USA Today “reporter” Nancy Armour has apologized for invoking Emmett Till in a column targeting — who else? — Caitlin Clark.
“In my recent column, I made an inartful comparison with the murder of Emmett Till. I intended to connect the issues the WNBA is currently facing with its All-Star Game being hosted in Till’s hometown of Chicago,” Armour wrote in an apology posted Thursday on — where else? — Bluesky. “I obviously did not provide enough context for that.”
USA TODAY WRITER SAYS CAITLIN CLARK PUTS BLACK AND QUEER WNBA PLAYERS ‘IN DANGER’ BY FLOPPING
For background, Armour published one of the most desperate and irresponsible sports columns of the year earlier this week, arguing that Clark’s reactions to missed calls put “Black” and “queer” WNBA players “in danger.”
Paraphrasing Armour’s argument wouldn’t do it justice. So here it is:
“It shouldn’t need reminding this country has an awful history of Black people being harmed, even killed, in the name of ‘defending’ white women. The WNBA’s All-Star Game this weekend is in Chicago, Emmett Till’s hometown, and a local art gallery is currently hosting an exhibit imagining his life if he hadn’t been lynched. While it’s incumbent on the WNBA to do more to protect its players, there also should be an expectation on Clark to recognize the wider consequences of her actions.”
In other words, according to Armour, defending Clark’s flopping somehow puts Black women at risk of lynching.
Honest question: How did USA Today not fire her on the spot?
Forget her opinions or her right to voice them. A national news outlet allowed a columnist to turn a routine basketball play — flopping — into a discussion about the lynching of Black Americans.
The analogy is so detached from reality that it raises questions about the editorial process that allowed it to be published. At the very least, Armour should be fired for exercising such stupidity.
We can only imagine what was going through her head when she wrote those words. She likely believed she was scoring points with the Bluesky crowd by showing how willing she was to vilify the straight White superstar and her fans. We haven’t seen someone in sports media try this hard to impress the online activist class since ESPN’s Mark Jones falsely accused police officers of trying to murder him.
ESPN WRITER WHO BLAMED RACISM FOR HIS ARREST SAYS RACISM IS NOT TO BLAME FOR CAITLIN CLARK HATE
OutKick asked USA Today whether it instructed Armour to issue the apology. We did not receive a response by the time of publication.
But we’re not convinced the outlet made the call.
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In fact, Armour may have outdone even herself. In trying so hard to prove she’s woke, she ended up offending many of the same people on Bluesky, who accused her of minimizing and trivializing the murder of Emmett Till.
These people truly are incredible. They cannot cover Caitlin Clark normally.
Still, the fact that a column about Clark ended up comparing her on-court behavior to lynching black people is a level of excess that would impress even Jemele Hill.
