Source: Candice Ward / Getty
Dear A’ja,
This morning, I read your open letter to Black girls everywhere, a powerful reminder to all the little girls who look like you and dream like you that they are seen, valued, and deeply cared for—even when the world tells them otherwise. As I absorbed your words, I wondered if you are receiving the same love and affirmation you extended to your little sisters in that letter. Do you have a circle of people who are being gentle with you, protecting you as you speak truth to power time and again? You remind us what it means to be gifted, beautiful, Black, and Southern in a country whose obsession with preserving Whiteness sits at the forefront of its undoing.
In your letter, you describe growing up in a state that still celebrates its Confederate past. Columbia, South Carolina, like many Southern cities, sought to rob you of your innocence, trying to confine you within a violent White imagination that could only see you as loud, ghetto, angry, and unworthy of the greatness already written into your destiny. As a mother, I think about your parents’ decision to send you to a predominantly White elementary school, hoping to offer you the best education possible. I’m sure they had no idea they were sending their sweet baby into a proverbial lion’s den, where you not only excelled academically but also learned the sadness and loneliness of being one of a few Black girls in a space. That experience hurt you, but it did not break you. You wrote in that open letter, “It was an introduction to the way the world works for Black women. And let me tell you, it was a lesson that I never stopped learning…”
A’ja Wilson Letter
Source: Candice Ward / Getty
There is always a silver lining. Those experiences, where you were both rendered invisible and targeted, helped solidify your identity as a star athlete and leader committed to fairness, equity, and an end to racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression in this country. Your love for true justice inspired you to write “Dear Black Girl”, a heartfelt letter that you’ve beautifully turned into a best-selling book. This same commitment to justice also drove your recent comments about the attention surrounding Caitlyn Clark, one of the WNBA’s newest stars.
You’ve earned the right to critique the hype around Caitlyn Clark. After all, you’re a three-time SEC Player of the Year, a national college basketball champion, a number one draft pick, a five-time WNBA All-Star, a U.S. Olympic gold medalist, a WNBA Finals MVP, a two-time WNBA champion, a two-time WNBA Defensive Player of the Year, a New York Times Best Seller, and one of TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2024. You’ve proven, again and again, that you are one of the greatest players to grace any basketball court, whether men’s or women’s.
A’ja, you are the standard. You are a gift to your team, the Las Vegas Aces, the WNBA, and the game of basketball as a whole. No woman basketball player is more deserving of a Nike signature deal than you. You’ve earned your place as a champion on and off the court.
But has Caitlyn Clark? When speaking to the Associated Press recently, you highlighted what we all should recognize and grapple with as WNBA fans and as Americans overall regarding Clark’s meteoric rise. “I think it’s a huge thing. I think a lot of people may say it’s not about Black and white, but to me, it is,” you said. “You can be top-notch at what you are as a Black woman, but maybe that’s something people don’t want to see. They don’t see it as marketable, so it doesn’t matter how hard I work. It doesn’t matter what we all do as Black women; we’re still going to be swept underneath the rug. That’s why it boils my blood when people say it’s not about race because it is.” Not one lie told.
And how powerful would it have been if Caitlyn acknowledged that race is absolutely playing a role in how she is being ushered into the world of professional sports. Instead, she chose to lie– to us and to herself. “Yeah, I think there are opportunities for every single player in women’s basketball, “ she said as she signed endorsement deals before she even began playing as a professional athlete, including a neal deal with Nike reportedly worth 28 million dollars..
What you didn’t say, but I will, is that America is always in search of its next great White hope. Whiteness demands a special seat at the head of the table, preferential treatment, and constant reassurance that it is the best—despite evidence to the contrary. The WNBA, like the NBA, is dominated by Black players—not because Black women possess some mythical athletic ability, but because they have had to be superior athletes, twice as good as their White counterparts, to make the cut. Despite their talents, Black female players in the WNBA earn only a fraction of what their male counterparts make in the NBA.
Take Caitlin Clark, for example. She is a White woman and the number one draft pick in the WNBA, hailed by CNN for taking women’s basketball to “new heights.” Yet she will earn just over $76,000 a year. In stark contrast, the NBA’s top pick will earn $10.9 million—over 100 times more than Clark. Even you, A’ja Wilson, a veteran player and multiple national champion, earned a salary of only $200,000 from the WNBA in 2023. This stark disparity underscores the ongoing inequities faced by Black athletes, especially women, in professional sports.
I know that none of these stats are new to you, A’ja. I know that you are living through the national legacy of racism that showed up at your door when you were just a baby who believed in the good of your country and your countrymen. Yes, people will say that you’re jealous of Caitlyn. They’ll call your comments racist. But you and I know better. We live in a reality that our White neighbors will always deny. In the words of the great James Baldwin, “Many of them indeed know better, but as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know. To act is to be committed and to be committed is to be in danger.”
We are holding you in our hearts, A’ja. We are grateful that you choose, time and time again, to stand up for yourself and to stand up for us. We, along with you, believe that another world is possible and that the only pathway to that new world is truth.
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