Former NBA star Enes Kanter Freedom took WNBA player Natasha Cloud to task over her recent social media posts tearing down her own country as the Independence Day holiday approaches.
On Friday, Cloud expressed her thoughts on Twitter, stating that “our country is trash in so many ways” following the Supreme Court’s rulings on affirmative action and a case involving artist Lorie Smith.
Kanter Freedom replied to the tweet from the Washington Mystics guard, noting that people have “no idea” how fortunate they are to reside in the United States.
“Just ask your colleague Brittney Griner how ‘trash’ America is,” Kanter Freedom tweeted. “Calling America trash huh? Let me know when your season is over, I’ll buy your ticket and we can go together to counties like China, Russia, IRAN, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, & Turkey.”
“Forget about calling them trash, I would like to see if you can even criticize those regimes!! You and your family members would be thrown in jail, tortured to death, and raped,” he continued on Twitter.
“People have NO idea how lucky and blessed they are to be in a country like America. I’m not saying America is perfect, but trust me, you don’t wanna see the other side,” the Turkish native added.
His opposition to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and support for exiled Fethullah Gulen have made him the target of his home country’s anger. In 2019, Turkey went as far as seeking an international arrest warrant for Kanter, accusing him of being associated with a terrorist organization.
In January of this year, Kanter Freedom revealed that a $500,000 bounty had been placed on his head, landing him on Turkey’s most-wanted terrorist lists. He expressed his disapproval of the Biden administration for collaborating with Turkey’s government without speaking out against the country’s human rights violations.
Cloud doubled down on her criticism on Saturday, calling out those critical of her for her comments, saying they needed to come at her with something better than “move to Russia or China.”
“I’m blessed to travel the world for my career. I’ve been in plenty of countries that I would have my human rights, healthcare, free/assisted schooling, don’t have to fear mass shootings or white supremacists, don’t have to be concerned about the highest maternal mortality rates,” she wrote.
“Less police murders, no mass incarceration based on race, adequate minimum wage, rights to my body as a woman, I MEAN I CAN KEEP GOING,” she claimed.
