Second in a series
Social media these days is anything but social. Discourse often turns toxic and divisive, especially toward Black people and Black WNBA players.
Dr. Queenie and Ixchel McKinnie live on opposite sides of the country. Both Black women are passionate sports fans, especially of the W and women’s basketball. When they’re not at their day jobs, both regularly engage with their followers and others through well-crafted tweets and threads.
“Courtside w/Dr. Queenie” focuses on the importance of fan access, along with discussing the business, leadership and other issues; she lives and works in Los Angeles as an educational administrator and strategist. We reached out to her after her response to a knucklehead who called USA Coach Kara Lawson, who led the team to the FIBA World Cup gold medal, “a DEI coach,” code for unqualified Black person.
“Some tend to dismiss and undermine Black women’s credentials and experience,” said Dr. Queenie, whose Threads handle is courtsidedrqueenie. “I don’t think it’s a problem to question anyone’s credentials when it comes to sports, but when you look at the depth of her resume (Lawson is Duke women’s basketball head coach), this is not a person that just showed up, rolled out of bed and got lucky and got a job to lead this team.”
McKinnie, whose social media handle is @AuntieChelM, is a Hennepin County planning analyst who works with small businesses. She’s also the daughter of former Gophers assistant men’s basketball coach Silas McKinnie, and this is her first season as a Minnesota Lynx season-ticket holder.
“I’m particularly sensitive to how the league and the players are treated, so I speak up in these situations,” McKinnie said during our halftime chat at a Lynx game last month. “They don’t need me to speak up for them. They are incredible activists.
“I’ve been exploring this idea of social media spaces where women can talk about women’s sports, but not just women,” she said. “Anybody can talk about women’s sports in the positive way that we approach sports.
“All that negativity around certain players, and then the followers who come in with no interest in the game whatsoever and interject in every conversation, so it stops being meaningful, fun basketball talk and becomes something else,” she said.
Both Black women are especially bullish on the WNBA, a major professional sports league that some suspect hasn’t been recognized as such by many, in part because it’s majority Black.
“The WNBA has historically been built on the backs of Black women,” journalist Sabreena Merchant said recently on NPR. “Most of the great players in the league have been Black women, and the fandom has been a safe space for marginalized communities, like Black women and LGBTQ women. And things started to change when Caitlin Clark came into the league and brought in a new fan base that didn’t share those identities.”
Dr. Queenie added, “My work is about building brilliant thinkers. However, that’s not the conversation, oftentimes, when it comes to these race-baiting conversations. It’s a way to undermine when race is absolutely an issue, right?”
Both she and McKinnie understand the perils of social media, but they want to use it to speak positively and, when needed, to offer critical analysis.
Controversy trails record-breaking WNBA season
The WNBA, in its 30th season, is seeing record attendance and viewership; team valuations are soaring, and the league has a $3.1 billion media rights deal. But as Merchant noted during her NPR interview, the league has also been saddled with controversy and culture wars this season.
Right-wing Fox News has run at least 206 segments on the W since June 25, totaling more than 13 1⁄2 hours, “largely aimed at stroking tensions related to race and trans athletes,” Merchant said, citing a recent Media Matters study.
“Everything in the WNBA seems to take on a political lens far beyond what is actually happening on the court,” Merchant said. “And I think it’s because people see an opportunity to use the league as a political prop.”
Charles Hallman welcomes reader responses at challman@spokesman-recorder.com.
Copyright © Charles Hallman