Dijonai Carrington Speaks Out On "White Privilege" Comment

Days after Dijonai Carrington stormed into the locker room to hop on social media and send out a Threads message that read “white privilege” after a hard foul on Sophie Cunningham, she is revisiting it.

It started with Speakeasy podcast co-host Emmanuel Acho taking issue with Carrington seemingly being upset that she thinks the ejection was based on her race. 

“Though Dijonai’s intention was a play on the ball, her impact was all on Sophie Cunningham’s head,” Acho began. “So, as a result, the refs made the right call. Now, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention: have we seen Sophie Cunningham aggressively foul an individual before and not get thrown out of the game? Sure.”

The former NFL player continued, “Have we seen Caitlin Clark aggressively foul an individual by hitting them in the head and not get out of the game? Absolutely. You cannot be ignorant to that truth. But if we are paying attention to what DJ Carrington did to Sophie Cunningham, it was not a race-based decision. And to call that a white privilege-based foul is to completely undermine the term of white privilege. And to also completely ignore the rules in basketball.”

Carrington snapped back on X, clarifying that the white privilege comment wasn’t about the foul.

“I’ve never once claimed that the assessment of the foul was white privilege (that was your assumption). Try exercising your critical thinking skills, I know you studied psych. Furthermore, I’m the LAST thing from ignorant or asinine when it comes to speaking on “white privilege,” do ya research on that one. I actually went to school, one of the top universities might I add, to educate myself on this exact subject. I would never use that term as a rhetorical weapon, knowing the historical and social weight it holds, without having the proper evidence to substantiate it.”

In her defense statement in response to Acho, she still didn’t clarify what she was referring to as “white privilege,” and when asked again to explain in the pregame Monday, she declined because she “already talked to the league and I guess the quote-unquote higher-ups.” 

“I’ve already spoken to the people who have the potential to have the agency to make the change that I’m hoping comes about not just from this incident but ones in the past and ones that are obviously going to be coming up in the near future probably as well,” Carrington added.  

She did say that the play was intentional and was just a strong show of defense that went awry.

“It’s just who I am. I’m never going to just let an open layup be had. You can pull clips from I don’t know however many seasons of me making that exact play. Obviously, I’m just coming back from injury, so maybe my timing or my lift wasn’t where it needs to get to, but I mean, it was unfortunate [that] I made contact with her in the way that I did, but it was never intentional. 

“Look, it might happen again. That’s just how I play. I’m always going to go all out and try to get a stop. I’m not just going to let an open layup happen. But like I said, I’m never intending to hurt somebody regardless of any outside noise or whatever the situation may be.”

See social media’s latest reaction to the Carrington debate below.