Race-Obsessed USA Today Columnist Furious That White Caitlin Clark Is Getting A Signature Shoe
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It happened. While it took longer than expected, USA Today’s Mike Freeman has published an inevitable column about how Caitlin Clark getting a signature shoe is a bad thing because she is a white woman.
Shortly after Clark was drafted by the Indiana Fever with the first-overall pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft, expected reports of her inking a multi-year deal with Nike began to emerge. Part of Clark’s reported eight-year, $28 million deal with the company is the expectation of her getting her own signature shoe.
Seeing how Clark was the face of women’s college basketball and has arguably already taken over that role before playing in a single WNBA game, Nike developing a shoe for one of the most-popular female athletes on the planet makes all the sense in the world.
Freeman refuses to see this because Freeman only sees skin color. His job title is Race and Inequality Editor in sports; he’s paid to write and discuss how white people are responsible for anything going wrong in the United States.
Caitlin Clark Earned What Nike Is Paying Her
Clark, being a heterosexual white woman, is nothing more than a target for Freeman, and he took direct aim in his latest nonsensical column that doesn’t deserve any of your time.
The column, titled ‘No Black WNBA players have a signature shoe. Here’s why that’s a gigantic problem.,’ focuses on the fact that Las Vegas Aces star A’ja Wilson does not have her own signature shoe. It’s a totally fair talking point given that Wilson is a two-time WNBA champion, two-time league MVP, five-time All-Star, and an Olympic gold medalist.
Arguing that Wilson deserves a shoe with her name on it is more than fair, and every sign points to that becoming a reality sooner rather than later, but soon isn’t good enough for Freeman.
Clark reportedly receiving her own signature shoe from Nike just as she enters the WNBA served as the perfect excuse for him to pick on her and other successful white players in the league.
White women getting a signature isn’t something to celebrate, it’s “a pattern,” and one Freeman isn’t a fan of.
“Wilson’s lack of a signature shoe is getting a fresh look because Caitlin Clark is expected to get a signature shoe in the near future. If she does, Clark would join only three other WNBA players with signature shoes: Breanna Stewart, Elena Delle Donne and Sabrina Ionescu. You may notice a pattern there,” Freeman writes.
Stewart, Delle Donne, and Ionescu are all faces of their respective franchises and accomplished in every facet imaginable, but we can’t talk about that, we simply must focus on the fact that their skin happens to be white.
Mike Freeman Continues To Complain
After Freeman’s snide note about a “pattern” of whiteness in the WNBA, he explains that back in the day nearly every signature shoe in the WNBA belonged to a black woman.
“There’ve only been 12 players in the history of the WNBA with their own signature shoe. In the past, almost every signature shoe from 1995-2011 belonged to a Black woman. The fact that only white women hold the power of the signature shoe now, as the WNBA enters its most high profile and prosperous phase, shows how Black women are being ignored in a league that they dominate.”
If that reads like Freeman is complaining about the fact that some white women have been awarded the opportunity for a signature shoe, it’s because that’s exactly what he’s doing.
Imagine a white baseball writer pinning a column about a black player receiving a signature shoe in the mostly-white MLB. A story like that wouldn’t ever make it to print, and rightfully so given that it would be patently absurd.
But, in the year 2024, where Race and Inequality Editor is an actual job title, a columnist complaining about white women getting signature shoes is promoted front and center in USA Today’s sports section.
Freeman left no stone unturned with his race-baiting messaging by calling anyone who disagrees with his line of thinking a “fool.”
“Stardom propels shoe deals, but also, shoe contracts, like a signature shoe, drive stardom. If you believe the only reason three (and likely soon four) white women are getting the shoes because they just happen to be more marketable, well, you’re a fool,” Freeman continued.
Freeman’s complaining about racism in America while simultaneously writing anti-white-centered columns and the national publication he works for publishing them is the only pattern in this entire situation.
