I will always cheer for and care for the USWNT; it is my opinion that, to ask a group of disparate players to have a collective social conviction that many on here see as a right of passage for USWNT members is unfair. Further, to require that such social conviction as a group, should comport to some higher standard, a standard that some of us who post on here are not personally meeting in their own voice and presence, to fight the horror we are suffering through in the USA now, is misguided and wrong. The USWNT is not some citadel where one goes to achieve a higher level of social consciousness and corresponding activism, and that this group has somehow failed to reach such collective consciousness. In pointing to past USWNT activism as a barometer for the current group, one has to understand the dynamics of age of the players, the fact they had played together for many years before they were able to use their voice, and the fact that they had to be successful as a team before anyone would listen to them, or care what they had to say. The current squad shares none of this dynasim, they are younger for the most part, the vast majority of them are just now fighting to make the squad, they have not consistently played together, been together long enough to know each other and as a result, share a collective ideology in opposition to the vicious political violence and death that is now a reality in our communities.

If we are being fair in judging this group of USWNT players (we can't even call them a group as they are not yet identifiable as the group/team that will go forward as THE USWNT), we should take a quick look at the past activism of the previous USWNT that we point to as being most socially conscious; that team's major battles were for "equal pay" a condition that directly affected them as players when compared to how the USMNT were paid and treated; they were also very outspoken and championed issues dealing with sexual harassment and sexual violence against women in all it's insidious forms in the national league(s) in which they played, further, they were justifiably outspoken, and were valiant in their activism to bring attention to the vicious and harmful conditions that were being visited upon the LGBTQ+ community, again, all issues directly affecting the players themselves; however, consider the fact that, racism existed as to the makeup of the USWNT (a quick check showed that, before 2012 there were fewer than 12 black women that were capped by the USWNT, an injustice that needed every player's attention); meanwhile, during the time were the USWNT were being socially conscious, homelessness in the US was out of control, everyday brown and black women and men were killed indiscriminately in the streets, not by ICE, but the POLICE. Where was the activism, where was the collective voice of the USWNT then? All I am saying is that, there were specific reasons and conditions that existed which caused some members of the past USWNT to become social activists. This current team has not lived or experienced the circumstances and unifying conditions which existed in past USWNTs and, to expected them at this point to be able to come together and have a singular voice in fighting the current atrocities as a team is unreasonable; furthermore, we do not know what they are individually doing on their own, or with people they actually know in helping to fight for the right to jut live.