Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark became racial symbols, but their responses tell different stories

As Angel Reese and the Atlanta Dream faced Golden State in the WNBA Finals, some of the coverage made it sound as if they were representing Black America.

An Oct. 24 Swish Appeal column connected Atlantas enthusiasm for the Dream to the citys history of "Black excellence, resistance and pride." It quoted a historian who linked the team to Martin Luther King Jr.s vision of the "Beloved Community."

Theres nothing wrong with a city seeing its history and culture reflected in its sports teams. The Pittsburgh Steelers name and logo celebrate the steel industry that helped define their city. Its perfectly reasonable for Atlanta fans to find a similar connection between the Dream and their own community.

The problem arises when supporting a player becomes a test of racial loyalty, or criticizing her becomes an attack on the people she supposedly represents.

I encountered plenty of that while covering Angel Reese during the Finals. People who disagreed with my questions and columns decided the explanation was that I had a problem with Black women. Somehow, evaluating one basketball player had become a statement about millions of people I wasnt writing about.

But this fits a much larger pattern involving Reese and Caitlin Clark. For some fans and commentators, they have become stand-ins for Black America and White America. Their successes and shortcomings get recruited into arguments about privilege, discrimination and whose achievements deserve recognition.

But Clark and Reese have responded very differently to those roles.

When pressed, Clark has pushed back against people using her name to promote racial agendas but has repeatedly emphasized that basketball is her job.

In the closing moments of LSUs 2023 national championship victory over Iowa, Angel Reese followed Caitlin Clark around the court, repeatedly taunting Iowa's star player. She made the "you cant see me" gesture, then pointed to her ring finger.

Many people, myself included, took issue with Reese's taunts. Predictably, commentators, including ESPNs Stephen A. Smith, framed the backlash as a racial double standard, pointing to Clarks use of the same gesture earlier in the tournament.

Of course, there's a clear difference between doing a gesture toward your own bench and following an opponent around the court and doing it in her face, but the nuance was lost on many.

Even one of the Louisville players, Hailey Van Lith, later explained that Clarks gesture was directed at Iowas strength coach, not anyone on the Cardinals team.

But Reese had already made it about race herself, right there at the postgame podium.

After a reporter asked Reese about the outrage on Twitter surrounding her celebration, Reese claimed she was labeled as "too hood" and "too ghetto." She continued by saying the victory was for "the girls that look like me" and declared, "It was bigger than me tonight."

Imagine Clark saying a championship was for "girls that look like me." I dont believe the same commentators defending Reese would applaud that message from Clark.

In an August 2025 Forbes interview about her signature shoe, Reese described being "a vis