You didn’t start with a hand gesture. Long before the final seconds of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament, when Louisiana State University (LSU) star Angel Reese lifted the “You Can’t See Me” hand wave to Iowa player Kaitlin Clark, sparking a flurry of berating on social media for her “sportsmanship.” Poor,” Anti-black bubbles were already appearing on the surface.
He started in the run-up to LSU’s Final Four contest with South Carolina, a team known for its tough play. A high-achieving youngster, Naismith College and AP Player of the Year, and John R. Award winner, Clarke slipped through allowing her catapult into the mainstream sports scene. While her performance became a major story from the game, her post-game interview with South Carolina coach Don Staley generated controversy.
When asked by a reporter about her team’s playing style, Staley replied, “Some people in the media, when you get together in public, you say things about our team and you get heard. And it gets brought back to me, okay?” We’re not street fighters. This team shows how you need to approach basketball, on and off the court. And I think that happens sometimes in the game, and it hurts.”
Those words, a rebuke of the racist and hateful coverage of her team, and words by the media that clearly portrayed her predominantly black team as unprofessional compared to the predominantly white Iowa team, would return surprisingly quickly to Reese.
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Reese was met with outrage by mostly white critics, such as Keith Olbermann(Opens in a new tab), is symbolic of the prevalence of dehumanization of black people that was supposedly denied by white people who self-appointed reading lists during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement. It’s a familiar image of gender inequality, white fragility, anti-black rhetoric, and the erasure of black people on social media and in the White House.
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Sport is a risky road for women.
It’s almost ironic that Reese’s controversial gesture originally found cultural status in the hands of a white man. For those who don’t know, the “You Can’t See Me” wave was a calling card for WWE wrestler John Cena, who used black aesthetics—a backwards baseball cap, long jeans, and a chain necklace—and hip-hop language, to rise to stardom. Since then, its use has spread in popular culture, especially in sports. While the NFL and NBA have rules that penalize sarcasm, it is also an integral part of the game’s inextricable entertainment value.
The satire enhances the narratives and rivalry between the players, and even enhances the passion for either hatred or encouragement of said athlete on the part of the fans. It’s a popular tradition in game art…unless you’re a woman. The inherent double standard of being a female athlete is as American as apple pie: The ballplayers of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (which ran from 1943 to 1954) were required to uphold feminine standards(Opens in a new tab) In public and private places(Opens in a new tab) By agreeing to wear skirts for uniform, attend etiquette lessons, never cut their hair short or smoke or drink in public.
WNBA athletes were also expected to present themselves as reductively feminine. This resulted in lesbian football players remaining locked out(Opens in a new tab) For fear of losing their career and harming the league. In American sports, if a woman decides to break out of the rigidly normative boundaries of gender imposed by men, she is ridiculed, punished, erased, and demoted.
It is a big reason why women’s sports often receive less financial and municipal support and attention. WNBA players have discussed how the league’s majority LGBTQ and Black membership has caused homophobia and misogyny to hinder the game’s popularity. “On top of that, this trope — the ‘homosexual, I hate men’ trope — is something that’s been used for decades to make women not play sports, to make women stay home,” Emani, WNBA player McGee Stafford said. Andscape(Opens in a new tab).
Who is Angel Reese?
The waning popularity of women’s sports is the reason that before the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship game, few on social media or around the country knew who Reese was, despite her accomplishments last season — as a Southeast All-Defensive Team (SEC) A first-team All-SEC selection, and a consensus first-team All-American selection, should have made her an instant star. It’s a strange turn of events, then, to think about how the “you can’t see me” gesture propelled Reese onto the national stage.
However, in the face of misogyny, she was not seen as a talented young woman from Maryland and positioned as a captain on her team – or a hero. Instead it was called “Bayou Barbie”.(Opens in a new tab),” turned into a classless thug who dared show her ardor, glee, and confidence to a white woman. For many, seeing a white athlete, one exalted as a patriotic darling, defeated by a black woman was terrifying enough. A black woman rejoicing in her victory? Was that a bridge away? For her part, Clark told ESPN outside the lines that Reese “should never be criticized for what she did. She competed, she competed.”
The double standard was evident throughout the tournament: Clark, a famous trash talker, was applauded when she similarly used the “you can’t see me” hand gesture in a game against Louisville. Even Sina agreed(Opens in a new tab).
It also tells us that it was Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder who likened playing South Carolina to getting into a bar fight, comments that Staley criticized in her postgame interview. Instead of questioning her words, Bluder brushed off Staley’s criticism(Opens in a new tab). While some in the national media followed the story, that didn’t stop Clark and Iowa from heading into the championship game to go up as the nation’s feel-good story. Nor were they factored in when Reese’s words “You can’t see me” caused shockwaves across social media. Instead, many hung albatrosses around a team of whites in Iowa.
The White House (fragile) intervenes.
In the immediate aftermath of Iowa’s loss, white fragility also stemmed from the White House when First Lady Jill Biden floated the idea of inviting Iowa to the White House as well. The practice of championship teams visiting the nation’s capital can be traced back to 1963, when John F. Kennedy invited the Boston Celtics. It is an honor reserved for the winning teams only. So when Biden rejected the proposal for Team Iowa, the losing team, it seemed to be yet another example of the fragility of whites erasing the achievement of blacks.
Was Biden so enamored of Clarke’s popularity that she carelessly dodged tradition? This would be a generous explanation for her proposal. Even if this is true, it doesn’t negate the fact that Clark’s feelings were on her mind and not how her words might have made LSU feel abandoned and erased.
While the first lady backed away from the comments, Reese wasn’t buying it. “I don’t accept apologies because you said what you said… You can’t take back some of the things you say… They can bring it to light. We’re going to the Obamas. We’re going to see Michelle. We’re going to see Barack,” she said. I’m athletic(Opens in a new tab) Podcast.
Reese also did not want LSU to make the usual visit to the White House. The school said it would accept the invitation(Opens in a new tab), which opens up more questions: Shouldn’t the institution stand behind one of its students when they are clearly offended? Is the politics of respect, the fear of criticism from the First Lady, worth more than the emotional and mental well-being of their student athlete?
In the end, Reese, as team leader, decides that she will accept the invitation after all, but explains that it is still a sore spot.
“At first we were hurt – it was emotional because we know how hard we’ve worked all year for everything,” Reese said. Sports Center(Opens in a new tab). “You don’t get that experience at all, and I know my team probably wants to be sure and my coaches support that, so I’m going to do what’s best for the team and we’ve decided we’re going to go. I’m a team player. I’m going to do what’s best for the team.”
Perhaps one of the lessons in all of this is the need to separate sport from the state. The image of politicians inviting athletes to the White House, attempting to give their political approval in exchange for a cultural stash, smells of the ages of gladiatorial, when emperor focused on the person who had recently put his body on the line for his entertainment. . It is a bargain that only allows the politician to profit; Apart from memory, the athlete receives little of it.
Being close to greatness is not just a political desire either. We all like to associate ourselves with winners: from people posing for pictures with Oscar statuettes they haven’t won, to rabid celebrity fans, to staunch athletic loyalties. Culturally, we have made others’ victories a reflection of our national standing, morality, self-righteousness, self-worth, and racial pride. We have made their losses a mirror of our wounded pride as well, our neglect and our deferred dreams.
For athletes, especially student athletes, it’s not that deep. It’s telling that Clark didn’t feel abandoned by Reese’s gesture, that Iowa didn’t ask to visit the White House, and that the only people who felt offended by the outcome of the game were racist whites aghast at a blow to their confidence in whites.
It’s worth going back to Staley’s post-game press conference. “If you really knew them, if you really knew them, like if you really wanted to know other players that are this game, you would think differently. So don’t judge us by the color of our skin. Judge us by how we handle the game,” said the South Carolina coach.
Reese is still waiting to be judged on her own merits, and on her approach to what sport should be: not just to build legacies, but to build character, lifelong bonds and friendships among her teammates, to work hard towards one goal, and to celebrate your victories while addressing your own defeats. your.
Reese is a national hero. She should not feel that she is the only one who loses.