Megan Rapinoe calls out a journalist for asking a player about giving Caitlin Clark a black eye, stating, "That feels racist"—what sparked this heated exchange? (PO)

Former U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT) soccer star Megan Rapinoe has accused longtime USA Today writer Christine Brennan of racism for asking Connecticut Sun forward DiJonai Carrington whether her eye poke of Caitlin Clark was intentional.

Carrington poked Clark in the eye, resulting in a black eye, during Game 1 of Connecticut’s series against the Fever on September 22.

As the video shows, Carrington’s hand goes from the palm skyward with her fingers extended to suddenly facing downward, with her fingernails going directly into Clark’s eye socket.

Before Game 2, Brennan asked Carrington after the game if the eye poke was intentional. Carrington denied even realizing she poked her in the eye, much less doing it deliberately.

However, despite the footage showing what appears to be a deliberate eye poke from Carrington, Rapinoe recoiled at even asking Carrington a question about it. Instead, she accused Brennan of racism and trying to protect Clark because she’s white.

“Hearing it initially, my visceral reaction was, ‘That’s not good, that doesn’t feel good, that feels racist, to be honest,” Rapinoe said on her podcast, A Touch More with Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird. “That feels like you’re putting DiJonai in an impossible situation.”

Rapinoe continued, “I think it is so disingenuous for Christine Brennan and other media members to say, ‘I’m just asking the question,’ but really what’s happening is your natural instinct to protect and narrate White players vs. go after and narrate Black players, that to me is really the issue.”

Rapinoe and Bird can’t even comprehend that Carrington could intentionally eye-poke Clark.

“The premise of the question relies on the belief that DiJonai is targeting, that DiJonai specifically swatted or swiped into Caitlin’s eyeball,” Rapinoe said. “First of all, the square footage of her eyeball is very small. Do you know how hard it is to poke someone in the eye?”

Bird interjected, “That was my first thought. Do you know how difficult it would be to aim and poke someone in the eye?”

So, apparently, in the minds of Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe, there’s never been an intentional eye poke in the history of sport because it would be impossible for the world’s best athletes to figure out how to do it.

Not only that, the pair belittled the idea that Clark had been subject to systemic abuse throughout the season, calling it “disingenuous.”

Carrington’s eye poke didn’t draw a foul like so many of the unsportsmanlike attacks on Clark this year. However, it did provoke a harsh rebuke from the WNBA Players’ Association – not against Carrington, of course – but against Brennan.

“To unprofessional members of the media like Christine Brennan: You are not fooling anyone. That so-called interview in the name of journalism was a blatant attempt to bait a professional athlete into participating in a narrative that is false and designed to fuel racist, homophobic, and misogynistic vitriol on social media. You cannot hide behind your tenure.”

Brennan hasn’t taken the criticism lying down. Instead, she fired back and defended her questioning of Carrington in an interview with CNN.

“I’d ask that question 100 times out of 100,” Brennan said. “I’d ask it today. The athlete has every opportunity to then take that question and go with it any way she wants. And obviously, she did. So, that’s the opportunity that I think any journalist gives an athlete when you’re covering a story, to give them the opportunity to give their side of it.”