Boston Celtics big man legend Bill Russell and current Celtics star wing Jaylen Brown retweeted a post by Utah Jazz shooting guard Donovan Mitchell posted in response to the shooting of Jacob Blake at the hands of police on Sunday.
Blake — a Black man tazed and shot in the back seven times after breaking up a fight between two women in Kenosha, Wisconsin on Sunday night — is yet another incident in a long string of them that has seen lethal force used on people of color in the U.S.
It was similar police violence that triggered international protests in response to the killing of George Floyd this spring in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Amen! This has to stop! https://t.co/Q6cipGCdrY
— TheBillRussell (@RealBillRussell) August 24, 2020
In fact, it was those very protests that led to the NBA and National Basketball Players Association’s historic restart agreement to center pro-racial justice interventions of both a symbolic and structural nature as a condition of resuming the 2019-20 season.
A restart agreement current Celtic Brown has been following in the footsteps of Boston legend and lifelong civil rights warrior Russell in using his platform to draw attention to.
There is inequalities and injustices that carry HARSH punishments for people of color !! I watched a man get shot 7 times in front of his children they will never be able to unsee what they just saw every nerve in my body is on fire
— Jaylen Brown (@FCHWPO) August 25, 2020
Jaylen Brown tweeted out the above response to the shooting, as well as former Presidential hopeful, Senator Bernie Sanders on the incident in addition to Mitchell’s tweet:
The police who shot Jacob Blake in the back seven times must be fired, arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Congress cannot wait any longer to act forcefully to end the horrific violence against Black Americans at the hands of police.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) August 24, 2020
At present, Blake has been treated and is expected to survive, but that has done little to prevent the same fears, anger, and rage at the death of Floyd and countless others from bubbling up in players like Brown, Mitchell and Russell.
Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers was quick to respond, tweeting the following message:
“Tonight, Jacob Blake was shot in the back multiple times, in broad daylight, in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Kathy and I join his family, friends, and neighbors in hoping earnestly that he will not succumb to his injuries. While we do not have all of the details yet, what we know for certain is that he is not the first Black man or person to have been shot or injured or mercilessly killed at the hands of individuals in law enforcement in our state or our country.”
How the NBA, its Black and players of color, and the wider Black community respond remains to be seen, but if nothing else, the incident is just one of so many other data points showing how much work there still is to do to ensure that Black Lives Matter in the U.S.
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