Carrington's 'white privilege' post sparks WNBA controversy

Chicago Sky guard DiJonai Carrington was ejected Saturday after three minutes of play against the Indiana Fever for committing a flagrant 2 foul on Sophie Cunningham during a layup attempt. The Fever won the game 90-86.

Moments after her ejection, Carrington posted "WHITE PRIVILEGE" on Threads and tagged the Indiana Fever. The post prompted widespread criticism from sports analysts and commentators on Monday.

Former NFL linebacker Emmanuel Acho addressed the incident on his "Speakeasy" podcast, saying the foul was not race-based. "This was not a race-based decision," Acho said. "To call that a white privilege-based foul is to completely undermine the term of white privilege and to also completely ignore the rules in basketball. You hit her in the head. You drew blood. You didn't connect with the ball at all whatsoever. So to me, it was just very ignorant and, to some degree, asinine by DiJonai Carrington to suggest that that call was based on white privilege."

Carrington responded to Acho's criticism on Monday via X, claiming her post was not about the foul itself. "I've never once claimed that the assessment of the foul was white privilege (that was your assumption). Try exercising your critical thinking skills, I know you studied psych," she wrote.

When asked by critics to clarify her position, Carrington told them to do their "research" regarding the post and its context.

Sports personality Dave Portnoy criticized ESPN's coverage of the incident on Monday's episode of FS1's "Wake Up Barstool," saying the network failed to mention Carrington's post immediately following her ejection. "And maybe the story ends there if Carrington doesn't go to the locker room and pick up her phone and tweet 'white privilege,' which is insane. An absolutely insane thing to say," Portnoy said. He added that ESPN's panel was composed of "absolute morons" for their handling of the coverage.