Caitlin Clark and the WNBA are getting a lot of attention. It's about far more than basketball
Not even a WNBA basketball game is an escape from the arguments and polarization that are so common in American life these days
NEW YORK (AP) — Oh, you thought going to a WNBA basketball game might be an escape from the arguments and polarization that are so common in American life these days? Ha, good one.
Some of the atmosphere in the public and media that has swirled around the professional women's league since the season started last month has been less fun time and more culture war, with rookie Caitlin Clark as the unwilling eye of the storm.
The white, 22-year-old University of Iowa college standout and No. 1 draft pick has become a canvas for all sorts of projections in her debut season with the Indiana Fever. She, and the predominantly Black and brown women playing in the league alongside her, seem to have become the latest proxies for longstanding American issues from race, gender and sexual orientation to who gets to take (or is thrust into) the spotlight and who gets ignored.
That shouldn't really surprise anyone, says Sarah Fields, professor of communication at the University of Colorado Denver, who studies the intersection of sports and American culture. “Sport," she says, "is a microcosm (that) reflects and refracts society.”
