BENGALURU: Kelly Hayes is your average athlete. She is 23, 6’0”, has off days and shows her anger and frustration when things aren’t going well for her on court. Hayes also isn’t your average athlete. Outside the basketball arena, she is a social justice warrior who protested against rising police brutality and racism in the US by ‘linking arms’ when she was part of the UCLA’s women’s basketball team before she graduated in 2018.
Hayes, who is ‘half black American and half Filipino’, said she came up with the idea of ‘linking arms’ thanks to Colin Kaepernick, the National Football League (NFL) athlete who started taking the knee in 2016 whenever the US national anthem played. Hayes, who plays as a guard for the Philippines, herself had been subjected to racial abuse while growing up in the US. “Of course, racism exists. It’s everywhere but I can’t use that as something that holds me back in life. All I can do is shed some wisdom and put across my point of view,” she said after their match against China at the ongoing Women’s Asia Cup on Wednesday.
Her answer on why she decided to link arms — she founded the ‘Together We LINK foundation to help oppressed people — rather than take the knee is even more thought provoking. “When you are kneeling, you are giving power to somebody higher, it can be God or to whomsoever you believe in. In my opinion, I am giving more power to the flag. Linking arms is basically from the thought that a chain is stronger with more people than one link. So we all decided to link our arms before matches.”
Getting inspired by Kaepernick is one thing, to actually believe in the cause is something entirely different. Listening to her speak on the prevailing climate in the US leaves you sure that she is genuine. “The US national anthem doesn’t really exemplify what America has become. There is a lot of racial disparity, lot of injustices within our justice system, our law and so on. So linking arms in lieu of putting our hands across our chests is showing that ‘I don’t stand for what the government has regulated. We are going to be sticking together as a team regardless of what’s going on in the outside.’
Speaking about her assignment with Philippines — she qualified to play for the country through her mother — she conceded that they were a work in progress. “We haven’t got the outcome we wanted but I think we have seen some growth from our first game till today. (...) it is important that we stay in Division I.”
India lose to Chinese Taipei
The hosts suffered a third reverse in as many games to finish bottom of Group A as the pool stage of the FIBA Women’s Asia Cup came to an end on Thursday. Chinese Taipei were a cut above and it reflected in the final score of 87-58.
Results: Group A: Japan 102 bt Korea 61, Chinese Taipei 87 bt India 58. Group B: China 70 bt Australia 69, New Zealand 75 bt Philippines 57.