even though a lot of outlets, including ESPN, are curiously omitting the first line of the following paragraph:

“The lives of each and every African American matter, and there’s no debating the fact that there is no place for racism in our country. I adamantly oppose the Black Lives Matter political movement, which has advocated for the defunding of police, called for the removal of Jesus from churches and the disruption of the nuclear family structure, harbored anti-Semitic views, and promoted violence and destruction across the country. I believe it is totally misaligned with the values and goals of the WNBA and the Atlanta Dream, where we support tolerance and inclusion.” 

Instead of any sort of meaningful discourse on what “tolerance” and “inclusion” should entail, cancel culture came swiftly for Loeffler.

The WNBA Players Association wanted her “O-U-T!” for having an opinion.

U.S. women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe promptly pounced on Twitter.

Black Lives Matter.Periodt the end Kelly. IF America lives up to its promises, first of which is life, LIFE, which was taken in the night as Breonna Taylor slept IN HER BED,then liberty then the pursuit of happiness, THEN we can start talking about other things. Until then ✊🏿✊🏽✊🏻 https://t.co/Jb7S6ChuGq

— Megan Rapinoe (@mPinoe) July 8, 2020

WNBA star and NBA commentator Candace Parker made it clear “there’s no place” for dissident viewpoints in this new “woke” reality.

So just to recap, if you call an entire race of people “sub-human” in the name of Black Lives Matter, that’s apparently the epitome of “tolerance” and “inclusion.”

But if you think “there is no place for racism” in this country and honor the American flag, as Loeffler made it clear she does in her letter to the WNBA, you’re a bigot.

Yup. That will work out for a floundering league that has barely made any sort of societal impact at all.