I’m not going to ask you to subscribe to my newsletter today. Instead, I’m going to ask you to send money somewhere else. Read on.

I don’t have a lot to say today. Instead, as a newsletter that sits at the intersections of sports and politics, I will highlight the WNBA and its players and teams who are doing what they always do, and what more sports franchises should be doing: speaking up in the face of injustice.

The Lynx are the hometown team of Minneapolis, where residents are protesting after George Floyd was killed by police officers. In 2016, Lynx players wore black warm-up shirts that said, "Change starts with us. Justice and accountability" on the front, and the names of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, the Dallas Police Department shield and, at the bottom, "Black Lives Matter," on the back. In response, off-duty police officers who were working security walked off their posts and Lt. Bob Kroll, president of the Minneapolis Police Federation, said he “commended” the officers for doing so.

The WNBA and its players have long paved the way when it comes to what it looks like for athletes and teams to use their platforms to speak up for social justice. The media often neglects to report on their activism, however. “What the league and its players are doing is a testament to how frequently women—and Black women, in particular—are on the frontlines of pushing for change, only to be erased from the history books or see their work downplayed or credited to someone else,” I wrote at Bitch Media in 2017.

If you’re reading this, I’d like to ask you to donate to organizations helping protestors on the ground. I wrote about the chain donations on Twitter benefitting the Minnesota Freedom Fund for Refinery29, if you’d like to read more about the work they do.

From the article: “Providing monetary support for protestors on the ground is also a way that non-Black people can show up for Black liberation. Wealth redistribution can also be seen as a form of reparations for Black Americans. Donating money is a way that white folks can channel their performative outrage into concrete action: literally putting their money where their mouth is.”

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Stay enraged and do the work. Keep calling, keep emailing, and DONATE if you can. Support local organizations who are providing support and challenging white supremacy #justiceforgeorgefloyd #blacklivesmatterMay 28, 2020

This newsletter costs $5/month, or $55/year. If you can, I’d like you to contribute the cost of a subscription to one or more of these organizations:

Donate to the Minnesota Freedom FundDonate to the Black Visions CollectiveDonate to Reclaim the BlockDonate to the George Floyd Memorial FundDonate to Unicorn Riot

What I’ve Written This Week:

• Why Are The Protestors Being Framed As The Problem? White Supremacy., Refinery29

“Instead of putting the protests in context, of showing how people are fighting back against a system in which they have no power by disrupting it in any way they can, mainstream media instead tends to focus on the sensationalized images of the protesters breaking the social codes by which society is ordered. But the point of protest is disruption.. You can be fighting for justice against a system and a government that does not value your life or the lives of your community members and you will be seen and portrayed as an instigator. But, protestors are not the problem, nor are their tactics. The problem is, and has always been, the white supremacist, capitalist, colonialist, genocidal systems within the United States.”

• How Activists Are Creating A “Queer Response” To The Coronavirus Pandemic, Refinery29:

"The LGBTQ+ population faces particular issues that are unique to their community, and queer activists say those issues require a specifically queer response — one that centers the population who will be most directly impacted… Queer and trans activists have always been on the frontlines — from Stonewall to the AIDS epidemic to the coronavirus pandemic. As long as their community continues to be disproportionately impacted by crises and ignored or actively endangered by the people in charge, LGBTQ+ people will do what they’ve always done: fight for the most marginalized among us, including themselves.”