*Caitlin Clark’s arrival into the WNBA and its accompanying exposure may be a great sign of what its future holds, but the league’s past and present treatment of its black players are putting a hold on potential greatness where everyone wins.
A recent piece in the Washington Post shines a light on Clark’s journey thus far in the league, compared to a rougher path that wasn’t taken by choice for mainstays like Britney Griner, Chennedy Carter, and Angel Reese, among others.
Carter became the latest WNBA standout to be put under the racial microscope when asked if she would apologize to Clark for fouling her in a previous game between Carter’s Chicago Sky and Clark’s Indiana Fever. The act may be a minor happening in the game, but it was major enough to prompt Indiana-based Republican congressman Jim Banks to sound the alarm via written note to WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert for a plan to protect Clark, the league’s popular star rookie by June 14.
With Banks and Clark being white and the WNBA “disproportionately Black, as represented by Griner and Carter, The Post notes that efforts are put more into protecting Clark by any means instead of putting the players under the same protective umbrella.
“…somehow, some way, it is Clark who needs extraordinary safeguarding in the workplace of professional basketball, a contact sport policed by on-court referees in real time and further arbitrated by off-court officials after the fact. It isn’t, instead, Black women such as Griner and Carter, who are villainized to the extent that they are accosted just trying to get to their basketball-playing jobs,” the Post mentioned.
“Such responses to the events that have disturbed the WNBA’s newly expanded audience don’t come as a surprise to me. They all live down to truths about the dissimilar experiences of Black and White women in workplaces everywhere, and to stereotypes about Black women.”
“[Clark] seems to be holding her own. She’s not asking for anyone to come to her defense. But it seems to be juxtaposed against these Black women, women of color, that are being the aggressors towards her, without thinking about how these women also came in … [to] their first [WNBA] job,” Nadia E. Brown, Georgetown University Women’s and Gender Studies Program chair told the publication.
“But there’s an expectation, because of how Black women are stereotyped, that they can withstand, they have superhuman strength, they can withstand abuse and harassment, that they don’t have the feelings or emotions or the intellect to process. Therefore, the attention isn’t on [Black rookie] Angel Reese the same way it would be on Caitlin Clark.”
For those watching, the WNBA’s relationship with Clarks looks to be handled with kid gloves, Despite Las Vegas Aces Black players leading a wildcat strike in 2018 over health and safety concerns amid being left with little time for rest and pre-game prep after arriving on a delayed commercial flight, the league fired back with ruling the canceled game a forfeit, instead of working with the players to find a better resolution.
Upon Clark’s arrival in the league this year, the WNBA for the first time approved charter flights for its dozen teams. Coincidence?” the Post mentioned.
As it continued, the outlet referenced attention given to issues affecting Black people once white people factored into the situation.
“For further evidence of the disparate critique paid Clark and her Black peers, the once reputable Chicago Tribune editorialized in the wake of Carter’s flagrant foul of Clark that its hometown star’s act would be considered assault had it occurred on, say, its Magnificent Mile, rather than in the city’s Wintrust Arena. But the Trib’s reactionary editorial board wrote nothing after Reese, its Black rookie star who has been Clark’s foil since they dueled during the past two NCAA tournaments, was pulled down by her neck to the floor by Connecticut star Alyssa Thomas. Thomas was ejected.
“There have been more than enough studies that show Black women such as Griner and Carter experience more aggravation in the office or at the factory than their peers such as Clark. It’s historical. It’s systemic. It’s perpetuated. As the Women’s Leadership and Resource Center at the University of Illinois Chicago observes, Black women “receive less mentorship, are less likely to be promoted and experience microaggressions at higher rates … than any other group.”
For more of the Washington Posts’ look at the WNBA’s relationship with its Black players and Caitlin Clark, click here.
MORE NEWS ON EURWEB: They Comin’ for Caitlin Clarkin the WNBA: She’s Fouled HARD w/Shoulder Check by Chennedy Carter | WATCH
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