Faithful Christian Caitlin Clark is a star women’s college basketball player who, during her college career, broke numerous records and often led her team to victory, and who now is playing in the WNBA. Despite her faith and pleasant demeanor, along with her skill, former ESPN personality and current Atlantic writer Jemele Hill went on the attack against her, insisting that Clark is only liked because she is straight and white.
As background, Clark, after an astounding college career, headed to the WNBA. She will be playing for the Indiana Fever and was the No. 1 pick in the 2024 WNBA draft. In addition to her draft success, Clark managed to snag a whopper of a $28 million shoe deal with Nike.
But while she has many fans, Clark also has detractors. Among them is Jemele Hill, who attacked Clark and her fans in a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, saying that Clark is only popular because she is straight and white.
Hill said, “We would all be very naive if we didn’t say race and her sexuality played a role in her popularity.” She continued, “While so many people are happy for Caitlin’s success — including the players; this has had such an enormous impact on the game — there is a part of it that is a little problematic because of what it says about the worth and the marketability of the players who are already there.”
Hill wasn’t done. She continued, “It’s not jealousy. It’s just the fact that in our society, Black women are often erased from the picture. While Caitlin Clark’s success should be widely celebrated, there are various points where we have seen dynamic phenoms and how they have been able to popularize the game. It’s just that, for whatever reason, could be race, could be gender, could be a myriad of factors, that same marketing muscle that seems very intentional about making sure that Caitlyn Clark is a superstar was missing for them.”
She then added, “Coke and Pepsi and all these other brands didn’t come running for Cheryl Miller. So I think it’s OK to have multiple conversations at once. There’s plenty of room to highlight and celebrate Caitlin Clark’s popularity while also discussing ways in which to not erase Black women from a league that they have built and continue to build.”
Agreeing with Hill, in the LA Times article, was Nicole Melton, identified by the LA Times as the “co-director of the Laboratory for Inclusion and Diversity in Sport at the University of Massachusetts.” She said, “Cailtin fits a very comfortable narrative for a lot of people in the United States.” Melton continued, “She comes from the heartland. She’s an amazing talent. She’s also a white, straight woman, right? There’s not a lot of things that would make people feel uncomfortable with that person being successful.”
Hill and Melton weren’t the only ones to claim Clark’s success was due to her race rather than her skill. Speaking to the Associated Press, Las Vegas Aces star A’ja Wilson said, “I think it’s a huge thing. I think a lot of people may say it’s not about Black and white, but to me, it is.” She added, “It really is because you can be top notch at what you are as a Black woman, but yet maybe that’s something that people don’t want to see.
Continuing, Wilson said, speaking to the AP, “They don’t see it as marketable, so it doesn’t matter how hard I work. It doesn’t matter what we all do as Black women, we’re still going to be swept underneath the rug. That’s why it boils my blood when people say it’s not about race because it is.”
One thing those jealous critics missed is that, in addition to being an excellent player, Clark is pleasant and likable. For example, she appeared on SNL and managed to be reasonably funny. Watch Clark’s appearance on SNL here:
Featured image credit: By John Mac – https://www.flickr.com/photos/johnmac612/53558910406/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=145963861
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