Mystics, Sun halt social media coverage to raise awareness on gun violence originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington
The Washington Mystics and Connecticut Sun used their respective social media platforms to raise awareness and action around gun violence instead of live tweeting their game on Saturday.
Moments before the two WNBA sides squared off on the court, both teams tweeted a joint statement:
“Echoing the need to continue our work on raising awareness and action around gun violence, like others have done across the sports industry, the Washington Mystics and Connecticut Sun will use our platforms during tonight’s game to share facts and ways to take action against this crisis that has affected so many of our communities,” the statement read.
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This comes a few days after the tragic elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Tex. that resulted in 21 deaths – 19 children and two adults. And a few weeks ago on May 15, there was another shooting in Buffalo, NY where 10 Black people were killed in a local supermarket.
Mystics guard Natasha Cloud is among the athletes who have spoken on the matter in recent days.
A day after the shooting, Cloud spoke on behalf of her teammates following the Mystics’ win that night saying the organization would hold a media blackout.
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“Today we're going to do a media blackout,” Cloud said. “I think that you are all aware of what is happening, what happened in Texas, what happened in Buffalo not even a week and a half ago. We have an issue in this country, not only white supremacy, we also have a gun violence issue. And this is us using our platform.
“This game doesn't matter. The [21] lives that were lost today from senseless gun violence in Texas, at an elementary school – 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.”
