Caitlin Clark was recently named the 2024 Athlete of The Year by TIME Magazine, but not everyone is impressed with her and how the interview went. For one, sports broadcaster Jason Whitlock expressed his disappointment with how Clark did not “resist the WNBA programming of entitlement and victimhood.”
Whitlock took to X to respond to Clark Report, a fan account that shares content, news, and updates related to Caitlin Clark. In his post, the “Fearless” host expressed his dislike towards Clakr’s recent statements.
“The Clark Report is a great hustle for you,” Whitlock said. “I enjoy your posts. However, many [of] us liked Clark because she could hoop and she wasn’t political. She was like Michael Jordan. We didn’t care about her supporting our views. We wanted her to resist the WNBA programming of entitlement and victimhood. She didn’t. Not really surprising. But now that we know, we’re less enamored with Clark as she becomes Megan Rapinoe Lite.”
Megan Rapinoe is a retired National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) winger who also faced backlash and criticism for her open expression of her political, racial, and gender views, which fans have often considered controversial.
The statement that Whitlock answered read: “To be clear, this is a news page for Caitlin Clark THE BASKETBALL PLAYER. We support Caitlin for the way she plays the game and carries herself. If your support for her was contingent on her support of YOUR political views, you were never actually a fan of her in the first place. If you feel that is true for you, please feel free to unfollow.”
Caitlin Clark on “White Privilege” and Elevating Black Women
While the discourse between Jason Whitlock and the Caitlin Clark fan account did not specify the root of the topics, Clark faced backlash from one of her recent statements coming from her TIME interview, where she admitted to having “white privilege,” and intending to use her platform to elevate black women in the WNBA.
“I want to say I’ve earned every single thing, but as a white person, there is privilege,” Clark said. “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 elevate Black women, that’s going to be a beautiful thing.”
Caitlin Clark faced backlash over this statement, particularly from X, where some users called her “a sellout,” and some pointed out that she has the “Megan Rapinoe mentality.”
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Dan has been active in sports since 2016 and has worked behind the scenes as a scriptwriter for basketball, volleyball, and other sports. At a time, Dan has also been working as a sports commentator for CBA Pilipinas. During the pandemic, he has also been actively writing betting articles for CashBet and BetNow.