Caitlin Clark‘s start to life in the WNBA has been up and down. While she’s putting up numbers — 15.6 points, six assists, 4.9 assists, and 1.4 steals in 32.7 minutes per game — Clark has struggled to score efficiently and with turnovers for the 4-10 Indiana Fever. It’s nothing unusual for a rookie making the jump to a professional sports league, even one as decorated as Clark was at the collegiate level.
What has been unusual is the discourse that has surrounded Clark, as she’s become the sort of athlete who gets jammed into conversations about things that don’t necessarily have anything to do with the game of basketball — among numerous other examples of Clark’s name being used to push hateful narratives, a Republican congressman used the recent hard foul Chicago Sky guard Chennedy Carter committed on Clark and the discourse around it as a way to press the WNBA for “resentment and repeated attacks from fellow players” on Clark.
Clark has said in the past that she didn’t like the discourse around Carter’s foul, because she wanted the focus to be on basketball. Her initial effort to shrug off the conversation led to a critique from DiJonai Carrington, who felt Clark wasn’t using her platform and voice to call out when people use her to prop up stereotypes.
Dawg. How one can not be bothered by their name being used to justify racism, bigotry, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia & the intersectionalities of them all is nuts. We all see the sh*t. We all have a platform. We all have a voice & they all hold weight. Silence is a luxury.
— dιjonaι carrιngтon♛ (@DijonaiVictoria) June 13, 2024
On Thursday, Clark was asked directly about people using her name as a way to push racist and misogynistic narratives, and she made clear that she roundly condemns all of it.
I asked #IndianaFever’s Caitlin Clark directly about her name being weaponized for racism/misogyny (as Dijonai Carrington alluded to):
“It’s disappointing. … Everybody in our world deserves the same amount of respect. The women in our league deserve the same amount of respect.” pic.twitter.com/gyAWBqGG8c
— James Boyd (@RomeovilleKid) June 13, 2024
“I think it’s disappointing,” Clark said. “I think everybody in our world deserves the same amount of respect, the women in our league deserve the same amount of respect. So, people should not be using my name to push those agendas. It’s disappointing.”
Clark went on to say that praise the women in the league who came before her, and made it a place that she strived to make during her basketball journey.
“Just treating every single woman in this league with the same amount of respect, I think it’s just a basic human thing that everybody should do,” Clark said. “Just, be a kind person and treat them how you would want to be treated. I think it’s very simple.
