A few years ago, I flagged a fun phenomenon afflicting WNBA superstar Caitlin Clark. You see, as a White superstar in a league with many Black players, racist idiots really wanted Caitlin Clark to be racist. And when she declined, they got very mad at her.
This week, as teammate Sophie Cunningham more explicitly positioned herself as the darling of the right-wing grievance crowd, the knives are back out for Caitlin Clark.
What this reminds me of, incidentally, is a story I've told a few times about how certain "allies" react to my account being Jewish at Berkeley. They start with the assumption that Berkeley is an antisemitic hellhole and come ready to lend aid and comfort to a Jew like me who must have suffered terribly during my time there. But to their surprise, I tell them that this wasn't my experience, and while it certainly wasn't an idyllic paradise and I won't speak for anyone else at a huge campus like UC-Berkeley, I generally was quite comfortable as a Jew there. And this response is infuriating, and my would-be "ally" turns on me with a vengeance, convinced that only a spineless, self-hating Jew would refuse to confirm their narrative about pervasive Berkeley antisemitism.
And then they wonder why folks like me don't recognize them as the true allies of the Jews.
Clark is going through the same thing. A bunch of right-wing white knights ride out on her behalf to defend against the terrible mistreatment and oppression she labors under. Clark demurs, indicating that this is not her experience and not a description she identifies with. And then her would-be saviors savage her for her impertinence -- she's a coward, she's spineless, she's a race traitor. No doubt, they will continue to wonder why Clark doesn't view them as her buddies.
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