13 July 2020

Chicago Red Stars’ Sarah Gorden on NWSL’s black players coalition and taking a knee

Chicago Red Stars defender Sarah Gorden has said the National Women’s Soccer League are in the ‘beginning stages’ of creating a black players coalition.

The move is being spearheaded by Sky Blue FC’s Midge Purce and Gorden added the players involved are all on the same page about wanting to take a knee during the national anthem.

She told CBS Sport: "We've been trying to make a Black players coalition, it's in the beginning process so we do have that chat going on and most of the Black players are on the same page that we want to keep the anthem going so that we can have our chance to make our statement to peacefully protest. 

"The conversation that we're having is, how can we change what's going on in this country? Not whether the anthem be played or not. Why is it that when these things happen every rule that is made is to make white people more comfortable? Or to make the people who stood more comfortable? Enough of that.

"At the end of the day, when we're seeing another video of a Black person dying, that's much more uncomfortable than your choice to stand or kneel."

Gorden made a statement on social media after she first took a knee at the beginning of the NWSL Challenge Cup where she listed all the change that needs to happen before she will once again stand for the anthem.

This included police officers being held accountable for their actions, when black mother childbirth death rates decrease and when the US looks at her black son the same way it looks as white children.

She has been vocal about the Black Lives Matter movement since protests were sparked following the death of George Floyd.

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