Caitlin Clark again embraces ‘responsibility in acknowledging’ Black WNBA players

Heading into her second season in the WNBA, Caitlin Clark is not backing down from the comments that drew the ire of conservative commentators last year.

Throughout 2023 and 2024, Clark’s explosion in popularity created a culture war between the fans in middle America who claimed her as a native Iowan and Indiana Fever star and the more progressive fans baked into the WNBA. Clark mostly sat out of that firestorm until late last year, in an interview after being named TIME’s Athlete of the Year.

Asked to respond to comments from WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson and many others regarding her race and how it led to greater embrace by fans and brands, Clark agreed. Rather than accept Clark’s point of view and analyze it as part of the story of the WNBA’s growth, conservative pundits like Megyn Kelly simply refuted Clark’s comments entirely.

Given a chance to clarify at a TIME event weeks later, Clark doubled down.

And she did so again in an interview released this week on Netflix’s My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman. Looking back on her historic rookie season, Clark said she does not believe she was targeted by veteran players or received much trash talk from her opponents.

Instead, Clark again embraced her role as a prominent, popular white face of a predominantly Black league.

“I definitely have privilege,” Clark said.

“I’m obviously white, but I think I’m somebody who grew up a huge fan of this league. I grew up watching this league, going to games, supporting this league. So I know where this league comes from: a lot of Black women that grew up making this league what it is. And that’s kind of the shoulders that we stand on. So I think that was something I’m very aware of, and something I’m very thankful for. And they deserve all the credit, and the more we can give credit to them, the better. I’m very aware of that, and I know that, and I think there is responsibility in acknowledging that.”

Returning to the dismissal by Kelly and others of Clark’s comments to TIME, the main thrust of what they said was that Clark was being insincere. While Clark’s right-wing critics crassly compared her embrace of Black WNBA stars to a “land acknowledgment,” a more practical reading is that they simply thought Clark was giving lip service to her opponents in order to stay on the right side of the league’s progressive fanbase.

Perhaps some part of this is true. That seems less like a “gotcha” by the likes of Kelly and more of an obvious fact of being a celebrity. Either way, there has been a yearning for Clark to show her killer side more often rather than hiding it in order to defer to others.

In the interview with Letterman, she does just that. Clark admits that learning to smile to her teammates felt ridiculous. She teases WNBA referees and compares herself to LeBron James.

Watch the full episode and you get a pretty full picture of Clark in 2025. Maybe rather than playing “Pin the Culture War on the Basketball Star,” we can all watch this 23-year-old’s career play out and watch her embrace her voice over time.

Already, there’s more to Clark than there was a year ago. And if her supreme confidence on the court and astronomic success is any indication, she will give us more moments we never forget before long.