tani b

The 30th year and not one Black woman is head coach of any team. They still got retirees speaking ill on current players on behalf of 1 singular player who has barely played three business days for their entire career — and atp, it’s tired and ancient to keep this up. That commissioner is still employed. A member of congress is getting involved w/ faux “outrage” and using time on sports & entertainment and not state politics.

She let herself get in her own way — again.

There were so many people who went above and beyond to get her and I fr thought she found her forever home with Vegas. I truly thought she had longevity with the Aces. Or at least being there for maybe 3 seasons or more.

They chose her. It wasn’t a despite of or regardless of any prior history. They wanted her with the team. And she had whole legends and vets (former player/ coach) championing on her behalf to get her. All this alignment happened for her!

I wish she would’ve just been a student under this organization and learned from so much of the guidance that’s there. From her teammates and coach and all this winning history in their resume. At some point, she would’ve absolutely gotten a chip with them. She’s so good and this franchise really felt like a perfect match.

It’s disappointing that she didn’t get a chance to see the potential with this team. It’s disappointing that she fell back into old, detrimental habits and lost her opportunity. It’s disappointing she squandered this. It’s disappointing that she didn’t prove her past self wrong.

And we don’t know if this is definite for her. There could be another team that picks her up. She’s not an anomaly in being a vocal player against your own team (we’ve seen this in all leagues and from so many players. She ain’t the first to make slick comments about their own coach or peers or teammates). But it comes to a point of evolving from those old habits and maturing and recognizing the value within self to push past the very things that hemmed you up before. Otherwise, she’ll repeat this.

I implore yall to please rethink what the 4th of July means to us.

Your ancestors are the only group of people who FOUGHT in every single war on American soil. No other group can claim that. OUR folks fought to literally make America live up to all its creeds about freedom, democracy and justice for all.

America wouldn’t be America if not for YOUR great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great and more matriarchs and patriarchs! They did the work of fighting in every battle that even made July 4 1776 an actual date to commemorate! THEY did that! WE are their descendants and WE can honor them and celebrate them and ourselves, on this day. Some of yall are veterans yourself and come from a long line of military service! Celebrate yourselves! And honor your long family history.

Other groups are arriving to our motherland and are encouraged to celebrate becoming hyphenated citizens, on this very day, while we are being told WE SHOULD NOT celebrate an anniversary of freedom that would not exist if not for our people’s courage and bravery. People are trying to shame us out of ancestral valor…a commemorative day while others, who have no history at all of doing even a fraction to make this day possible, are inspired to? Your family six and seven generations back made an Independence Day possible so you can not only celebrate it but LIVE it! Your ancestors fought those wars before 1776 and after it for YOU and only YOU! They did that for US! THEY are the true patriots!

This is some sinister behavior. And trying to make this day some sorta footnote as if it’s detached from us is heinous. Our own country’s anniversaries aren’t supposed to be celebrated by us but our own ancestors put in work to make it not just an anniversary but a standard of nationalism. It’s an attempt to “other” us to our very own history or to treat our ancestral heroism and heritage as some kinda imported, ‘guests’ in the country our ancestors birth. Or the fact that this day to many has this notion as if it’s only patriotic to the very insurrectionists, deserters, enemies of the state, treasonous unpatriotic people — the very people who fought their own country to secede from itself and abandoned their actual homelands that was not America because they faced persecution and didn’t have the honor to fight on the lands that birth them…this is who many feel this day of independence belongs to? Absolutely not.

A more perfect union…yeah OUR folks, YOUR people made that real! WE make it a constant now.

You don’t allow anyone to make you relinquish celebrating this day and any other national day of remembrance that honors America. It’s yours to celebrate!