Ep. 1380 - White Player Diversifies The WNBA. Champions Of Diversity Are Somehow Not Happy.
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
174.23859
Summary
The biggest star and only star in the WNBA is a white woman. This should be considered a win for diversity, yet Caitlin Clark has provoked a lot of rage and resentment from the supposed champions of diversity. Also, a bar owner in Idaho offers free beer to straight people as part of Heterosexuals Month.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
Today on the Matt Wall Show, the biggest star and only star in the WNBA is a white woman.
00:00:04.240
This should be considered a win for diversity, yet Caitlin Clark has provoked a lot of rage
00:00:08.100
and resentment from the supposed champions of diversity.
00:00:10.700
Also, a bar owner in Idaho offers free beer to straight people as part of heterosexual
00:00:17.600
Scientists are close to inventing a birth control gel that men can rub on their bodies
00:00:21.960
to make themselves impotent, and a psychologist takes to TikTok to brag about her refusal
00:00:27.780
You know, I have no choice but to talk about that and cancel her.
00:00:30.500
We'll talk about all that and more today on the Matt Wall Show.
00:00:57.120
The cost of living is up almost 20% from 2021, and families everywhere are feeling the burden.
00:01:02.500
If you're looking at your bills, wondering how in the world you can save on monthly expenses,
00:01:07.440
I'm happy to announce that Pure Talk is now providing international roaming to over 50 countries.
00:01:11.680
Once again, Pure Talk is investing in their customers with their own money,
00:01:16.120
As you plan your summer travel, make sure your wireless provider has you covered at home and abroad.
00:01:20.780
Pure Talk already puts you on America's most dependable 5G network,
00:01:23.560
but now they're offering coverage in over 50 countries as well.
00:01:26.940
Enjoy the freedom of unlimited talk, text, and ample 5G data for just $20 a month with Pure Talk.
00:01:31.780
This is a deal that's hard to beat, costing you less than half of what you pay with other networks.
00:01:35.640
Not only is their U.S. customer service team ready to assist you with a seamless switch,
00:01:39.000
but they also have fantastic savings on the latest iPhones and Androids.
00:01:43.340
Join my cell phone company, Pure Talk, and start saving today.
00:01:46.920
Visit puretalk.com slash Walsh to explore their offers.
00:01:49.660
When you make the switch, you'll enjoy an additional 50% off your first month.
00:01:52.740
Don't miss out on the opportunity to save on wireless at home and abroad.
00:02:01.760
So here's a little baseball trivia for you on a spring Tuesday.
00:02:05.640
Kirby Higby was a starting pitcher in the majors in the 1940s.
00:02:09.400
He was also an opponent of integration, which is why when Jackie Robinson,
00:02:12.980
the first black ball player in the modern era, was about to join the Brooklyn Dodgers,
00:02:19.560
But Higby couldn't avoid Robinson for very long.
00:02:22.420
On July 15th, 1948, Higby pitched a game against Robinson and the Dodgers,
00:02:27.220
and maybe coincidentally, but probably not, Higby hit one batter that game, Jackie Robinson.
00:02:32.560
And it turned out to be a costly move in the context of the game.
00:02:35.420
Robinson went on to advance to third base, then stole home plate,
00:02:41.380
Now, for Jackie Robinson, these kinds of cheap shots were common.
00:02:44.120
He was often harassed on and off the field because of his skin color.
00:02:46.620
That was the price of integrating sports in the 1940s, as the history books have taught us.
00:02:54.260
What's not conventional wisdom, even though it should be,
00:02:56.900
is that racial resentment can still be found in professional sports.
00:03:00.200
It's just that it goes in the opposite direction.
00:03:03.140
And nowhere is that more evident than the league that, until recently,
00:03:06.720
nobody ever talked about, much less watched, the WNBA.
00:03:09.900
By now, you've probably seen the footage of Caitlin Clark, the former Iowa Hawkeyes player
00:03:14.620
and now rookie on a team that we all just learned existed called the Indiana Fever.
00:03:19.240
And the footage, Clark, who is widely regarded as one of the greatest female athletes of all time,
00:03:23.920
is assaulted on the court during a game on Saturday.
00:03:26.960
She was hip-checked to the ground during the third quarter by Chicago Sky guard Kennedy Carter.
00:03:32.580
And there was no reason whatsoever for Carter to shove Clark's hip and knock her over.
00:03:36.100
The ball hadn't even been inbounded yet, so it was totally egregious and unnecessary.
00:03:46.720
But it was a rough night for Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever.
00:03:50.440
Last night, she only scored three points and a blowout loss to the New York Liberty.
00:03:55.000
But it was a game on Saturday between the Fever and the Chicago Sky that had a lot of people talking.
00:04:00.080
Fans were so hyped for Caitlin, Angel Reese, and Camila Cardosa to all be back on the same court.
00:04:05.540
However, the moment that made headlines, this right here, the hard foul involving Clark and Kennedy Carter.
00:04:11.320
This morning, this physical moment involving the WNBA's most high-profile rookie raising questions.
00:04:19.200
Chicago's Kennedy Carter shoulder-checking the fever's Caitlin Clark, knocking her to the ground.
00:04:24.520
The call initially deemed a common foul by officials.
00:04:28.160
A little surprised that it's nothing more than a common foul beyond that.
00:04:31.800
So the game had a lot of people talking, says the Good Morning America anchorwoman.
00:04:36.180
There's no love lost between these two teams, says the reporter.
00:04:41.860
Now, that's a very sing-songy way to describe an unprovoked shove to the floor.
00:04:45.780
It's especially odd considering the fact that after she knocked Clark over,
00:04:49.100
Kennedy Carter appeared to mouth a five-letter epithet that begins with the letter B.
00:04:53.700
And later, as David Hookstead noted at OutKick, Carter then went on social media to like the following tweets.
00:05:11.120
Now, those are, allegedly, that was all English.
00:05:16.900
Now, of course, liking tweets doesn't necessarily mean that Kennedy Carter endorses them.
00:05:22.000
But it certainly appears that she does endorse those sentiments based on all the information we have,
00:05:26.300
including the fact that Carter eventually told reporters she has no regrets about what happened,
00:05:30.420
even though any reasonable person would have a lot of regrets about what happened if it had been an accident.
00:05:37.420
I think at the end of the day, I'm a competitor.
00:05:39.640
Now that it's another day, I've had an off day.
00:05:42.140
Now I can answer your questions and I can let you know how I really feel about things.
00:05:45.660
But I'm a competitor and I'm going to compete no matter who you are and no matter who's in front of me.
00:05:58.940
Do you have any regrets on how it happened and everything that's happened since then?
00:06:05.300
I'm going to compete and play 100% hard no matter who it is, like I said, or who we're playing.
00:06:12.560
Now, it's impossible not to conclude that Kennedy Carter harbors a lot of disdain for Caitlin Clark.
00:06:18.520
And there are a couple possible explanations why.
00:06:20.600
One explanation, the one that has nothing to do with racism and which a lot of media outlets are running with,
00:06:24.980
is that Carter is simply jealous that a rookie like Clark has managed to do the impossible,
00:06:29.200
which is to make the WNBA a topic of discussion.
00:06:32.240
And there's no doubt that Clark has indeed accomplished that.
00:06:34.900
In just five games, the Indiana Fever, with Caitlin Clark on the team,
00:06:38.700
have already exceeded their total attendance from all 20 home games last season combined.
00:06:45.180
And the same is not remotely true for the Chicago Sky or for any other team in the league.
00:06:49.160
That appears to bother the players on the Chicago Sky quite a bit.
00:06:55.800
Here's one of Kennedy Carter's teammates, Angel Reese.
00:06:58.140
Reese also happens to have something of a history with Carter, dating back to their college years.
00:07:03.620
But here's Reese's assessment of why Clark is so popular.
00:07:09.060
It all started from the national championship game.
00:07:11.400
And I've been dealing with this for two years now.
00:07:13.360
And understanding, like, yeah, negative things have probably been said about me.
00:07:17.060
But honestly, I'll take that because look where women's basketball is.
00:07:22.580
You never would think that we'd be talking about women's basketball.
00:07:25.940
We got celebrities coming to games, sold-out arenas, like, just because of one single game.
00:07:30.160
And just looking at that, like, I'll take that role.
00:07:33.960
And I'll continue to take that on and be that for my teammates.
00:07:37.080
And if I want to be that, and I know I'll go down in history, I'll look back in 20 years and be like,
00:07:41.160
yeah, the reason why we're watching women's basketball is not just because of one person.
00:07:47.200
The reason why we're watching women's basketball is not just because of one person.
00:07:58.180
In fact, it's extremely easy to prove that it's false.
00:08:00.180
As somebody pointed out online, when the Chicago Sky hosted the Los Angeles Sparks,
00:08:04.280
which is another team that exists, apparently the total attendance was around 8,000.
00:08:09.220
But when the Indiana Fever and Caitlin Clark hosted the same team, the Los Angeles Sparks,
00:08:15.660
This is what they call a controlled experiment in the business.
00:08:21.220
Even when they move her team to larger arenas, they still sell out.
00:08:26.100
And even during away games, kids are lining up for photographs with her.
00:08:29.480
So, when you watch all this, it's obvious that there's some jealousy at play.
00:08:52.860
A league full of terrible basketball players with no moral character will naturally become deeply uncomfortable
00:09:01.160
But it doesn't take a lot of digging to realize that something else is going on here,
00:09:05.880
something that's elevating that jealousy into on-court violence.
00:09:09.740
The truth is that Clark has been the subject of intense scrutiny because of her race,
00:09:15.960
And that's now spilling out into the open, both on the court and off the court.
00:09:21.860
During last year's NCAA championship game, Reese made a taunting hand gesture right in Caitlin Clark's face.
00:09:28.140
It was a callback to when Clark had made a similar gesture earlier in the tournament.
00:09:33.020
But Reese claimed that she received more criticism, not because of how she had performed the gesture or the context of it,
00:09:44.180
I don't fit in a box that y'all want me to be in.
00:09:47.700
So, this was for me, this was for the girls that look like me that's going to speak up on what they believe in.
00:09:56.840
This is the racial dimension that has underlined criticism of Caitlin Clark for a long time and continues to do so.
00:10:04.500
There are almost too many examples to count, but I'll start with what former WNBA player Cheryl Swoops said about Clark just a few months ago on a podcast.
00:10:21.120
Swoops tried to undermine Clark's legacy with a series of inaccuracies and lies.
00:10:25.240
She claimed that we must take Clark's record-breaking career with a grain of salt because she played five years of collegiate basketball,
00:10:35.320
but she doubled down on her inaccuracies throughout the week.
00:10:38.240
She responded to critics with demeaning memes of white women.
00:10:41.460
She called those questioning her them and ignorant.
00:10:51.080
Swoops appeared again on the podcast and remarked,
00:10:53.440
So, for people to come at me and say that I made those comments about Clark because I'm a racist,
00:11:03.460
Now, we've talked about this non-argument on the show before.
00:11:09.900
but a handful of sociology professors in the UK
00:11:12.120
have apparently convinced a lot of people otherwise
00:11:15.580
and now it's suddenly true because they said it.
00:11:21.900
if you so much as commit a microaggression against her,
00:11:32.580
knocks a white woman over while calling her the B word,
00:11:46.500
Caitlin Clark's whiteness makes her more marketable.
00:12:05.440
while it's relatively rare for a Black WNBA player
00:12:12.300
Caitlin Clark is only getting all this attention
00:12:15.240
Never mind the fact that there are other white players
00:12:22.920
becoming the first player in Division I history