LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - AUGUST 08: Forward Brianna Turner #21 of the Phoenix Mercury warms up for ... [+]
Phoenix Mercury forward Brianna Turner can’t stop dwelling on the death. It seems to follow her every time she turns on a screen, and while she hasn’t brought it up with teammates or colleagues yet, her family talks about it all the time back home in Houston.
Turner learned at Notre Dame, where she won the 2018 national championship, how to use her platform to speak out, and as a new wave of unjust African American deaths mounted this week, she chose to speak up. In response to the deaths of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery, Turner tweeted, “If you look at the US and think ‘This isnt America, this isnt who we are’ You are apart of the problem.’
That tweet was part of a larger thread that made the rounds on Thursday afternoon, after a second day of protests in Minnesota, where Floyd died after being choked beneath the knee of officer Derek Chauvin for several minutes.
“It’s pretty depressing,” Turner said of turning on the news right now. “It’s either someone died at the hands of the police, or someone died of coronavirus. Whenever you watch the news, it’s going to be death either way.”
Her travels across the world, from her birthplace of Houston to Notre Dame to Phoenix and all the way to Australia this winter to compete for the Adelaide Lightning, have given her a different perspective on the world, but not necessarily more optimism that things will change in American society any time soon.
I spoke with Turner on Thursday afternoon, as her Twitter thread spread across the internet.
It takes a lot to tweet what you did and put yourself out there in that way. What made you feel like you should say something or that this moment required a voice?
Personally, during these severe times of injustice, I always say something. I’m always tweeting something or I feel like I also read a lot too, read a lot about these instances. Look at a lot of the comments, everything from the article to the author to people responding to what people think. What do people that agree (with me) think? What do people that disagree think?
So I think it’s really interesting in that way, to give people my perspective that won’t necessarily agree with me, so I can try to see other people’s sides and viewpoints on the same scenario. But with Minnesota and the Ahmaud Arbery and the Central Park thing with the dog and Amy Cooper, I just feel like these instances are just happening over and over and over again.
At this point, it’s normal. Should I be 23 and feel like it’s normal for these injustices to be happening? No. Should I be 23 and feel like it’s normal for school shootings to be happening? No. But that’s how I grew up. I grew up at a time when schools are going to get shot up by kids. There’s going to be racial injustice. People are going to die at the hands of cops, unlawfully. That’s just the time I live in. That’s pretty much all I’ve known for the latter part of my life. Do I hope it’ll change? Yes. Will it change? I don’t know. Obviously, time will tell.
With my Twitter thread specifically, it was just trying to make people realize that yes, I know some people don’t want to speak out, don’t want to seem political, don’t want to offend anybody, but at a certain point, you just have to use your platform, use your voice. Even if you’re not talking on social media, engage your family, engage your friends, see where your friends’ heads are at. Like I said in my thread, are you holding your friends accountable when you see them doing something that’s racially biased? Are you holding your colleagues accountable or are you sitting in your head like ‘I don’t like that she said that, but I’m not going to say anything.’
I feel like sitting back and being quiet, that’s literally going to solve nothing, so at least get a conversation going. Even if you don’t want to do it publicly, that’s fine, that’s not your venue. But at the same time, you can maybe take what I said and talk about it individually. Even if you disagree with me, why do you disagree? That’s fine if you don’t agree, but at the same time, why don’t you think that those viewpoints are valid?
Some people are more outspoken than others, but if nothing else, it’s good to just get a dialogue started and try to see how did we get here, and can we move from here, or is this just going to continue to be our normal.
It is strange to think of these things as to be expected, almost. I’m curious though, you said that even the idea of having these conversations on a person-to-person level can be valuable. How do you think that process should go, or how do you have those conversations in your everyday life? What does it look like?
Looking at a scenario, like say, the Amy Cooper-Christian Cooper situation. Do you think she should have called the cops, or do you think they probably could have handled that civilized? Do you think she should have just put a leash on her dog? Do you think Christian Cooper should have walked away? Just talking about it, and realizing the main issue with the whole thing is that she called the cops on him and sounded like she was in desperate need and dire need of help.
Knowing our climate and the history that some black men faced when cops are called. The cops are going to come, they’re going to see a “damsel in distress,” all they know is that this black man has been harassing her when they don’t know the whole story. They show up, and you don’t know what’s going to happen to Christian Cooper. Luckily, he was recording, because it was going to be her word versus his. But just having those conversations on how you can impact someone else’s life, and just knowing that your actions have bigger consequences outside of yourself.
Talking to friends and family, having those conversations, I know for some people it might be awkward or uncomfortable to talk about race issues and some people might see themselves as color-blind, but that’s not true. People see race.
This might not be the most optimistic time to ask this question, but are you optimistic? You’ve said we’ve come to expect this in our country, but I have to think by putting your position out there, you have to feel somewhat like it can make a difference. Are you optimistic that progress is being made or can be made, at least with the way we see these things and acknowledge them and address them?
Do I hope it gets better? Yes. Do I think it will get better any time soon? Not really, just considering how long it’s been going on. I even remember my freshman year (at Notre Dame), we were wearing the “I Can’t Breathe” shirts (to protest the death of Eric Garner at the hands of New York City police), and that was just such a huge scandal at our campus. The local newspapers were writing how people thought we were anti-police, didn’t care about law enforcement, when that was actually not the message we were sending.
I feel like we need a lot of that dialogue, though, because it feels like a lot of misunderstanding. You see something and it’s like, ‘They represent Point X, but I’m all about Point A.’ Have a dialogue. Can you help me understand what you’re standing for, instead of just assuming someone is automatically against what you stand for? It’s definitely a lack of communication there, but overall I’m not optimistic.
Like I said, I’m 23, and I know to expect school shootings, I know to expect police brutality. These things are expected, so I’m definitely not optimistic about any sort of change. Yes, we talk about it online, we talk about it on social media, we have these hashtags of names, but we’ve had these hashtags for years. People have been talking about this for years. Obviously, talking about it about it and spreading the word isn’t really doing much.
What does help is social media and spreading the videos. Like the Central Park video, the dog leash thing, spreading that video does spread awareness. It’s one thing if you just talk about it, but to actually see it happen in real life is different. If more people are getting video-taped for their actions, maybe that will hold them more accountable so that they’re not the next trending thing on Twitter for the next racially motivated thing they might’ve done.
It makes it harder to ignore it, right? Even what you were saying about the Eric Garner situation that many athletes protested, the fact that we’re full-circle and dealing with yet another person dying saying almost the same exact thing is exactly what you’re saying. It’s like we’re reliving it over and over.
We’re at the same spot. We’re kind of stuck. I don’t know what needs to happen. I don’t know if it comes from the local level, the state level, the federal level. (Laughs). I don’t know what the answers are, so until then, I’ll just keep tweeting threads out.
A lot of us who watch and follow sports, we see the WNBA as a league that almost encourages athletes to take a stand for what they believe in, but this will only be your second season, so did that factor in? Were you even thinking about how this would be associated with your career, or will the commissioner think anything of this? Is that on your mind?
Absolutely not. Being at Notre Dame, I spoke out too. I try not to “at” anybody (on social media) or be directly dismissive of anybody. I just try to eloquently state what’s happening in the present tense and no one’s hitting me up telling me my tweets are a little bit outrageous. Like you said, the WNBA does encourage its players.
Being at Notre Dame, coach (Muffet) McGraw also encouraged us to speak our minds and to create a dialogue. Nothing ever happened by someone keeping their mouth shut, so I guess I’m down that hill. I gotta stand behind what I believe in.
