Serena Williams: ‘I won’t be silent’ about police killings of black men

Tennis star Serena Williams on Tuesday became the latest athlete to speak out about police killings of black men when she posted a thoughtful note on Facebook about an experience in a car with her 18-year-old nephew driving.

“In the distance I saw cop on the side of the road. I quickly checked to see if he was obliging by the speed limit,” she wrote.

“I remembered that horrible video of the woman in the car when a cop shot her boyfriend. All of this went through my mind in a matter of seconds. I even regretted not driving myself. I would never forgive myself if something happened to my nephew. He's so innocent. So were all ‘the others.’”

The “horrible video” was by Diamond Reynolds, who streamed live footage of her dying boyfriend, Philando Castile, after he’d been shot by a Minnesota police officer in July.

“The others” are the many killed in similar confrontations.

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“I am a total believer that not "everyone" is bad It is just the ones that are ignorant, afraid, uneducated, and insensitive that is affecting millions and millions of lives,” Williams wrote. “Why did I have to think about this in 2016? 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.”

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick started a movement by refusing to stand during the national anthem before football games. Williams said she decided it’s time for her to speak up.

“As Dr. Martin Luther King said ‘There comes a time when silence is betrayal,’” she wrote. “I Won’t Be Silent.”

charles.schilken@latimes.com

Twitter: @chewkiii

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