ARE WE HEADED TO A RACIAL BRAWL AT A WNBA GAME, AS WORDS GROW UGLIER?
Harsh remarks continue from Black players who want online threats to end, and while sport is mostly balanced this election season, they could erupt if fans fire more slurs in playoff arenas
We have seen two assassination attempts, courtroom hostility and questions about why Kamala Harris might be seen at a Mexican restaurant in Santa Monica before she sits with the media. “I am surrounded by more men, guns and weapons than I have ever seen before,” wrote Donald Trump, bathed in bulletproof glass, ear still pockmarked.
What’s next in our wicked election autumn? Stunningly, imagine a racial brawl with athletes and fans during the WNBA postseason. Sports has been fairly balanced in the political stream, but hatred is about to explode in a league where the commissioner is a fraud and Black players are a slur away from turning an arena into mayhem. This is a week when DiJonai Carrington poked Caitlin Clark in the eye — inadvertent, both said — and was bludgeoned with her Connecticut Sun teammates to vicious online taunts from Clark’s fans.
“We don’t want fans that are going to degrade us and call us racial names,” All-Star forward Alyssa Thomas said. “Shut out the noise. I’ve been called things that I’ve been called on social media and there’s no place for it. Something needs to be done, whether it’s them checking their fans or the league checking. There’s no time for it anymore.”
Said her coach, Stephanie White: “I feel like we have allowed trolls in social media to frame the narrative of what the story is. And it’s unacceptable. We have to do a better job. I encourage everybody to take a step back and think about if it’s your sons or your daughters or your nieces or your nephews or your children, for goodness’ sake, because if my children were being harassed like this, I’m not sure what I would do.”
An e-mail screenshot gave us particular pause. When a Clark fan thought the poke was intentional, Carrington was described as “a worthless n—— b——” from a creep who hopes “someone rapes you and cuts your head off.”
The sick insults have happened all year. This is a storm surrounding the romance for Clark, a white icon from Iowa who makes by far the most endorsement money, and fans of hers who have admonished Black players. It started when A’ja Wilson, the biggest star in the women’s game, said in May: “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. It really is because you can be top-notch at what you are as a Black woman, but maybe that’s something that people don’t want to see. They don’t see it as marketable, so it doesn’t matter how hard I work. It doesn’t matter what we 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.”
October is almost upon us. The words have become even uglier, and yet, the league doesn’t take charge after a regular season featuring a 48-percent attendance increase. When Clark spoke to a referee about mean words said to her in the Connecticut stands, our attention shifted to when fisticuffs might fly and police are summoned. Already, I’ve said league boss Cathy Engelbert should be replaced by Barack Obama, who likes Clark and loves basketball and might create healthier mind games. She is a former Deloitte CEO who doesn’t grasp what Thomas, Wilson and Angel Reese have said about racism. In a recent interview, she made the mistake of comparing the debuts of Reese and Clark to “Magic Johnson and Larry Bird,” which came directly from NBA commissioner Adam Silver. That is a corporate coverup. Will she listen to Clark, whose Indiana Fever were ousted — which eliminated fans who tormented opposing players in Indianapolis?
She has dealt with vicious abuse, including a blindside shoulder shot from Chicago’s Chennedy Carter that launched months of cheap blows from jealous players. To her immense credit, Clark served as a better commissioner Friday than Engelbert.
“It’s definitely upsetting,” she said. “Nobody should be facing any sort of racism, hurtful, disrespectful, hateful comments and threats. Those aren’t fans — those are trolls. It’s a real disservice to the people in our league, the organization, the players in the WNBA, but there are a lot of really good fans, whether they’ve been fans for 20-plus years or whether they are new fans in our league. I think continuing to uplift this league in a very positive light is the best thing we can do because there are so many great players, so many great teams, so many positive storylines that can be written and celebrated. For me, that’s why I became a fan of this league because these people were my idols. I grew up wanting to be like them, so I think continuing to uplift and represent this league in a positive way is the best thing that we can do.”
Her coach, Christie Sides, was more concerned about the racial mood than her team’s final loss. “There’s a lot of hurtful, hateful speech out there that’s happening, and it’s unacceptable,” she said. “There’s no reason for it. And these guys have to listen to and watch that. Social media is their life. This is what they do. And they have to read and see these things constantly, and just all the stories that are made up of what people see or think they see. It’s just this new world that we’re in, and it is just not acceptable when it gets personal for these guys to have to deal with that.”
Without any positive action on the court, as a wider group of viewers watch the playoffs, Engelbert said something that means nothing. “The WNBA is a competitive league with some of the most elite athletes in the world. While we welcome a growing fan base, the WNBA won’t tolerate racist, derogatory, or threatening comments made about players, teams and anyone affiliated with the league,” she announced Friday. “League security is actively monitoring threat-related activity and will work directly with teams and arenas to take appropriate measures, to include involving law enforcement as necessary.”
She should have considered adding law enforcement months ago. In Connecticut, a woman with abnormally long nails made fun of Carrington — who plays for the Sun — while wearing a “BAN NAILS” t-shirt. Trump fans asked Clark to “make basketball great again.” The players are left to shout out, blaming the media in the case of USA Today columnist Christine Brennan, who is writing a book about Clark. In an interview with Carrington, Brennan asked if the eye-blackening shot to Clark’s face was intentional. Terri Jackson, the league’s players’ association executive director, demanded the newspaper take action.
“Instead of demonstrating the cornerstones of journalism ethics like integrity, objectivity, and a fundamental commitment to truth, you have chosen to be indecent and downright insincere,” Jackson wrote. “USA Today Sports should explain why a reporter with clear bias and ulterior motives was assigned to cover the league.”
Reese is upset that her coach, Teresa Weatherspoon, was fired by the Chicago Sky. She is angrier about those who write and speak, as she posted: “For the past 2 years, the media has benefited from my pain & me being villainized to create a narrative. They allowed this. This was beneficial to them. I sometimes share my experiences of things that have happened to me but I’ve also allowed this to happen to me for way too long and now other players in this league are dealing with & experiencing the same things. This isn’t ok at all. Anything beyond criticism about playing the game we love is wrong. I’m sorry to all the players that have/continue to experience the same things I have.”
Those of us watching the WNBA, at a time when football and the baseball playoffs dominate, would like to see extreme basketball and no riots. If Engelbert can’t find a solution, her boss must help. Adam Silver, actually, runs women’s pro basketball.
Where is he?
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.