In 2016 New York Liberty’s WNBA team wore black t-shirts to symbolize “black lives matter” during the game, with the accompanying #dallas5. The shirts had subtle nods to the recent shooting that happened where two African American men were shot and killed by police and the fatal shooting of 5 Dallas police officers.

And all they did was wear a shirt to symbolize a silent protest, which would normally be harmless. These were simply pre-game warm-up shirts. They didn’t kneel or disrupt the game in any way, it was just a spontaneous public stance.

The response from the league is that The Indiana Fever including both New York Liberty and Phoenix Mercury was fined for that. both teams were fined $5,000 each and each player was fined $500 for wearing the black shirts.

The league’s initial response for the reason for the fine is that the shirts “violated the league’s uniform policy.”

Media outlets were a bit shocked to see the sudden fining of a simple warm-up outfit. Sure it was spreading a protest but it wasn’t anything negative. The Minnesota Lynx was also mentioned as doing a similar thing and wasn’t charged for it

“Because of our time schedules, we aren’t allowed to be in protests. We aren’t able to go out to city halls and say how we feel, so I think the shirts represent our voice, and I think the Minnesota Lynx did that very well.”

-Liberty forward Tina Charles

The same week after the fine a statement was posted by the president of the WNBA Lisa Borders.

Appreciate our players expressing themselves on matters important to them. Rescinding imposed fines to show them even more support. – WNBAPrez (@WNBAPrez) July 23, 2016

The trade-off was to use only Nike-branded black shirts without the hashtags.

The Liberty team planned to wear the shirts for the rest of the season but now they will have to find another way to share their voice.

The audience, of course, was filled with those with the mindset of it being WOKE propaganda and told them to just simply play. Also sadly due to them being from the WNBA there is some comments saying they are not worth watching