Sighs. There goes much of her fan base and despite her capitulation, the others who truly think she has white privilege will still not like her success in the WNBA. She should have just said nothing.
from Outkick:
Caitlin Clark Says She Benefits From ‘White Privilege’ In WNBA
Caitlin Clark is the biggest star in the WNBA and thanks to her outstanding college career and professional debut, has become one of the American sports world's biggest stars. She's earned every bit of her success by transcending the sport, giving people a personality to root for and paying it off with exceptional performance. But even she apparently can't escape the absurdity of woke progressive politics that's infested the WNBA. Clark was named Time Magazine's Athlete of the Year for 2024, a reasonable choice considering the impact she's had. But in a lengthy, far-ranging interview with Time, she essentially apologized for being white and playing in a league dominated by black players. "I've been able to captivate so many people that have never watched women's sports, let alone women's basketball, and turn them into fans," Clark said, acknowledging that she in particular has had an outsized impact on the WNBA. "I want to say I’ve earned every single thing, but as a white person, there is privilege," she continued. "A lot of those players in the league that have been really good have been black players. This league has kind of been built on them. The more we can appreciate that, highlight that, talk about that, and then continue to have brands and companies invest in those players that have made this league incredible, I think it’s very important. I have to continue to try to change that. The more we can elevate black women, that’s going to be a beautiful thing."
Time Magazine's Athelete of the Year for 2024.
Not even the best player in the WNBA.
Not even the best white player in the NBA,
She was the only player in the league who got double teamed and mauled every time she touched the ball...
She was also a rookie and still led the league in assists and 3 pointers and was 7th in scoring.
love that Clark making non racist statements has the racists here in a bitter tizzy when they were largely the same people who were trashing women's basketball before Clark came along. just because you have your racist/homophobic hat on over your misogynist hat doesnt make your disingenuousness any less obvious...
and anyway didnt you see the writing on the wall when she talked about Taylor Swift making comments about voting and how she supported that? her politics are clear. this isnt a surprise to anyone who has followed her for a while. her hero is Maya Moore. thats documented. she wanted to grow up to be just like her. she still has those very same words she wrote as a child talking about her "hero" for a school assignment. shes a smart woman who knows her privilege is as obvious as the nose on her face. doesnt mean shes not one of the most naturally talented and skilled players whose ever laced them up. doesnt mean she isnt an incredibly driven human being willing to put in hard work with a competitive fire to match Jordan's. it just means shes living in reality about her situation and the world she lives in. she knows a black girl doing the exact same things at Iowa that she did would not have been embraced in the same way as she was. would not have become the second coming of the Beatles like she did and take the world by storm. its just the way the world is. good on her for acknowledging that publicly.
By “upsetting a lot of her fans” you mean just the 4 accounts you are posting under in this thread?
Many things in this world come with unearned privilege. A tall good looking man is more likely to get hired and promoted than someone more qualified but ugly and short. That is just life. You can accept this reality or pretend it doesn’t exist.
Maybe you don't go back to the 1980s but there was a time when you could have made similar arguments about Michael Jordan. Jordan was already the most popular and best known athlete in the league by the mid-80s even though in his first three seasons the Bulls got bounced in round one each time, winning only one playoff game across those three seasons. And then for the next three years they were able to advance in the Eastern playoffs but got waxed by the Pistons when they met, all three years. They didn't even make the Finals until Jordan's seventh year. And yet, Jordan literally was Mr. NBA despite all that. So your argument that it makes no sense for Clark to be Ms. WNBA right now makes no sense.
you're FFing past years of jordan development and assuming an endgame she hasn't earned yet. the point is she's gotten this attention and notoriety and paycheck out of the box. in the equivalent of jordan's 1984, when his team finished 7th in conference and went out first round of the playoffs.
to be fair, quite possible, but there are others on current championship or olympic teams. or more productive. at roughly this juncture in jordan's career, it was not jordan jordan jordan, it was bird and magic. that's what you're missing. the attention is not usually on the emerging rookie this heavy. it's usually on the people in the olympics or the finals.
I'm not at all. Jordan was already MASSIVELY popular in his rookie year, because he had also been a beloved player in college -- similar to the state of affairs with Clark. If you weren't around in the 80s, you wouldn't see the parallels here because you know Jordan as a 6-time champion and all-time legend. But if you account for the difference in popular between men's and women's sports, Clark's popularity today reminds me of Jordan's in, say, 1985 or so.
here's the deal, the finalists have a trio of players who won olympic gold for the US and made the WNBA final. plus wilson as MVP on a semifinalist. you aren't usually talking about the rookie on the .500 team who goes out quarters in the playoffs and doesn't make the olympics.
jordan was esteemed coming out of college, but was a tertiary league figure on a losing team that lasted one playoff round. initially he was seen as a ball hog unable to carry his team very far. ironically they had to build up the team around him, pippen, etc., at which point he didn't need to score 30 ppg and they could play more balanced basketball. bird and magic got old, jordan made his name off beating the cavs and the pistons, then started winning titles.
the rookie working the kinks out is not usually more marketed and popular than the MVP or the folks winning the hardware.
plus people seem to forget she came close but never won NCAA.
you're FFing past years of jordan development and assuming an endgame she hasn't earned yet. the point is she's gotten this attention and notoriety and paycheck out of the box. in the equivalent of jordan's 1984, when his team finished 7th in conference and went out first round of the playoffs.
to be fair, quite possible, but there are others on current championship or olympic teams. or more productive. at roughly this juncture in jordan's career, it was not jordan jordan jordan, it was bird and magic. that's what you're missing. the attention is not usually on the emerging rookie this heavy. it's usually on the people in the olympics or the finals.
I'm not at all. Jordan was already MASSIVELY popular in his rookie year, because he had also been a beloved player in college -- similar to the state of affairs with Clark. If you weren't around in the 80s, you wouldn't see the parallels here because you know Jordan as a 6-time champion and all-time legend. But if you account for the difference in popular between men's and women's sports, Clark's popularity today reminds me of Jordan's in, say, 1985 or so.
bull. i was around in the 80s. you're ffing.
i could go into a long winded analysis, but jordan was not the first pick in his own draft. akeem was. akeem beat him to the finals, too. (86)
barkley was picked 2 picks later and had his team in the conference final as a rookie.
Clark is the highest paid WNBA player with $11M+ in endorsement.
The second highest paid player is Sabrina Ionescu with $6M+, another straight white player.
Another player high on the list is Kelsey Plum with State Farm and LegalZoom commercial. Another straight white player.
Cameron Brink, another straight white player, is featured in New Balance commercial, although she missed most of her rookie season with injury.
Clark made the league more money than anyone else in the league and it wasn't even close.
Billionaires Michael Jordan and Lebron James would love to hear more about how racist advertisers are...
This is perfectly funny coming from you who was repeatedly wildly wrong about how much she was elevating the sport’s popularity when she was in college in the “Do people actually watch women’s basketball” thread.
The best player in the NBA is white, and the other male black players have no problem with it. Clark is the best player in the WNBA, and the other black female players are having a hissy fit and can't handle it. They want to all fight each other anyway, so I say put a mud pit in center court and let them go at it. They would have way more viewers.
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.
Clark made the league more money than anyone else in the league and it wasn't even close.
Billionaires Michael Jordan and Lebron James would love to hear more about how racist advertisers are...
This is perfectly funny coming from you who was repeatedly wildly wrong about how much she was elevating the sport’s popularity when she was in college in the “Do people actually watch women’s basketball” thread.
And prior to Clark people didn't actually watch women's basketball.
You're not making the point you think you're making.
The Fever got bounced from the playoffs and guess what happened to the ratings.
This is perfectly funny coming from you who was repeatedly wildly wrong about how much she was elevating the sport’s popularity when she was in college in the “Do people actually watch women’s basketball” thread.
And prior to Clark people didn't actually watch women's basketball.
You're not making the point you think you're making.
The Fever got bounced from the playoffs and guess what happened to the ratings.
she's saying what she thinks she needs to say to keep things good in her own locker room and also potential all-star and national team locker rooms. I'm sure she knows there will be blowback for this, but has assessed that it is the best strategy for her, overall.
There have been several very good white players in the wnba before her, and nobody cared about them either. I don't know enough about b-ball to understand why she's so popular, but she is and so it will likely remain.
Here is a white girl who is a 2x wnba MVP. Nobody has ever heard of her. Where's the white privilege?
throwing around jordan's nike deal is also FFing. nike air in the late 80s -- after jordan had been out a few years -- was what really made nike.
at the time he came out it was bird and magic's league, with the sixers (dr. j, barkley) at the edge and falling off, the twin towers in houston emerging for their first mid 80s nibble at success. heck, the bad boys pistons had their era before his.
on the shoe deal, they reached down past the nigerian akeem and gave it to jordan. jordan took a few years to be anything but a scoresheet filling ball hog on a poor bulls team.
I'm not at all. Jordan was already MASSIVELY popular in his rookie year, because he had also been a beloved player in college -- similar to the state of affairs with Clark. If you weren't around in the 80s, you wouldn't see the parallels here because you know Jordan as a 6-time champion and all-time legend. But if you account for the difference in popular between men's and women's sports, Clark's popularity today reminds me of Jordan's in, say, 1985 or so.
bull. i was around in the 80s. you're ffing.
i could go into a long winded analysis, but jordan was not the first pick in his own draft. akeem was. akeem beat him to the finals, too. (86)
barkley was picked 2 picks later and had his team in the conference final as a rookie.
nope, not buying what you're selling.
If you were around in the 80's then perhaps you recall that Jordan's rookie deal with Nike in 1984 was at least 3 times higher than any other endorsement contract in the NBA at the time and the Air Jordans came out in 1985 and sold $126 million in the first year. In 1985 dollars. But no, Jordan wasn't popular then. The parallels with Clark are valid.
The best player in the NBA is white, and the other male black players have no problem with it. Clark is the best player in the WNBA, and the other black female players are having a hissy fit and can't handle it. They want to all fight each other anyway, so I say put a mud pit in center court and let them go at it. They would have way more viewers.
she's saying what she thinks she needs to say to keep things good in her own locker room and also potential all-star and national team locker rooms. I'm sure she knows there will be blowback for this, but has assessed that it is the best strategy for her, overall.
There have been several very good white players in the wnba before her, and nobody cared about them either. I don't know enough about b-ball to understand why she's so popular, but she is and so it will likely remain.
Here is a white girl who is a 2x wnba MVP. Nobody has ever heard of her. Where's the white privilege?
She came out as a lesbian very early in her career. That killed a lot of endorsement opportunities. Sue Bird stayed in her closet for very, very long time so that she could maximize her commercial value. That was also what the league wanted because they used her for various marketing.
It is real. Just because the term is overused does not mean that it does not exist. I can drive my car at any hour of the day or night in any area of town, and not get pulled over. My assistant coach, who is black, drives like a grandpa to avoid getting pulled over, but gets pulled over anyway just because he is driving in the "wrong" neighborhood. We both stop at a stop sign, but he stops for a full second longer to avoid a "rolling stop" charge. Why? Because he has been pulled over for such as an excuse to see "what are you doing here?"
