(Headline USA) Serial race-baiter and sports commentator Jemele Hill suggested this week that Caitlin Clark, the best player in women’s college basketball, has received media attention only because she is white.
In an interview with Uproxx over the weekend, Hill said that while she appreciated Clark’s contributions to the game and the new fans she has attracted, Clark didn’t deserve credit for the growth of women’s basketball.
“Everything about this sport has been trending up for years now. It did not just start with Caitlin Clark,” Hill said.
Hill claimed that lesser-known black female players have contributed more than Clark, but have received far less attention.
Specifically, she cited Las Vegas Aces power forward A’ja Wilson, who played for the University of South Carolina from 2014 to 2018 before joining the WNBA.
“A’ja Wilson, who has dominated basketball at every single level—she’s probably the best player in the world right now,” Hill claimed.
“And I’m not trying to act like she gets no coverage, but the coverage that sometimes non-white women get, or specifically black women get, is not even close. It’s two-to-one,” she added.
Hill also cited the Indiana Fever’s Aliyah Boston, who played for the University of South Carolina from 2019 to 2023 and was named the WNBA’s Rookie of the Year last season.
“I mean, Aliyah Boston was the best player in college just a couple of years ago, and she did not get even a 10th of this media coverage that Caitlin Clark did,” Hill said.
She lamented the coverage of Clark as a “missed opportunity” for the media to instead “elevate” black players.
“Caitlin Clark seems to be a great personality, but it is not like Caitlin Clark is walking around saying crazy stuff,” Hill said.
“They’re just covering her excellence, and that’s good enough, whereas it feels like, for black athletes to get the same amount of coverage or even fair coverage, there has to be something extra,” she added, perhaps failing to see the connection between Clark’s lack of distracting off-court behavior and her media appeal as a strong, aspirational role model.
