Serena Jameka Williams who holds the most major singles, doubles, and mixed doubles titles combined amongst active players, male or female, one of the greatest living athletes in the world, and in a new powerful Facebook post vowed to use her platform to speak out against police brutality.
The Compton, California raised tennis superstar shared in the post, Tuesday afternoon, that she recently asked her 18-year-old nephew to drive to several meetings throughout the day. At one point, she saw a police car in the distance on the side of the road, and in a matter of seconds was suddenly reminded of the shocking video of Philando Castile’s death at the hands of a police officer.
“Why did I have to think about this in 2016?” Williams wrote. “Have we not gone through enough, opened so many doors, impacted billions of lives? But I realized we must stride on ― for it’s not how far we have come but how much further still we have to go.”
Williams, then, made a pledge to speak out more about the injustices of police brutality with the following declaration:
“As Dr. Martin Luther King said, ‘There comes a time when silence is betrayal.’ I won’t be silent.”
She is the latest athlete to speak out about friction between law enforcement and the black community in the US.
Williams spoke out amid a wave of anti-police brutality sporting protests in the US, triggered after San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the national anthem.
