Editor’s note: This is a lightly edited transcript of today’s edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words” from Daily Signal Senior Contributor Victor Davis Hanson. Subscribe to Victor Davis Hanson’s own YouTube channel to watch past episodes.
Jack Fowler: Most Americans don’t care about women’s basketball. We do here in Connecticut—you know, University of Connecticut women’s basketball, Geno Auriemma. All my kids went to UConn, so it’s kind of a religion in the state.
But a few things. You know, she did really well, for whatever reason. [Caitlin Clark] has revived this sport. She’s straight, she’s white, she is Catholic. I think she’s not religious religious, but she’s somewhat religious. So she’s anathema to much of this league, which is Black, lesbian, and, I guess, irreligious.
But nevertheless, when she came to town, she was putting butts in the seats. They were filling out the arenas. So, right, you called her the golden goose.
That said, in 2024, she should have been on the Olympic team. These old hags in the league would not let her on. The league just put out its 30th anniversary, so they put out a big poster with 30 stars on it. She’s not one of them. I mean, even the league itself hates her.
And then, you know, this incident last week where she was knocked down, and people talk about the fist on the neck. But there was also an attempt by that same woman to turn around and stomp on her, but she had rolled over.
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Victor Davis Hanson: I saw that. I saw that. And at one point it was almost like a George Floyd thing with a knee, and the fist to the jugular vein was really scary. And then the referees didn’t do anything, and then the next day they gave a slap on the wrist—one day. And then immediately they started to turn around.
The girls involved said we’re victims. We’re getting racist comments. Well, welcome to the club. If you’re in the public square, I can tell you that I’ve had some of the worst threats in my life on online comments and emails. But they made her the aggressor.
And then I think it was the New York Post, or maybe—I don’t know—somebody sent, in a news aggregate, they listed everything they have done to her for the last three years.
Jack Fowler: Yes. Fox News has done an article on that.
Victor Davis Hanson: Yes. And they ruptured her eardrum. They hit her back. They kicked her. It’s just flagrant violence.
You know what she should do? I really believe that she should do this. She should just announce that she’s quitting this corrupt league and go to Europe and play basketball there. And she would do to European basketball…you would have Americans interested in it. It would be televised. They’d get a global audience. And just give up on these people, because they’re never going to accept her.
And the reason that people come out and see her is that she’s a multifaceted athlete. It’s not just because she’s white or straight. She can shoot three-pointers, and she’s huge—tall and gangly—but she’s tall. She can rebound. She can pass. She’s a composite player, and she’s not just a muscle person.
And I think it’s gotten to a point where they’re going to try to kill her. I really do believe that. Whether it’s going to be intentional, I don’t know, but they’re going to try to hurt her permanently, and they think it’s cute, because the perpetrator posted something, I think, right afterwards—Do you want that?—and then she took it down.
And then when you see the Karmelo Anthony, the whole commentary—you know, I wish I had killed his twin brother and all this—and everybody’s just supposed to say, you know what? This is because of slavery or something. I don’t know.
Jack Fowler: Somebody made an image where they had three white basketball players beating up a black player. Can you imagine what would have happened in that situation?
Victor Davis Hanson: I know what would happen because a great athlete was Jackie Robinson, and he was treated terribly by a lot of white players. But unlike this condition, there were a lot of white—Pee Wee Reese, for example, on the Brooklyn Dodgers was wonderful—and there were a lot of white players, and Branch Rickey, all those people supported Jackie Robinson.
And he was like Caitlin Clark. He kept cool. He didn’t strike back at them, but he didn’t back down. And it really shamed people to see that there were people in Major League Baseball who were racist.
And so now it’s completely flipped. You now have a black-dominant league, and you have very few white players. And one of the arguments was that the Major Leagues, this was all white, and you had 12%, 10% at that time, of Black America, and they had talented athletes, and they were not letting the 10% participate.
And now people are saying, well, women’s basketball is 75% to 80% black women, and now you have a very tiny minority of the majority of the country—which is 65% to 70%—and the so-called majority accepts that it’s a meritocratic enterprise. That we don’t want quotas, we don’t want set-asides, we don’t want DEI, we don’t want affirmative action.
But it is a predominantly black and, to a large degree, black lesbian league, and it doesn’t represent the demography of America, to use the leftist terms. There is no diversity. There is no proportional representation. That’s the terms that they use, not me. And they say when there’s not proportional representation, and there’s not diversity, it’s because of systemic racism.
It isn’t, I don’t think. I think it’s because of cultural trends or whatever—emphases of different cultures in different areas of expertise.
But my point is that if they’re going to treat, if that league—and its coaches, referees, and owners—want to establish the principle that any brilliantly talented white girl who goes there and has a following that transcends race… because a lot of it, I looked at the stats, some of the clips show she has Mexican American, Asian, everybody type fans, black fans. There have been a lot of black people who have come out and deplored what happened to her.
If they don’t want that type of person in there, and they’re going to try to hurt them permanently to get rid of them, then I think people should do a left-wing boycott. They shouldn’t watch it. I don’t think they should watch it. I think they should go after the sponsors that sell ads during the broadcast. They should go after the broadcast itself.
They should do just what the left does—tit for tat—and say, you know what? This is an endemically, systematically racist enterprise. And you know what’s going on.
You know that this person is targeted because she’s white. And to a lesser degree, maybe she’s targeted because she’s heterosexual. You know the referees are not calling flagrant fouls as they should. You know the players are deliberately trying to hurt her. You know the coaches are helping them. And you know the owners won’t say a word because they’re terrified that the majority of their players feel this way.
And there’s no place in the United States for that. So people should just turn their backs and say, Caitlin, get out. Start your own league. Go to Europe. But don’t stay there, because they’re going to kill you. That’s the way I feel about it.
We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.
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