WNBA players balance activist roles as political turmoil hangs over All-Star weekend

Like any other milestone in the WNBA, the 2022 All-Star Game will be about much more than basketball.

The Chicago Sky will be well represented at Wintrust Arena — Candace Parker is an All-Star starter, while Courtney Vandersloot, Kahleah Copper and Emma Meesseman are reserves. But WNBA players rarely stay on the sidelines when it comes to fighting for human rights. And as the league converges on Chicago for All-Star weekend, players carry with them the burden of a tumultuous year of advocacy for trans children, reproductive rights and gun control.

But the foremost issue for the league and its players is the imprisonment of Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner, who pleaded guilty to drug possession charges Thursday in Russia in an effort to possibly secure a prisoner exchange with the U.S. government.

[ [Don’t miss] Rev. Al Sharpton stirs effort for Brittney Griner’s return amid WNBA All-Star festivities: ‘Bring Brittney home’ ]

Rev. Al Sharpton led a news conference Friday afternoon alongside Griner’s wife, Cherelle, Women’s National Basketball Players Association President Nneka Ogwumike and vice president Sue Bird to call for faith leaders to rally behind Griner’s cause.

“Sports and faith ought not be confined to the boundaries of any nation or any belief, and no one has exemplified that more than Brittney Griner,” Sharpton said. “Brittney Griner has played all over the world. Even when some would not go to Russia, she would go. She has been a global role model and shown that there is no boundaries for those who want to engage in athletics. … She is a champion on the court, a champion who should have been on the court this weekend.”

After assembling a letter co-signed by nearly 1,200 prominent Black women, including Bernice King and Dawn Staley, the WNBPA will continue to plead with the Biden administration to negotiate for Griner’s release throughout the weekend.

“With a 99% conviction rate, Russia’s process is its own,” the WNBPA said in a statement Thursday. “You can’t navigate it or even understand it like our own legal system. What we do know is that the U.S. State Department determined that Brittney Griner was wrongfully detained for a reason and will continue negotiating her release regardless of the legal process. We’ll leave it at that.

“The administration needs to know that this powerful collective is behind them and supports whatever needs to be done to get BG, Paul Whelan and other detained U.S. nationals home right away.”

But after initially decrying the Biden administration for lack of action, Cherelle Griner said her family and the WNBPA have been bolstered by renewed attention and energy from the U.S. government.

Griner sent a handwritten letter to Biden from a Russian cell this week, begging him to advocate for her release. Biden and vice president Kamala Harris met with her wife later in the week. Cherelle said the president has since returned a letter, offering hope for Griner’s release.

“I believe every word that she said to him, (Biden) understood,” Cherelle Griner said. “He sees her as a person and he has not forgotten her, which was her biggest cry in her letter. So I’m grateful.”

Griner’s absence will leave a hole at All-Star weekend as the league plans to use the platform to gain attention to her imprisonment. But the scope of player activism will be wide-ranging as mass shootings and attacks on abortion and transgender rights swept through the country this season.

In the wake of mass shootings in an Uvalde, Texas, elementary school and a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket, players held media blackouts and used social media to demand stricter gun control legislation. Now the league’s All-Stars arrive in Chicago to a community still reeling from a mass shooting in Highland Park on the Fourth of July.

“We have an issue in this country,” Washington Mystics guard Natasha Cloud said after the team announced a media blackout following the Uvalde shooting. “Not only white supremacy — we also have a gun violence issue. … We’re talking about our kids not being safe to go to school, and our government is still not implementing sensible gun laws.

“This isn’t about taking people’s rights away from bearing arms. This is about putting sensible gun laws in so this doesn’t happen again.”

The same political fervor spilled over after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last month, sparking protests that likely will continue this weekend.

[ [Don’t miss] Chicago played host to WNBA All-Stars this weekend. Here’s what we saw — and heard — around the city. ]

The Seattle Storm released a statement declaring the team was “furious and ready to fight.” The WNBPA echoed leaguewide uproar against the decision in a June 24 statement.

“Are we in a democracy where guns have more rights than women?” the statement read. “This ruling provides a treacherous pathway to abortion bans that reinforce economic, social and political inequities and could lead to higher rates of maternal mortality while eviscerating rights to reproductive freedom for everyone. To protect our democracy, we must vote like our lives depend on it. Because they do.”

In a league predominantly represented by Black and queer women, it never has been a surprise that WNBA athletes take their platforms seriously.

But this year’s All-Star Game highlights a continued shift in the power given to the voices of women athletes.

“For people that are standing up and being the voice — I think it’s really important,” Vandersloot said on WGN in June. “The fight’s not over. People need voices and I think the WNBA and the Chicago Sky is a great platform.”