Barangay Ginebra’s Joe Devance and San Miguel Beer’s Chris Ross were among the PBA players who condemned the latest incident involving a black man being shot by a police officer in the United States.
A man named Jacob Blake is paralyzed from the waist down after being shot seven times in the back by an officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, an incident that triggered several teams from the NBA, Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer to boycott their games.
READ: Season on the brink: Lakers, Clippers vote to abandon NBA playoffs in wake of Jacob Blake shooting — reports
“Once again! How many more times will this happen until we change?!” Devance said while retweeting a video of the shooting. “I really would like to think people who support (US president Donald) Trump are not racist but until you speak up about these horrible truths.”
Devance also reacted to the arrest of a 17-year-old white man named Kyle Rittenhouse in relation to a shooting incident that killed two people during a protest of Blake’s shooting.
“Another sad reality check of what people of COLOR go through in America! Yet people believe everything is fair a black deserves to die because he runs from the cops but a white man can literally kill 2 people and cops do nothing but offer him bottled water!!!!!!!!” he said.
Ross, who was part of a group of PBA players who took a knee in protest over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in late-May, tweeted: “TAKE A STAND! THINGS MUST CHANGE!!!!”
Columbian’s CJ Perez, meanwhile, posted a cartoon depicting cops arresting a black man while letting a white person walk away while carrying two rifles.