Ibaka, Davis continuing to fight for justice and respect
Toronto Raptors forward Serge Ibaka just wants respect.
It's the message he wants to send with his jersey statement "Respect Us" when the NBA season returns.
"I feel like we need respect," Ibaka said Wednesday. "Me, coming from Congo, even out there they don't really respect us. So to me, my message is about respect."
To Ibaka, creating social justice is all about respecting one another. It's something he wants to change not just in the United States where he said he's fighting to end racial discrimination, but around the world including in his home country of Congo.
"I want them to know that we deserve respect," Ibaka said of the children in Congo. "Right now we are in 2020 and we want to fight for that. We want to have respect because we earned it and we deserve that. I want every kid in Africa to know that they deserve respect. Anybody, if you're Black, Yellow, anybody."
That fight for justice is something the Raptors have focused on since the killing of George Floyd on May 25. The organization decorated its team bus with a "Black Lives Matter" message, it added the message to its media backdrop, and it's become a common theme during players' media availabilities.
"We want justice for Breonna Taylor," Ibaka said of the 26-year-old Black woman killed by Louisville police on March 13. "She deserves justice."
Terence Davis II sent the same message during his media availability Wednesday. He made it known he didn't want to talk about anything other than Taylor's killing.
"We're just keeping the focus on Breonna Taylor's killers right now. That's what I want to keep the focus on," Davis said. "I just want to keep the focus on what's really going on in the world and all the social injustice going on."
Davis' decision to only speak about Taylor's follows that of other players throughout the league. The Clippers' Paul George, Lakers' Caruso, Celtics' Marcus Smart are just some of the NBA players who have dedicated their media availabilities to talking about Taylor.
