A French NBA Star Just Broke Pro Athletes’ Silence on ICE
Why aren’t more athletes calling out the administration?
During Donald Trump’s first term, leaders across American life routinely spoke out against the administration. We saw mass mobilizations, celebrities weighing in, and big corporations taking a stand.
At Home of the Brave, we’ve written at length about how frustrating it has been to watch many of those same business leaders, law firms, colleges, and institutions stay silent in the past year. Worse, plenty of them have become willing enablers of the current administration and its undemocratic agenda.
There’s another group whose silence has been just as glaring: professional athletes.
Athletes were often among the loudest critics of the first Trump administration’s policies and rhetoric, particularly around racial inequality. LeBron James publicly clashed with Fox News host Laura Ingraham after she told him to “shut up and dribble.” Colin Kaepernick drew Trump’s ire for taking a knee during the national anthem. Stephen Curry refused a White House visit after winning an NBA championship.
Those kinds of protests were visible across major American sports leagues in the late 2010s, and it brought these policy issues out of the arena of political junkies and into the mainstream. Today, though, this kind of leadership and advocacy is largely absent among athletes.
That’s why it mattered when Victor Wembanyama, a 22-year-old French NBA star, publicly condemned ICE agents shooting and killing two innocent people in Minneapolis.
For those who don’t follow pro basketball, Wembenyama has taken the NBA by storm. The 7’5” Frenchman with guard-like skills and freak-like abilities earned the nickname “The Alien” for his uncanny abilities on the court. As of now, he is poised to be the next face of the league.
And he just spoke out passionately on-camera about what happened in Minneapolis, giving voice to the frustration that so many of us are feeling as we watch this American carnage unfold.
During an interview on January 27, he said this about the recent ICE shootings: “[The Team’s] PR has tried, but I’m not going to sit here and give some politically correct, you know. Every day I wake up and see the news, and I’m horrified. I think it is crazy that some people make it sound like it’s acceptable, like the murder of civilians is acceptable.”
Wembenyama seems fully aware that speaking out may lose him some fans, but he doesn’t seem to care. His comments will probably win him some new fans, anyway. As he makes clear, it shouldn’t be seen as a radical, dangerous, or controversial action for an athlete to condemn the senseless killing of two innocent people who were peacefully exercising their constitutional rights.
Wembenyama’s comments are incredibly refreshing to hear from an athlete, but they should give us Americans both hope and pause.
In the wake of the recent ICE killings in Minnesota, it’s a rare glimmer of hope to see a pro athlete speak out about the gross injustice that is happening in our country by our government. And it just might be part of the mass social movement that’s going to be necessary if we have any hope of shifting our government and country back to being one that values liberal democracy and free expression, and abhors state terror and violence.
Gen Z men broadly shifted right in the 2024 election, ultimately playing a huge role in Trump winning the presidency. Athletes are incredibly influential with men in general, but especially with young men who follow pro athletes’ every move via clips on social media. We can hope that comments like Wembenyama’s encourage men who shifted right to see clearly and criticize what the administration is doing.
On the other hand, it is disheartening that the most public display of protest from an athlete over the shootings in Minneapolis isn’t from an American athlete. It shouldn’t take a Frenchman living in our country to recognize that what ICE is doing in our streets is wrong and un-American, or to refuse to stand silent in the face of the unjustified government killing of American citizens.
Pro athletes should not be afraid to speak out if they disagree with the administration. These are people with influence, resources, platforms, and power—their voices matter and Americans are listening. When they do, those of us who care about democracy should hear their messages, amplify their voices, and ultimately encourage more of them to choose bravery over silence.
Otherwise silence becomes the new norm.
Home of the Brave is an initiative dedicated to exposing this administration’s corruption, cruelty, and lawlessness.
While I fully appreciate the difference in scale and audience, WNBA star Breanna Stewart spoke out on this 2 days ago, and Wemby is not the one who “broke pro athletes’ silence” on the issue.
Plenty of female professional athletes already spoke out, including members of the Minnesota Lynx of the WNBA and Minnesota Frost PWHL team, in addition to Breanna Stewart. Wemby is most definitely not the first and hopefully won’t be the last…male or female.