Source: Variety / Getty
At this point, it should be more than obvious to us all that WNBA rookie Caitlin Clark has become a symbol of pride for white America. White people couldn’t just let her be a great basketball player, they had to make her their great white hope and their latest excuse for crapping all over Black women while pretending their glaring misogynoir didn’t exist long before Clark took a few hard fouls during games against Black women in the league.
Now, the Indiana Fever rookie has been left off Team USA’s roster for the 2024 Paris, France, games because the Olympics isn’t a popularity contest and people who actually know things about the game decided it was far more important to put together an experienced team, and people are losing their minds over it and, once again, acting like Clark is the victim of some Bizarro World Jim Crow era that oppresses straight white women.
And that, of course, includes Bill Maher, the blatantly Islamophobic old fogey curmudgeon who can’t stop whitesplaining racism to Black people and people of color and claims to hate identity politics until it’s time to whine on behalf of the poor, oppressed straight white man and other “good white people.”
“It’s (because) women are catty, the league is very lesbian and she’s not, and there’s race,” Maher said. “There’s a lot going on. There’s also a racial element to this… it’s not always racism when a white person succeeds.”
Riiiiiight, Bill. Caitlin Clark’s whiteness has nothing to do with why she inked a Nike shoe deal that dwarfs that of any professional player in the history of women’s basketball, or why she’s so well protected in white nationalist America that even Republican legislators are out here writing angry Karen letters to WNBA management about the “excessive attacks” she’s taken on the basketball court. (It’s also interesting that in Maher’s white and aggrieved mind, Clark’s whiteness played no role in her success, but it has everything to do with her struggles.)
Mind you, this is the same Bill Maher who didn’t think it was a big deal when MLB player Yuli Gurriel mocked fellow player Yu Darvish by using his fingers to slant his eyes while mouthing the word “chinito,” Spanish for “Chinese boy.” Because, for whatever reason, Darvish claimed he wasn’t particularly rattled by the blatant display of bigotry, Maher took the position that “you can’t be madder than the victim,” and yet here he is crying the saltiest of white tears on behalf of Clark, who hasn’t been nearly as whiny about the hard fouls she has taken as her fans typically are.
Of course, Maher also didn’t understand why Black people were so upset when he referred to himself as a “house n-gger,” or when he joined his blackface-loving fellow comedian Sarah Silverman in defending white people’s right to use racial slurs in the name of “just jokes.”
So, obviously, Maher is really selective when it comes to what’s “identity politics” and what’s actual racism, and it’s qu-white interesting where he consistently chooses to draw the line.
See how social media’s reacting to Maher’s latest controversy below.
