Culture
WNBA players say the troubling side of its rise is racism and threats
As the WNBA has reached wildly successful highs this season in viewership and attendance, players say the boom long coveted throughout women’s basketball has come with unfortunate consequences. During these playoffs, athletes who would normally be focused on winning have instead shared a swell of complaints of being targeted with racist, misogynistic, homophobic and threatening attacks.
The rise in harassment, players say, has taken a mental toll. Some question how the league has considered their well-being as it has managed an influx of attention that followed the college stardom of Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese into the pros.
A few players have made more drastic moves, deactivating some of their social media accounts or heavily limiting their engagement, despite the clear and often critical income potential that comes from marketing directly to fans.
Phoenix Mercury center Brittney Griner said fans have voiced racist taunts at her and others. Reese said AI-generated nude images of her have circulated online.
Connecticut Sun guard DiJonai Carrington shared on Instagram a graphic email sent to her with threats of violence and a racist slur, following a moment during the first game of the playoffs in which Carrington inadvertently poked one of Clark’s eyes. Carrington’s partner, NaLyssa Smith, who plays with Clark on the Indiana Fever, wrote on X that Carrington has even been followed.
Alyssa Thomas said she and her Sun teammates had faced the most intense racist bullying she has encountered in 11 WNBA seasons as they faced the Fever and ended Clark’s rookie season.
“With more exposure, we’re seeing more of those people come out and say their words online,” Sky forward Brianna Turner said. “They talk their talk, but I highly doubt they’re watching any games or any content. They’re just there to spread hate and be messy online when they couldn’t care less about what happens in the WNBA or about any players, either.”
Yall can clown me all you want im never gonna stop advocating for respecting players. Respectfully, feel free mute or block if that’s a trigger for you. Please protect your peace
— Brianna Turner (@_Breezy_Briii) September 22, 2024
The troubling messages have been at odds with the welcoming environment the league and its players — the majority of whom are Black and many in the LGBTQ+ community — sought to create over the past three decades. As it fought for financial stability and credibility with media and fans since its 1996 inception, the WNBA has increasingly considered itself a haven for inclusivity.
Some players say that environment has been stained by new factions of fans bringing toxicity to the sport, treating the WNBA and its players as fodder for culture-war arguments during a polarizing period in American society.
“I appreciate the new eyes,” Sky forward Isabelle Harrison said. “But if this comes with hate and bigotry and racism and even people who look like me bashing me, keep it offline because it’s so hurtful, and you don’t know how that affects people.”
That dimension has added a complexity to the developing play and rivalry of Clark, who is White, and Reese, who is Black. Clark won Rookie of the Year honors and guided the Fever to the playoffs. Reese’s season ended in early September with a wrist injury, but not until she had already set WNBA records for consecutive double-doubles and rebounds in a season.
Fever forward Aliyah Boston said some people are simply being opportunistic. “It’s easy to attach yourself to the Fever because we have a lot of attention around us right now, and it’s so easy to say, ‘Well, I’m a Fever fan, I’m an A.B. fan, I’m a Caitlin fan and just (spew) hate off of that — and that’s never OK,” she said.
Tension bubbled early this season as some fans and sports commentators accused veteran WNBA players of feeling jealous of Clark’s stardom and claimed she was being targeted in games. Even though that notion was widely dismissed by players, fouls on Clark quickly became hot topics to debate — with conversations devolving into personal insults or worse.
A Chicago Tribune op-ed likened a hard foul on Clark by Sky guard Chennedy Carter to “assault,” and an Indiana congressman wrote an open letter to the WNBA commissioner airing his grievances about the foul. Charles Barkley lambasted WNBA players for being “petty” and “jealous” of Clark’s popularity, while Sheryl Swoopes, on multiple occasions, seemed to downplay Clark’s accolades. ESPN personality Pat McAfee apologized for calling Clark a “White b—-” on his show during a segment in which he mused about her stardom and her race.
“It is discouraging that we’re losing the conversation around the skill of these players and it’s being overshadowed by the politicized nature of their presence,” said Ajhanai Keaton, an assistant professor of sports management at UMass Amherst.
The scrutiny of Clark throughout the season frequently went beyond her play and her comments about games.
Her social media presence is mostly limited to retweets of Iowa and Fever posts, with some sharing of content from her commercial sponsors. She recently created a buzz by liking a Taylor Swift Instagram post that endorsed Kamala Harris for president, although Clark did not formally endorse Harris herself and simply encouraged voting in the November presidential election when asked to explain her action.
She denounced the use of her name to push divisive agendas online, calling it “disappointing” and “unacceptable.” “Those aren’t fans,” she said Friday. “Those are trolls, and it’s a real disservice to the people in our league, the organization, the WNBA.”
Still, much of the conversation carries on regardless of her participation.
“She’s trying to get her bearings and develop her game and take her game to the next level and be on this bigger stage,” New York Liberty forward Jonquel Jones said earlier this season. “And she’s really handling it well. It’s the fan base that’s going crazy and making it a race war and all this other stuff.”
The league released a statement last week condemning online harassment of players. But commissioner Cathy Engelbert previously faced criticism, including from the players association, for lauding the league’s rivalries when asked in a CNBC interview about “menacing” comments players receive.
“The league should have taken a stance a long time ago, and not waited for it to get this kind of deep, and this far on what’s tolerated and what’s not,” Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu said.
Sun guard DiJonai Carrington said she’s been targeted with threatening messages this season. (Elsa / Getty)
Las Vegas Aces guard Chelsea Gray, when asked how the league could have protected players throughout the season, said: “Probably make a statement earlier than what they did.”
The WNBA’s recent statement mentioned involving law enforcement when necessary to protect players. The league monitors online threats and works with teams and arenas on safety issues, and with local law enforcement, when necessary. It employs security in each market to help players. All 12 teams also have dedicated security who travel with them to games.
The Chicago Sky introduced a partnership this season with an app company that uses AI to shield players from directly seeing negative posts about them on their phones. Before the start of the season, the WNBA provided information and resources to players about mental health as part of a routine annual meeting.
Liberty forward Breanna Stewart, who said she has reported some messages to team officials, wants the league to host more sessions focused on dealing with internet harassment. “There could be probably more training,” she said. “What should you do if you get those messages?”
Some players said they have removed social media apps — especially X — to avoid attacks, but that can come at a cost. Endorsement deals often hinge on engagement with fans online. A robust following on social media can become a key source of income. That’s especially important in a league with a mean player salary of about $110,000 this season, according to HerHoopStats — a figure well below what most male professional athletes make in top North American leagues.
Sparks guard Zia Cooke said she deactivated her X account earlier this season to avoid negative comments but remained on TikTok and Instagram because of potential additional earnings. “If it were really up to me, I would deactivate all of my accounts just because I’m trying to stay mentally locked in as far as basketball and finding my way in this game,” she said.
Boston said she deleted some of her social media accounts to avoid vitriolic criticism as the Fever got off to a 1-8 start this season.
The spread of legalized sports betting in the United States has also become a prompt for fans sending angry messages to WNBA players. Dream wing Rhyne Howard said she has received threatening messages about her “messing up random parlays” after poor performances, a complaint similarly heard in men’s leagues.
But often, WNBA players said, attacks against them feel much more personal, focused on their racial and sexual identities rather than their basketball abilities.
“Our world is so polarized based on race,” said professor Ketra Armstrong, the University of Michigan’s director of the Center for Race and Ethnicity in Sport. “When people talk about race, oftentimes it privileges whiteness, and when they talk about gender, it privileges maleness. This is not unique to sport, this is not unique to Caitlin Clark. It’s the way of the world and it’s been that way in every domain, be it in politics, be it in business, be it in social movements and civil rights.”
Reese, who has more than 4 million followers on Instagram and more than 600,000 on X, has kept a steady stream of engagement even as she has been frequently criticized. She said she occasionally needs to take breaks from social media to avoid vitriol and that she leans on robust support from people around her.
“We’re still human,” Reese said, adding: “Sometimes we do have to take some time away.”
— The Athletic’s Grace Raynor and Sabreena Merchant contributed to this report.
(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; Photo: iStock)
Whatever you do, don’t think of a bird.
Now: What kind of bird are you not thinking about? A pigeon? A bald eagle? Something more poetic, like a skylark or a nightingale? In any case, would you say that this bird you aren’t thinking about is real?
Before you answer, read this poem, which is quite literally about not thinking of a bird.
Human consciousness is full of riddles. Neuroscientists, philosophers and dorm-room stoners argue continually about what it is and whether it even exists. For Wallace Stevens, the experience of having a mind was a perpetual source of wonder, puzzlement and delight — perfectly ordinary and utterly transcendent at the same time. He explored the mysteries and pleasures of consciousness in countless poems over the course of his long poetic career. It was arguably his great theme.
Stevens was born in 1879 and published his first book, “Harmonium,” in 1923, making him something of a late bloomer among American modernists. For much of his adult life, he worked as an executive for the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, rising to the rank of vice president. He viewed insurance less as a day job to support his poetry than as a parallel vocation. He pursued both activities with quiet diligence, spending his days at the office and composing poems in his head as he walked to and from work.
As a young man, Stevens dreamed of traveling to Europe, though he never crossed the Atlantic. In middle age he made regular trips to Florida, and his poems are frequently infused with ideas of Paris and Rome and memories of Key West. Others partake of the stringent beauty of New England. But the landscapes he explores, wintry or tropical, provincial or cosmopolitan, are above all mental landscapes, created by and in the imagination.
Are those worlds real?
Let’s return to the palm tree and its avian inhabitant, in that tranquil Key West sunset of the mind.
Until then, we find consolation in fangles.
When the director Rob Reiner cast his leads in the 1986 film “Stand by Me,” he looked for young actors who were as close as possible to the personalities of the four children they’d be playing. There was the wise beyond his years kid from a rough family (River Phoenix), the slightly dim worrywart (Jerry O’Connell), the cutup with a temper (Corey Feldman) and the sensitive, bookish boy.
Wil Wheaton was perfect for that last one, Gordie Lachance, a doe-eyed child who is ignored by his family in favor of his late older brother. Now, 40 years later, he’s traveling the country to attend anniversary screenings of the film, alongside O’Connell and Feldman, which has thrown him back into the turmoil that he felt as an adolescent.
Wheaton has channeled those emotions and his on-set memories into his latest project: narrating a new audiobook version of “The Body,” the 1982 Stephen King novella on which the film was based.
A few years ago, Wheaton started to float the idea of returning to the story that gave him his big break — that of a quartet of boys in 1959 Oregon, in their last days before high school, setting out to find a classmate’s dead body. “I’ve been telling the story of ‘Stand By Me’ since I was 12 years old,” he said.
But this time was different. Wheaton, who has narrated dozens of audiobooks, including Andy Weir’s “The Martian” and Ernest Cline’s “Ready Player One,” says he has come to enjoy narration more than screen acting. “I’m safe, I’m in the booth, nobody’s looking at me and I can just tell you a story.”
The fact that he, an older man looking back on his younger years, is narrating a story about an older man looking back on his younger years, is not lost on Wheaton. King’s original story is bathed in nostalgia. Coming to terms with death and loss is one of its primary themes.
Two days after appearing on stage at the Academy Awards as part of a tribute to Reiner — who was murdered in 2025 alongside his wife, Michele — Wheaton got on the phone to talk about recording the audiobook, reliving his favorite scenes from the film and reexamining a quintessential story of childhood loss through the lens of his own.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
“I felt really close to him, and my memory of him.”
Wheaton on channeling a co-star’s performance.
There’s this wonderful scene in “Stand By Me.” Gordie and Chris are walking down the tracks talking about junior high. Chris is telling Gordie, “I wish to hell I was your dad, because I care about you, and he obviously doesn’t.”
It’s just so honest and direct, in a way that kids talk to each other that adults don’t. And I think that one of the reasons that really sticks with people, and that piece really lands on a lot of audiences, and has for 40 years, is, just too many people have been Gordie in that scene.
That scene is virtually word for word taken from the text of the book. And when I was narrating that, I made a deliberate choice to do my best to recreate what River did in that scene.
“You’re just a kid,
Gordie–”
“I wish to fuck
I was your father!”
he said angrily.
“You wouldn’t go around
talking about takin those stupid shop courses if I was!
It’s like
God gave you something,
all those stories
you can make up, and He said:
This is what we got for you, kid.
Try not to lose it.
But kids lose everything
unless somebody looks out for them and if your folks
are too fucked up to do it
then maybe I ought to.”
I watched that scene a couple of times because I really wanted — I don’t know why it was so important to me to — well, I know: because I loved him, and I miss him. And I wanted to bring him into this as best as I could, right?
So I was reading that scene, and the words are identical to the script. And I had this very powerful flashback to being on the train tracks that day in Cottage Grove, Oregon. And I could see River standing next to them. They’re shooting my side of the scene and there’s River, right next to the camera, doing his off-camera dialogue, and there’s the sound guy, and there’s the boom operator. There’s my key light.
I could hear and feel it. It was the weirdest thing. It’s like I was right back there.
I was able to really take in the emotional memory of being Gordie in all of those scenes. So when I was narrating him and I’m me and I’m old with all of this experience, I just drew on what I remembered from being that little boy and what I remember of those friendships and what they meant to me and what they mean to me today.
“Rob gave me a gift. Rob gave me a career.”
Wheaton recalls the “Stand By Me” director’s way with kids on set, as well as his recent Oscars tribute.
Rob really encouraged us to be kids.
Jerry tells the most amazing story about that scene, where we were all sitting around, and doing our bit, and he improvised. He was just goofing around — we were just playing — and he said something about spitting water at the fat kid.
We get to the end of the scene, and he hears Rob. Rob comes around from behind the thing, and he goes, “Jerry!” And Jerry thinks, “Oh no, I’m in trouble. I’m in trouble because I improvised, and I’m not supposed to improvise.”
The context for Jerry is that he had been told by the adults in his life, “Sit on your hands and shut up. Stop trying to be a cutup. Stop trying to be funny. Stop disrupting people. Just be quiet.” And Jerry thinks, “Oh my God. I didn’t shut up. I’m in trouble. I’m gonna get fired.”
Rob leans in to all of us, and Rob says, “Hey, guys, do you see that? More of that. Do that!”
The whole time when you’re a kid actor, you’re just around all these adults who are constantly telling you to grow up. They’re mad that you’re being a kid. Rob just created an environment where not only was it supported that we would be kids — and have fun, and follow those kid instincts and do what was natural — it was expected. It was encouraged. We were supposed to do it.
They chanted together:
“I don’t shut up,
I grow up.
And when I look at you I throw up.”
“Then your mother goes around the corner
and licks it up,”
I said, and hauled ass out of there,
giving them the finger over my shoulder as I went.
I never had any friends later on
like the ones I had when I was twelve.
Jesus, did you?
When we were at the Oscars, I looked at Jerry. And we looked at this remarkable assemblage of the most amazingly talented, beautiful artists and storytellers. We looked around, and Jerry leans down, and he said, “We all got our start with Rob Reiner. He trusted every single one of us.”
And to stand there for him, when I really thought that I would be standing with him to talk about this stuff — it was a lot.
“I was really really really excited — like jumping up and down.”
The scene Wheaton was most looking forward to narrating: the tale of Lard Ass Hogan.
I was so excited to narrate it. It’s a great story! It’s a funny story. It’s such a lovely break — it’s an emotional and tonal shift from what’s happening in the movie.
I know this as a writer: You work to increase and release tension throughout a narrative, and Stephen King uses humor really effectively to release that tension. But it also raises the stakes, because we have these moments of joy and these moments of things being very silly in the midst of a lot of intensity.
That’s why the story of Lard Ass Hogan is so fun for me to tell. Because in the middle of that, we stop to do something that’s very, very fun, and very silly and very celebratory.
“Will you shut up and let him tell it?”
Teddy hollered.
Vern blinked.
“Sure. Yeah.
Okay.”
“Go on, Gordie,”
Chris said. “It’s not really much—”
“Naw,
we don’t expect much from a wet end like you,”
Teddy said,
“but tell it anyway.”
I cleared my throat. “So anyway.
It’s Pioneer Days,
and on the last night
they have these three big events.
There’s an egg-roll for the little kids and a sack-race for kids that are like eight or nine,
and then there’s the pie-eating contest.
And the main guy of the story
is this fat kid nobody likes
named Davie Hogan.”
When I narrate this story — whenever there is a moment of levity or humor, whenever there are those brief little moments that are the seasoning of the meal that makes it all so real and relatable — yes, it was very important to me to capture those moments.
I’m shifting in my chair, so I can feel each of those characters. It’s something that doesn’t exist in live action. It doesn’t exist in any other media.
“I feel the loss.”
Wheaton remembers River Phoenix.
The novella “The Body” is very much about Gordie remembering Chris. It’s darker, and it’s more painful, than the movie is.
I’ve been watching the movie on this tour and seeing River a lot. I remember him as a 14- and 15-year-old kid who just seemed so much older, and so much more experienced and so much wiser than me, and I’m only a year younger than him.
What hurts me now, and what I really felt when I was narrating this, is knowing what River was going through then. We didn’t know. I still don’t know the extent of how he was mistreated, but I know that he was. I know that adults failed him. That he should have been protected in every way that matters. And he just wasn’t.
And I, like Gordie, remember a boy who was loving. So loving, and generous and cared deeply about everyone around him, all the time. Who deserved to live a full life. Who had so much to offer the world. And it’s so unfair that he’s gone and taken from us. I had to go through a decades-long grieving process to come to terms with him dying.
Near the end
of 1971,
Chris
went into a Chicken Delight in Portland
to get a three-piece Snack Bucket.
Just ahead of him,
two men started arguing
about which one had been first in line. One of them pulled a knife.
Chris,
who had always been the best of us
at making peace,
stepped between them and was stabbed in the throat.
The man with the knife had spent time in four different institutions;
he had been released from Shawshank State Prison
only the week before.
Chris died almost instantly.
It is a privilege that I was allowed to tell this story. I get to tell Gordie Lachance’s story as originally imagined by Stephen King, with all of the experience of having lived my whole adult life with the memory of spending three months in Gordie Lachance’s skin.
Welcome to Great Adaptations, the Book Review’s regular multiple-choice quiz about printed works that have gone on to find new life as movies, television shows, theatrical productions and more. This week’s challenge highlights offbeat television shows that began as comic books. Just tap or click your answers to the five questions below. And scroll down after you finish the last question for links to the comics and their screen versions.
Retired Detroit sergeant faces new sexual assault charge involving 14-year-old victim from 2002
Trump floats sending federal agents to San Francisco to tackle crime
Dallas ISD will offer free pre-K starting next school year
Norwegian Cruise Line offers a first look at Luna, new cruise ship setting sail from PortMiami – WSVN 7News | Miami News, Weather, Sports | Fort Lauderdale
Live: CPAC 2026 Day 2
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Indiana Members Credit Union announced as new anchor tenant at Bottleworks District
Live: CPAC 2026 Day 2
Video: Will ICE Change Under Its New Leader?
DHS shutdown breakthrough comes at cost for Republicans as funding fights nears end
Rubio joins crucial G7 talks as Iran war set to dominate second day
A surprise resignation could open the door for an independent to win a Montana Senate seat
-
Detroit, MI1 week agoDrummer Brian Pastoria, longtime Detroit music advocate, dies at 68
-
Science1 week agoHow a Melting Glacier in Antarctica Could Affect Tens of Millions Around the Globe
-
Science1 week agoI had to man up and get a mammogram
-
Movie Reviews1 week ago‘Youth’ Twitter review: Ken Karunaas impresses audiences; Suraj Venjaramoodu adds charm; music wins praise | – The Times of India
-
Sports6 days agoIOC addresses execution of 19-year-old Iranian wrestler Saleh Mohammadi
-
New Mexico5 days agoClovis shooting leaves one dead, four injured
-
Business1 week agoDisney’s new CEO says his focus is on storytelling and creativity
-
Technology5 days agoYouTube job scam text: How to spot it fast