Why do they get so angry when you acknowledge your privilege? Jeez, it’s obvious as a white lady that a lot of things are easier for you in an unfair way as if you are paying attention, even if other things are still difficult. The only way you can get over seeing that unfairness is pulling people up with you, and refusing to let the unfairness be invisible to you.
I never got a speeding ticket as a teenager. I got pulled over, of course! But until I was in my mid-twenties, I never actually got a ticket. I’d be stupid if I thought that wasn’t because I was a white girl with big eyes and long legs. It wasn’t fair, as I’m sure others got plenty of tickets. I couldn’t make it not happen, but I didn’t have to assume it was because ticket-receivers sped more than me.
Hopefully after these comments some of the Clark hate going on in the league dies down too. I get why other players might be upset with her attention but it’s not her fault. And some of the flagrant hits on her were way over the line.
I will say that for me honestly, it wasn’t about her being white that made me watch her. What made me watch her is the same thing that made me watch Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Stephen Curry. She does things no other player can do and you don’t want to miss it. I saw her hit a logo three and make some ridiculous pass and I was hooked. I wouldn’t have cared what race or sexual orientation she was.
I feel like the majority of fans are like that too. It’s unfortunate that the racists glommed onto her for different reasons and hopefully this makes them go away. None of them were true fans of the game anyway.
Great article. Props to Clark for owning her privilege and using it to elevate the many other talented women in the WNBA. Kelly is a textbook example in the ugliness of bigotry and dare I say envy? Not jealousy, because that would imply that something was taken from her, something which she obviously has never possessed.
So both my dad & my step-dad adore Caitlin Clark, and both are sports watching dudes, but she did make them much more interested in women’s basketball. I watched her senior year playoff series with each of them and I got more & more sucked in - I don’t even really like basketball! Came to keep the old men company, stayed to watch Caitlin, and actually fell in love with Kamilla
Cardoso. People need exposure to discover greatness they weren’t expecting
"Humility" is a word missing from the MAGA vocabulary. Ironically it's one of the most attractive qualities a person can have—it makes them fun and funny and sexy and beautiful and a pleasure to be around. COINCIDENCE?
Caitlin Clark clearly is a talented basketball player, and a truly good person. She has no problem elevating others to feel important. Some people, even ones with talent and brains, can only put others down, or "in their place," to feel important. Bigots belong in that group, although some of them have neither brains nor talent. Bigots also mistake people, like Clark, recognizing their privilege as being ashamed of their race, or apologizing for their race, when it's simply stating a fact.
Daddy has a theory about racists - that deep down, rather than feeling superior to people of other races, they feel inferior to them. Don't know if that can ever be proved or disproved, but it is interesting that racists want to keep their privilege, using the law, when if they really are superior, they wouldn't need their privilege.
Really excellent piece, Stephen! The topic of women’s basketball always makes me think of the godalmighty Pat Head Summitt, coach of the legendary Lady Vols here at UT for 38 years. You could say Summitt pretty much invented the collegiate women’s basketball program, or at least elevated it to NCAA status in the 80s.
She broke so many records that even the highly sexist UT athletic department was rumored to have offered her the job of coaching the men Vols’ basketball team. It was an offer she could refuse: Her response was, “why would I consider that a step up?”
More about this incredibly gifted woman here, if anyone wants to know more about her life story.
Why do they get so angry when you acknowledge your privilege? Jeez, it’s obvious as a white lady that a lot of things are easier for you in an unfair way as if you are paying attention, even if other things are still difficult. The only way you can get over seeing that unfairness is pulling people up with you, and refusing to let the unfairness be invisible to you.
I never got a speeding ticket as a teenager. I got pulled over, of course! But until I was in my mid-twenties, I never actually got a ticket. I’d be stupid if I thought that wasn’t because I was a white girl with big eyes and long legs. It wasn’t fair, as I’m sure others got plenty of tickets. I couldn’t make it not happen, but I didn’t have to assume it was because ticket-receivers sped more than me.
I’d like to ask Megyn where she’d be today if she’d been born a pudgy redhead instead of a “Fox Blonde.” Irony really *is* dead, isn’t it?
I’d say Megyn must have blood coming out of her wherever but apparently she’s into that kind of talk and I don’t want to make her happy.
Hopefully after these comments some of the Clark hate going on in the league dies down too. I get why other players might be upset with her attention but it’s not her fault. And some of the flagrant hits on her were way over the line.
I will say that for me honestly, it wasn’t about her being white that made me watch her. What made me watch her is the same thing that made me watch Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Stephen Curry. She does things no other player can do and you don’t want to miss it. I saw her hit a logo three and make some ridiculous pass and I was hooked. I wouldn’t have cared what race or sexual orientation she was.
I feel like the majority of fans are like that too. It’s unfortunate that the racists glommed onto her for different reasons and hopefully this makes them go away. None of them were true fans of the game anyway.
MK is a fucking perpetual hate machine, she must have a miserable life.
Great article. Props to Clark for owning her privilege and using it to elevate the many other talented women in the WNBA. Kelly is a textbook example in the ugliness of bigotry and dare I say envy? Not jealousy, because that would imply that something was taken from her, something which she obviously has never possessed.
So both my dad & my step-dad adore Caitlin Clark, and both are sports watching dudes, but she did make them much more interested in women’s basketball. I watched her senior year playoff series with each of them and I got more & more sucked in - I don’t even really like basketball! Came to keep the old men company, stayed to watch Caitlin, and actually fell in love with Kamilla
Cardoso. People need exposure to discover greatness they weren’t expecting
Listening to Megyn Kelly is the actual self-flagellation.
Thank you so much! This is great. I did not know about Dave Brubeck and Duke Ellington and am not surprised they were friends.
Ditto!
"Humility" is a word missing from the MAGA vocabulary. Ironically it's one of the most attractive qualities a person can have—it makes them fun and funny and sexy and beautiful and a pleasure to be around. COINCIDENCE?
Are you saying that Meghan Kelly isn't fun and funny and sexy and beautiful and a pleasure to be around?
Caitlin Clark clearly is a talented basketball player, and a truly good person. She has no problem elevating others to feel important. Some people, even ones with talent and brains, can only put others down, or "in their place," to feel important. Bigots belong in that group, although some of them have neither brains nor talent. Bigots also mistake people, like Clark, recognizing their privilege as being ashamed of their race, or apologizing for their race, when it's simply stating a fact.
Daddy has a theory about racists - that deep down, rather than feeling superior to people of other races, they feel inferior to them. Don't know if that can ever be proved or disproved, but it is interesting that racists want to keep their privilege, using the law, when if they really are superior, they wouldn't need their privilege.
so Clark's famous and names and elevates her heros and people that inspired her to play...
... and this pisses off The White Wicked Witch of the West.
This is fine.
Yeah, I can live with that
Time Out, one of the great albums released in that annus mirabilis of jazz, 1959. The others:
Art Blakey, Moanin'
Miles Davis, Kind of Blue
Charles Mingus, Mingus Ah Um
Ornette Coleman, The Shape of Jazz to Come
John Coltrane, Giant Steps
As a jazz aficionado, it has always bothered me that people automatically credit 'Take 5' to Brubeck and not the composer, Paul Desmond.
“PIck Up Sticks” is my favorite from the album, particularly because of Brubeck’s amazing solo. https://www.allsolos.com/solo/694/dave-brubeck-piano-solo-on-pick-up-sticks
I don't think I had ever heard that before. I have no idea how I could've missed it. He's definitely doing a hat tip to Thelonious Monk in that solo
Blue Rondo a la Turk at the moment they break out of the frenetic 9/8 theme for four bars of 4/4 swing and back into 9/8...
The piano player in me is gobsmacked.
Unsquare dance!!
Really excellent piece, Stephen! The topic of women’s basketball always makes me think of the godalmighty Pat Head Summitt, coach of the legendary Lady Vols here at UT for 38 years. You could say Summitt pretty much invented the collegiate women’s basketball program, or at least elevated it to NCAA status in the 80s.
She broke so many records that even the highly sexist UT athletic department was rumored to have offered her the job of coaching the men Vols’ basketball team. It was an offer she could refuse: Her response was, “why would I consider that a step up?”
More about this incredibly gifted woman here, if anyone wants to know more about her life story.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Summitt
If you're pissing off Frau Blackface, you're doing very well indeed.
Well done, Ms. Clark. And I also appreciate her being an ally. She does seem like a genuinely good person.
Getting the fox Talking Heads all het up is a badge of honor. I wonder if they know that