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Sunday, May 10, 2026
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WNBA Player Refuses to Wear USA 250 Patch — While Cashing a Check Only America Could Write

WNBA player Brianna Turner is publicly opposing the USA 250 anniversary patches on league uniforms because, in her estimation, the players "wouldn't have been free" 250 years ago. She's refusing to celebrate the founding of the very country that built the league she plays in, funds the salary she deposits, and protects the free speech she's using to complain about it.

The gratitude is overwhelming.

Turner posted her thoughts on June 4, writing, "The irony of all the USA 250 stuff is that the vast majority of people in America today would not have been 'free' 250 years ago." She followed up with an even more pointed shot: "Whoever called for the WNBA all star uniforms to have the USA 250 patch should have thought that through considering no WNBA players would have been free 250 years ago. The majority wouldn't even have their freedom 100 years ago."

So let's walk through this. A professional athlete — in a league that didn't exist until America created enough freedom and prosperity to support women's professional basketball — is upset that the league wants to celebrate the nation's 250th birthday. She's wearing the uniform. She's cashing the check. She just won't wear the patch.

As Twitchy noted, this isn't even a new routine. Comedian Chris Rock pulled the same schtick back in 2012 when he tweeted, "Happy white peoples independence day the slaves weren't free but I'm sure they enjoyed fireworks." Turner is basically running the Chris Rock playbook, except Rock at least had the decency to frame it as a joke.

Here's what Turner and every other athlete who parrots this line conveniently ignores: the story of America isn't that some people weren't free in 1776. The story is that a nation founded on the principle that all men are created equal spent the next 250 years fighting — sometimes with blood — to make that principle real. The Constitution wasn't the end of the conversation. It was the beginning. And it's the reason Brianna Turner gets to play basketball for a living instead of wondering where her next meal comes from.

But sure. The patch is the problem.

The WNBA All-Star uniforms will feature the USA 250 patches as part of the broader celebration of America's 250th anniversary. Most players will wear them without incident. Turner apparently needs the league to issue a trigger warning first.

We live in a country where a woman can become a professional athlete, earn a salary most Americans will never see, voice her displeasure with the nation on a platform seen by millions, and face zero consequences for any of it. In about 95% of countries on earth — and in 100% of countries 250 years ago — that combination would be impossible.

That's not irony, Brianna. That's the whole point of the patch.

She's free to play. Free to speak. Free to be completely ungrateful. And we're free to point out that the country she refuses to celebrate is the only reason any of it exists.

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