The WNBA discourse surrounding DiJonai Carrington and Sophie Cunningham took a bizarre detour into unfamiliar territory, as American singer SZA weighed in with a blunt remark.
SZA Wades Into DiJonai Carrington-Sophie Cunningham WNBA Debate In Brutal Shutdown of Online Toxicity
The incident occurred in the first quarter of the August 8 clash between the Sky and the Indiana Fever.
Cunningham was driving for a fast-break layup when Carrington challenged her from behind and made contact with the Fever guard’s head and neck area, sending her crashing to the hardwood as the shot went in.
The officials reviewed the sequence and assessed Carrington a Flagrant 2 foul, triggering an automatic ejection for the Sky guard. She played just three minutes and scored 8 points before being sent to the locker room, then posted ‘White Privilege’ on her Threads handle.
The immediate social media reaction was testy. Former NFL player Emmanuel Acho blasted Carrington for her post, arguing she was undermining the concept of white privilege by applying it to a basketball violation.
Fever head coach Stephanie White’s refusal to outright condemn Carrington’s foul only intensified the controversy, with pundits and other notable figures suggesting White failed to protect Cunningham.
With the controversy still making waves, a Threads user going by the handle “aletheia_8” escalated the rhetoric by writing an inflammatory post.
“Black privilege is wearing an ugly blond wig, appropriating white culture, while attacking white women, then whining about the consequences,” the user wrote. “All the while she can freely sew her hatred but if the roles were reversed the ‘privileged one’ would be suspended for 10 games for spewing racism against a league player.”
Grammy-winning recording artist SZA waded directly into the replies to shut the user down.
“Ur a foreign bot engagement farming off negativity lol peep the rage bait,” she replied in the thread.
Carrington later attempted to clarify her social media post, saying she never meant the foul assessment itself was an example of white privilege.
She also addressed the flagrant contact on Cunningham, stating,
“I’m never gonna let an open layup just be had. You can pull clips from however many seasons of me making that same exact play. It was unfortunate that I made contact with her in the way that I did, but it was never intentional.”
Unfortunately for Carrington, her historic performance against the Seattle Storm on Monday will unlikely be the main focus, given that the WNBA has yet to address the fallout from Cunningham’s stance on trans athletes participating in women’s sports.
