Ryan Clark has never had an issue speaking up for what he believes in throughout his career in sports media. This recently led to a lengthy back-and-forth with popular comedian Andrew Schulz, which escalated on Friday.
Back in August, Schulz made what he claims was a joke on the Flagrant podcast, where he discussed the “inverse of the Black girlfriend effect.” There, he outlined how guys with Black girlfriends start cutting their hair shorter because they are “losing it due to stress” and start growing a beard so that there is “more padding if they get slapped.”
This resulted in Schulz receiving a significant backlash, some of which came from Clark. Clark addressed the comments publicly on The Pivot Podcast on numerous occasions.
During an appearance on the Club Shay Shay podcast earlier this week, Schulz addressed Clark’s critiques of him, saying that he believes that Clark was mainly commenting on the matter for “clout.”
“For me, this is a comedy podcast, so I was making a joke,” explained Schulz. “First of all, I hate explaining jokes, so stupid. But yeah, I was like, what is the opposite of the Black girlfriend effect? A lot of times in comedy, the opposite take is the funny thing. So you go to the other side and you try to defend the indefensible. That’s what I have done my whole career. It’s just the opposite effect of the Black girlfriend effect, being you look so much better. It’s really not that sophisticated.
“And then Ryan Clark took a break from posting pictures of his outfits on Instagram to do a whole soliloquy. He did that, and it just felt like it was all clout. He tried to make it this big thing. By the end of it, he’s like, ‘This is one of those guys who wants to say the N-word but doesn’t.’ I was like, what the f*** is going on? What are we even talking about?”
Clark heard about these comments and discussed them on Friday’s edition of The Pivot Podcast, clarifying that he needs “no clout” from someone like Schulz.
“When something spins back around like this and becomes a thing again, what does it say about this platform? I think what Andrew said to Shannon and what Andrew said to Charlamagne was all fair game,” said Clark. “If I am going to speak on something he did, I am putting myself in a place to be spoken about.
“I didn’t find what he said to be disrespectful even in cases of disagreement. The thing about what Andrew said though that I disagree with was that I was speaking on what he did to gain clout. No one in the world defends Black women to gain clout. Most of the time, the people defending Black women are Black women.
“What people do most times is what Andrew did. What people do most times is what the two young podcasters did. They laugh, they make jokes, and they disrespect. I get for Andrew, he said it was said in jest. And that’s fine.
“My issue is, he has an issue with me talking about what he said. When it’s cool to make jokes. It’s cool to make them the butt of those jokes. But it’s not cool for me to share my good experiences with Black women? It’s not cool for me to give you the historic view of what Black women have done in support of Black men?
“To me, make that make sense. Why is it corny for me to now respond to this in defense of Black women when I am being sent your clip, with people asking me what I thought about this. When I am walking around my house every day looking at black women who would give their lives for me. When I was raised by one who would give their life for me. That’s not corny, that’s not clout chasing. I’m not looking for friends. I’m not looking for people to push me up on a pedestal.”
The issue here may be determining what is seen as comedy and what is seen as disrespect by someone like Schulz, which can be a fine line for any comedian to walk.