Whitlock: ‘White savior syndrome’ will kill Caitlin Clark's career and the WNBA

In many respects, the obstacle course confronting Caitlin Clark in the WNBA is more difficult than the path Jackie Robinson traveled integrating Major League Baseball in 1947.

Let me clarify. Robinson had good reason to fear for his physical safety. He traveled the country with the Brooklyn Dodgers during an era of enforced segregation and public, anti-black racial hostility. He received numerous credible death threats. He risked his life to play a game.

I don’t see a path to success for Clark.

Caitlin Clark is not risking her life.

She is, however, risking her sanity. She is combatting a normalized and insidious form of racial idolatry. Woke culture has turned Clark into the avatar for “white savior syndrome.” Black leftists have been programmed to believe that when white people acquiesce to demands from black leftists to help black people overcome “oppression,” white people are doing so to act as a white savior.

And everybody knows white saviors are racist.

Are you following the confusion? It’s a no-win situation for white people. If they ignore the “suffering” of black people, they’re racist. If they take action to limit the “suffering” of black people, they’re racist, too.

White savior syndrome is really just a tactic that Marxists use to convince black people that Christianity is racist. It’s all part of a convoluted argument that Christianity is the white man’s religion.

Caitlin Clark’s sanity cannot survive the racial, sexual, and political blender participation in the WNBA will cause. She’s a 22-year-old white woman with a boyfriend raised in the Catholic faith. She plays on a bad basketball team that has started the season 0-5. She’s playing in a league that is hostile to virtually everything about her – skin color, sexuality, and faith.

That’s why, in terms of mental health, I think it’s fair to compare Clark to Robinson. The mental health challenges facing her are every bit – if not more – as strenuous as Robinson’s burden nearly 80 years ago.

As of today, if I had to bet, I think Clark’s WNBA peers are going to break her. I’m not alone in that thought. Charles Barkley, LeBron James, and countless others can see what I see.

The level of pressure on Clark to rescue the floundering league combined with the amount of jealousy, racism, and anti-heterosexual bigotry directed at Clark combined with the incompetence of the Indiana Fever organization are going to permanently destroy Clark.

I don’t see a path to success for Clark.

The sympathy appeals from Barkley and James will not lessen the animus showered on Clark. There’s a willful ignorance that defines the discussion of Clark, an ignorance that social media platforms and YouTube reward.

“The one thing that I love that she’s bringing to her sport: more people want to watch,” James said on his podcast with J.J. Redick. “More people want to tune in. I saw, for the first time, they had a chartered plane. For the first time in their league history, they flew private. That should be celebrated in its own right. That should be celebrated, and it’s because of Caitlin Clark. Don’t get it twisted. Don’t get it f***ed up. Caitlin Clark is the reason why a lot of great things are going to happen for the WNBA.”

Barkley scolded Clark’s peers on the set of "Inside the NBA": “You women out there, y’all are petty, man. Y’all should be thanking that girl for getting y’all private charters, all the money and visibility she’s bringing to the WNBA.”

Shortly after Barkley’s televised lecture, WNBA player and ESPN broadcaster Chiney Ogwumike responded via Twitter.

“Charles and Inside the NBA team are the GOATs of the industry, so respectfully I’ll offer my perspective with love. Every WNBA player I know supports the rookie class and are grateful for the spotlight & money that Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and Co., are bringing to the W!”

She’s being dishonest. Barkley did not make a single comment about the “rookie class” or Angel Reese. He talked about Caitlin Clark. These WNBA players do not want to admit that Clark alone is the primary reason there is significant interest in the WNBA. If they acknowledged that fact, they would be admitting a white girl is saving the league. They’re so controlled by their racial idolatry that they are forced to be jealous, petty, and racist toward Clark.

Angel Reese’s embrace of femininity has helped the WNBA market itself to non-LGBTQ fans. But Reese is also part of the problem. Her brand was built on hating and trolling Caitlin Clark. Reese still struggles to conceal her jealousy of Clark. Reese recently complained that all WNBA teams should be getting “the same PUBLICITY it ain’t just one team.”

But let me circle back to Clark and Robinson.

Jackie Robinson was 28 during his rookie season in Major League Baseball. That’s six years older than Clark. He joined a team that finished 96-60-1 the year before. No one was all that surprised that the Dodgers advanced to the World Series in Robinson’s rookie year.

Clark joined the worst team in the WNBA. No matter how much abuse Robinson suffered, at least he knew he was playing for a winner and playing meaningful games. Athletes love to win. Winning is the reward for suffering and sacrifice.

As a baseball player, particularly as a batter, Robinson could single-handedly control his level of individual success. Clark’s success as an individual depends on the other four players on the court with her. She can’t pass herself the ball. She can’t catch her own passes. She can’t set screens for herself.

So far, the defenses deployed against the Fever are solely designed to stop Clark. Defenders pick her up full court, and she’s blitzed and double-teamed virtually every time she initiates offense at the top of the key. Clark is going to struggle offensively and her team will struggle to win games all summer.

She’s going to be miserable and isolated all season.

And she’s going to hear idiots who know nothing about basketball dissect her play and racist idiots dissect her personality and impact.

This is unprecedented. The WNBA is a floundering league. Jackie Robinson wasn’t tasked with “saving” professional baseball. He just needed to save himself. Clark is carrying the WNBA.

When Larry Bird entered the NBA in 1979, he shared the burden of elevating the NBA with Magic Johnson. Bird wasn’t a white savior. He was the great white hope. Hope is a far lighter load than savior.

Saviors get rejected, persecuted, and crucified. When the angry feminists and racists finish killing Caitlin Clark, she will not rise again three days, three months, three years, three decades, or even three centuries later.

Her career will be dead right alongside the WNBA.