Sue Bird calls uswnt "generally cute little white girls"

For those who'd like context before commenting (or choosing not to comment), more of the quote and what Bird was speaking about:
"Even though we're female athletes playing at a high level, our worlds, you know, the soccer world and the basketball world are just totally different...And to be blunt it's the demographic of who's playing. Women's soccer players generally are cute little White girls while WNBA players, we are all shapes and sizes ... a lot of Black, gay, tall women ... there is maybe an intimidation factor and people are quick to judge it and put it down."

So it was a comment in context of the difference in support for the USWNT versus WNBA although I think a better comparison is NWSL to WNBA. Personally, I think that she makes a good point that the WNBA is having to work against some other biases, and not just sexism. And I wouldn't argue against the idea that the perception (and thus much of the support) of the USWNT is still very much "girl next door" thanks to 1999 despite the growing number of POC on the team.

Article here:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/17/spor...utm_content=2020-10-17T16:33:03&utm_term=link

Also Rapinoe has pretty much argued the same point that Bird is saying. She used almost the same words here:
"And what I mean by that is: When it comes to U.S. women’s soccer, the general perception is that — let’s face it — we’re the white girls next door. The straight, 'cute,' 'unthreatening,' 'suburban' white girls next door. It’s not actually who we are — the WNT’s racial diversity, though not yet where it needs to be, is improving every year. And, you know, breaking news….. I’m gay. But by and large, that’s the perception. And it’s certainly how we’re marketed to a lot of people....
Where’s that same energy for the best women’s basketball players on the planet?? Where’s that energy for the women’s sports that — instead of scanning cute and white and straight — scan tall and black and queer??"

 

Since she is commenting on other peoples perceptions, not her own, sure.

Also, you do realize that she is including herself in the overall class right? She's talking about the varieties of perceptions of women athletes, and she is rather emphatically one...

If we are lucky, Joe from Peoria knows Crystal Dunn is on the USWNT-- do you think he can name any others that aren't sorta cute and white?

Pookie maybe skeers him enough to remember, but he probably doesn't want to think/dream about her if he can avoid it.

And you must not know much about Bird if you think there's the slightest chance she used "girls" in any way but sarcastically.

 

Sooooooooooooooooooo I’m

• Racist
• Sexist
• Homophobic
• Please insert the 37 other “ic’s” or “ist’s” ……….

If I support the USWNT? or
If I don’t support the WNBA? or
Both?

Everyone else gets to be offended and outraged………maybe it’s MY turn.

 

I don't really understand how everyone has become so sensitive about everything. People have become so "politically correct" that it is almost sickening.
I like women's soccer but I like men's a lot less.
I do not like watching basketball at all.
I do not like watching American football at all.
I like watching Rugby.
I like watching Ice Hokey.
I do not like watching baseball at all.
I find most other sports simply boring.
Does any of the above make me raciest or sexist or homophobic or anything else? I don't think so. It simply makes me selective in my sports tastes.
I do not believe it is necessary or even good for our society to become as "politically correct" as many people seem to want. In fact I think it is bad because it reduces diversity.

It appears that society wants everyone to exist in a safe little package where each person is as little different from everybody else as possible. But I like differences.
We are not all alike and it is almost tyranny to try to make us be so.
Of course people that use "difference" to foster hatred are wrong but people do not hate because it is their nature they hate because they have been taught to hate. This has been recognized for a long time but we continue to hate others that are different just because of that difference:
- - - - - - - -
You've got to be carefully taught. (From "South Pacific" 1949)
[Verse 1]
You've got to be taught to hate and fear
You've got to be taught from year to year
It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught

[Verse 2]
You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade
You've got to be carefully taught

[Verse 3]
You've got to be taught before it's too late
Before you are six or seven or eight
To hate all the people your relatives hate
You've got to be carefully taught
- - - - - - - -

"Political correctness is tyranny with manners." Charlton Heston

 

Um, ok. I guess I don't think she's "getting away" with something here although I'm sure there's some faux outrage on social media about the comment. Rapinoe said the same thing (and said it 2 weeks ago), so obviously Rapinoe is not offended by it. In fact, I'd guess the majority of the team not only aren't offended by the comment but would be fully onboard with Sue Bird's point...her point about the WNBA and the perception of the USWNT.

Sue Bird was not slamming the USWNT; she was pissed off at the lack of the support for the WNBA. They don't need a white knight here.

Actually there is. If you watch the video of the interview and not just read the quote, the question she's asked is to explain Megan Rapinoe's argument (in the Player's Tribune) about the differences in perception between the two and comment on it. So, in reality, Sue Bird was backing up Rapinoe on what she had already said.

 

You simply cannot compare American basketball to World Cup soccer. It's a really bad argument. WNBA is better supported, economically and in popularity than the NWSL. So, she really doesn't have much of an argument.

Meghan and Sue have both made millions of their cute little white girl looks and were straight bating for years to make that money.

 

You just kind of threw this out there with nothing to support it. Why is it a bad argument? Don't- that's a rhetorical question... Of course the two can be compared, but not as you (perhaps deliberately) worded it.

The proper comparison would be between World Cup/Olympic soccer and Olympic/World Championship basketball. The USWBBT has won the last six Olympic Golds and eight of the last nine, per Wiki. Eight Gold medals in ten appearances. They've won the last three FIBA World Cups, ten overall and five of the last six. In a sport that's way more popular in this country than soccer, the basketball women have accomplished even more than the obviously wildly successful soccer women. You'd think the basketball team would be the darlings of American women's sport, with families lining up to take their daughters to a game and introduce them to all the role models... especially since the bball players aren't the ones making a political statement every other time or every third time they go out to compete. FWIW, I agree with the bulk of the statements the USWNT make, but the point is that the USWBBNT isn't going out of their way to do anything that might offend anyone, and yet they still don't get the love that Abby, Megan, and the rest get.

There almost certainly is a racial aspect to this. I'm willing to suggest that some of it is because I think the demo that cares about women's sports skews White and affluent, which would drive them away from a sport where Black women participate at a higher rate than they do in soccer. The basketball players are "next door" to ME, but they aren't to the average fan of women's sports in general. And I'm also sure the gay thing plays into that a bit when the gays in question are tall af and Black.

Now, this is a horrid point, because 1) The WNBA is bankrolled by the NBA, and 2) the focus on women's soccer here has always been the national team and the Women's World Cup. It's never been the WNBA or the NWSL/WUSA/WPS- neither of them move the needle at all.

 

I'm not sure which is more amusing... that this is the thread that drew you out of your usual "USWNT is teh bestest team evah!!111!" character, or that you decided to take so personally a topic that was intended to be taken generally.

 

I don't think 1) is true anymore, is it? I thought that ended something like a decade ago?

And as for 2), the needle is definitely moving-- especially the tv ratings.

But for the rest, yeah-- although I think the ever increasing and vocal support and acceptance by the NBAs players is slowly moving that line as well.

 

I can't say for sure. I know that it was financed by the NBA at one time.

You couldn't tell from this forum. They seem to have gone about following the game in reverse (as a lot of Americans of a certain age tended to do*), and haven't stopped yet. I think some of that is intended to trigger the USMNT fans here, and club ball doesn't give them a big enough stage to do that.

*I know I did when I first started following soccer as a teen, because there wasn't anything on TV between World Cups where I grew up, just a fantastic college team and some magazines you could buy every once in a while when the local bookstore decided to stock them. 4-4-2, Onze, and I think one other that I can't remember.

Absolutely.

Basketball is one of those sports I follow only during the playoffs, like baseball. I used to kinda follow the Braves, but they finally broke my giveadamn in the early 00s.

 

I watch UConn women semi religiously and WNBA semi randomly. Starting with Karl Malone attending Cheryl Ford's games at La Tech, and gradually expanding through the decades, there has been a trickle expanding to a stream of male pro players, NBA and other sports attending games, and inevitably pulled into mini-interviews by sideline reporters; at first, cynic that I tend to be, I figured they were getting slipped a couple o Cs by the booster club to go on tv for a minute and say nice things, and maybe they were at the start; but for the last ten or fifteen years it has seemed more and more that the respect and admiration and enjoyment has been steadily increasing; and it is more and more common that it is not individuals but clusters of teammates, group outings...

And that kind of thing makes a difference both in reinforcing the converted and in giving "permission" to dinosaurs to stop needling the converted and sit down and enjoy the spectacle themselves, to realize that their precious "man card" is not at risk just because Crystal Dangerfield's beauty is more in motion than rest, more in her smile than her body...

 

I was a fan (again, postseason) of the Tennessee women under Pat Summitt, and sat thru all of Auburn's three consecutive championship game losses under Joe Ciampi. The first state title my HS earned was in girls' bball, and I was courtside for that as a tenth-grader.

I don't see why. It's a small playing surface (where speed isn't so much what you can see) and it's all there but the dunking. Dunks are exciting and all, but they don't make the game for me... except for the 1983 Houston-Louisville Final Four semi.

I don't think the "card" was ever at risk, but you've been around a few years longer than I have. The guys I watched those Vol games and Auburn games with were sports fans, period, and we respected the play. All of us went somewhere other than Auburn or Tennessee.

 

Oh yeah. watching "girls" sports was a sissy occupation to self-perceived manly men for much of my life. Honest. Cause for public ridicule. Worse than listening to music where the lyrics weren't in English.

 

From what I understand (and admittedly I don't really follow basketball. Soccer is really the only sport I religiously follow outside of watching others in the Olympics), nowadays the WNBA is somewhat subsidized by the NBA, in a relationship sort of like USSF with the NWSL, but obviously not with allocated players. About a decade ago, the WNBA opened up for independent ownership (instead of all teams being owned by NBA teams). Some teams are still owned by NBA owners, but some are independent. I think there also may be some subsidizing in marketing/front office/etc., but I'm not sure of that.

 

Interesting. For me, this was not the case at all -- but in my family, women’s sports were valued just as much as men’s, and it was my father who was the parent sports fan. So, at least what you experienced was not universal.

 

Well, I'm talking college and barroom type situations, not family, but I'm sure at Archie Bunkers house...

 

A character? Hahahahahahaha Ask my Attorney if the members of the 2015 and 2019 WWC Championship Squads are in my Will.

You're convinced - I'm not. Ahhh, the ol' cast the wide net and leave enough room for C.S. deniability.

After 50 years of watching waaaaaay to much American Professional sports…I became bored with them. That’s why I haven’t attended any other sporting events since my 1st USWNT match on August 20, 2014. H, I didn’t even attend to other Semi-final of the ’19 WWC even though I had a ticket and my Hotel was a half a mile from the Stadium.

 

lol

Looks like it IS your turn to be offended- you certainly know yourself better than I know you...

 

Domestically - the WNBA is better support, more popular and the players make more money than those who play in the Women's soccer league. periodt.

Internationally - soccer is the world's sport, for women as well. It is the biggest sport in the world.
Basketball is not a world sport, by any means and not that popular in much of the world. This, of course, is directly related to $$$ and popularity not only in the US but across the globe for the WNT.

 

And again... basketball here in the USA is bigger than soccer here in the USA, periodt. For men and women. A comparison absolutely can be made in a country where sport A is a niche (for both sexes, FWIW) but whose WNT gets more ink and support than that of sport B which is both homegrown and more popular among the general population. It's just not the comparison you want to make, for whatever reason. You don't have to- it's already out there, thus the article.