If you thought DiJonai Carrington , then posting “White privilege” from the locker room after her ejection, would cause the sports media to acknowledge the actual racism in the WNBA, you thought wrong.
To neutral observers, the story on Saturday is hardly difficult to analyze. a dirty, flagrant worthy play that could have seriously injured Cunningham, leaving her bloodied in the mouth from the contact. The officials rightfully ejected Carrington. She responded by accusing league officials of racism, an accusation that, while baseless, is nevertheless serious.
And yet, the race ladies of Threads and Bluesky have rushed to Carrington’s defense.
It appears the group chat settled on the talking point that Cunningham committed a similar foul last year and became famous for it, thus proving a racial double standard.
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“DiJonai Carrington receiving a Flagrant 2 and an ejection was the right call, but lets go back to the play that made Sophie Cunningham famous,” Jemele Hill posted. “SC gained a million followers overnight. She is affectionately known as an enforcer. Nobody suggested she should be brought up on assault charges despite her play being clear retaliation.”
“Meanwhile DiJonai Carrington was actually going for the ball but shes being called racial slurs, a thug, and some suggested a suspension for multiple games.”
Hill’s sidekick, the always bitter Cari Champion, posted essentially the same response while sharing Cunningham’s foul from over a year ago.
“The question is a fair ask- will @dijonai be applauded? Will she gain millions of followers and marketing opportunities?” Champion said.
“League has a race problem,” she added in a since-deleted post.
Indeed, it does.
The comparison between Carrington’s and Cunningham’s hard fouls is not nearly as clever as the duo think. For one, Cunningham acknowledged that she deserved to be ejected. Carrington claimed she didn’t and invoked the race card.
Now, let’s revisit the foul Hill and Champion reference.
Last June, Connecticut’s Marina Mabrey shoved Caitlin Clark to the floor during a game. Jacy Sheldon then slapped Clark across the face. While the officials showed little interest in restoring order, Cunningham responded by shoving Sheldon onto the hardwood.
The moment was significant because Cunningham was the first player in the WNBA to stand up for Clark, the league’s biggest star, who is perpetually fouled hard.
Cunningham delivered a receipt for a dirty foul on her teammate. Carrington, by contrast, committed a dirty play, as she has done throughout her career. Two seasons ago, she jammed her fingernail into Clark’s eye.
Reporters asked Cunningham after the game about the comparisons between her foul and Carrington’s.
“I think the league is taking care of that,” she responded. “This has nothing to do with race. Last year, I did the same thing and I got kicked out. And I deserved to be kicked out. There’s no reason even to play that card.”
They are not the same.
Of course, Jemele Hill and Cari Champion are not the only usual suspects in sports media trying to divert attention away from Carrington.
On Sunday, NBC host Maria Taylor anchored a discussion about the play and accused those criticizing Carrington of using it as “ammunition for a culture war.”
You might wonder how Taylor could make that argument, considering Carrington injected herself into the “culture war” by posting “White privilege” from the locker room during the game.
It would be fair to wonder.
We can explain: Taylor and NBC neglected to mention Carrington’s social media post during the segment, as if it weren’t part of the story.
ESPN took the same approach. Its WNBA halftime sho
