The NBA has been under scrutinity for their involvement for their decision to play 2017s all-star game in North Carolina.
The Thunder’s offseason has been anything but quiet. Kevin Durant‘s decision to leave the team has been the biggest story of the offseason. His departure has also called into question Russell Westbrook‘s future with the team.
The Thunder have however been silent in regards to the second biggest story of the NBA offseason; the NBA’s decision to move the 2017 All Star Game from Charlotte over the controversial HB2 bill.
If you are unfamiliar with HB2 officially named the “Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act” it makes several changes to North Carolina’s current laws:
It over rode local ordinances around the state that allowed transgender people to use bathrooms based on the gender they identified with, instead making it illegal to use public restrooms of a sex that is different than the one on your birth certificate.
The law limits how people pursue claims of discrimination because of race, religion, color, national origin, biological sex or handicap in state courts.
It clarifies language to make it clear that the state will not create a new class of protections for transgender or gay employees. Essentially, this makes it legal to fire someone based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.
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After the move was announced many former players, current players and several NBA teams including the Minnesota Timberwolves, Sacramento Kings, Milwaukee Bucks, Miami Heat and Brooklyn Nets made
the move. The Thunder as of this writing have not made a statement on the matter, along with many other NBA teams.
The NBA and it’s players have been no strangers to this sort of social activism in recent years. Whether it was Miami Heat players calling for justice for Trayvon Martin, several stars and their teams wearing “I Can’t Breathe” shirts after Eric Garner was choked to death by police in Staten Island or the NBA partnering with Everytown for Gun Safety for a national ad campaign to call for an end to gun violence, the NBA and it’s players have seen it as a moral obligation to speak on these issues.
The Thunder have branded themselves as a community organization, having players visit the Oklahoma City National Memorial upon arrival to start the process of becoming part of the community. This coupled with the fact that the Thunder are located in Oklahoma, a state that saw the most aggressive anti-LGBTQ bills in the country, is why their silence matters. These laws, if passed, would be part of the community they are trying to help shape.
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Oklahoma had 27 anti-LGBTQ bills in the state legislature in 2016, all of which were eventually defeated, but not before the Human Rights Campaign dubbed the bills the “Slate of Hate“. These bills were defeated this time, but the issues are not going away anytime soon and the Thunder’s silence on the matter has not gone unnoticed.
As many WNBA players recently reminded us, there comes a time when silence is betrayal.