Former ESPN anchor Linda Cohn has not been shy about offering her takes on the WNBA, and especially on Indiana Fever superstar Caitlin Clark, since leaving the Worldwide Leader. Cohn has started her own YouTube channel, where she’s made a habit of letting her unvarnished takes on Clark and the WNBA writ large fly.
Joining Cohn in the unadulterated WNBA coverage this season have been conservative pundits and sports analysts such as Dan Dakich and Megyn Kelly. In August, Kelly even touched on Chicago Sky guard Dijonai Carrington’s blonde hair, which she described as “culturally appropriating.”
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Jemele Hill weighs in
Recently, sports and political analyst Jemele Hill, who was similarly called out for blonde hair, addressed the racial undertones surrounding WNBA and Caitlin Clark coverage.
“It’s interesting how most of the time when people say that, um, they’re not saying the thing that they really want to say, because there is this racial trope that Black women are jealous of white women, that we want to be them, that we want to emulate them. I unfortunately get this because I chose to have blonde hair color, and if I had a dollar for every day somebody said, ‘Well, you just trying to be like a white woman.’ Sir, white women do not own the copyright on blonde hair. Hell, half of the white women who wear blonde hair dyed their hair blonde.”
Hill went on to slam the narrative that black women are jealous of Clark.
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“And this idea of jealousy that keeps permeating as a narrative in the WNBA is that you have these Black players who are, um, you know, who have jealousy when it comes to Caitlin Clark. Although it’s funny how when certain people compete against Caitlin Clark, it’s just considered competing.
“When certain other people compete against Caitlin Clark, then it’s called jealousy. Just because there were Black players and people who said, ‘Hey, we get that Caitlin Clark is special, we get that she’s a big deal, but don’t use her to erase all the things that Black women have contributed to this league.’ So because black women stood against their own erasure, that then got twisted into ‘y’all jealous.'”
“It has worked this way in every league.”
Hill went on to emphasize the role that the players who helped build the league over the last 30 years played in allowing Clark to become the superstar she is today.
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“Caitlin Clark would not have had a league to join if it wasn’t for the contributions and these sacrifices that were made by the players that came before her,” she said.
“It has worked this way in every league. Caitlin Clark represents a new generation of WNBA players who grew up actually watching women play professionally in the United States. That’s a huge accomplishment. She had a goal she could strive for because the women in the W held things down for her to do it.”
Hill is absolutely right, and Clark herself has noted multiple times how important the black women in the league that came before her have been for her. Hopefully, those covering her join her in realizing that.
The post ‘Caitlin Clark would not have had a league to join’: Analyst slams notion that black players are ‘jealous’ of Caitlin Clark appeared first on The Comeback: Today’s Top Sports Stories & Reactions.
