During a recent game, WNBA player Chennedy Carter recently sparked controversy after aggressively shoving rookie Caitlan Clark to the ground. Carter appeared to give Clark a hard shoulder check late in the third quarter, who was then called for a foul.
However, in the postgame press conference, Carter refused to answer questions about the incident on the court, which has since made headlines. “I ain’t answering no Caitlin Clark questions,” Carter told the press. “I don’t know what she said. I didn’t say anything.”
Clark addressed Carter’s aggressive foul, maintaining that it was well outside the boundaries of acceptable contact in basketball. She added that she would persevere and play through the roughness on the court.
“Yeah, that’s just not a basketball play,” Clark explained. “But you know I’ve gotta play through it, that’s what basketball is about at this level. I thought we’ve been really physical, we’ve missed some bunnies around the rim, so hopefully those fall in the fourth.”
Clark added that she was not expecting the foul from Carter. “I wasn’t expecting it,” she explained to reporters after the game. “It is what it is. It’s a physical game. Go make the free throw and execute on offense and I feel like that’s kind of what we did.” After the foul, Clark received a technical foul after the incident. “I feel like I’m getting hammered, I don’t know,” she told the press, noting the seeming aggression toward her from the league.
Since Caitlin Clark became the face of women’s basketball, she has faced countless detractors who have commented on her race. The American Tribune recently reported on remarks claiming that “white privilege” and “pretty privilege” were the reasons behind Clark’s success.
Former ESPN personality Jemele Hill asserted that Clark had become so popular because she was straight and white, claiming that it was even “a little problematic.” 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.” Watch the foul against Clark and Carter’s subsequent response below:
Hill further lamented Clark’s popularity, “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.”
Note: The featured image is a screen shot from the embedded video.
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