By admin 
The incident between Sophie Cunningham and DiJonai Carrington has once again divided the WNBA. On one side, folks argue that Carrington is a dirty player who committed a dangerous play that could have injured Cunningham. On the other hand, people argue it was nothing more than a hard foul that went wrong. Then there are those who say that the foul was fine, but tweeting “White privilege” afterward wasn’t. And so on.
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Former NBA center Etan Thomas agrees with Carrington that there is white privilege in the WNBA and that Cunningham benefits from it.
“If we are going to discuss racial double standards, we shouldn’t manipulate facts. Cunningham was ejected in 2025, just as Carrington was ejected in 2026. The referees treated both players the same – as Carrington herself appeared to suggest. Instead, the white privilege is found in what happened next,” Thomas wrote in an article for “The Guardian”.
Sophie became an enforcer, DiJonai a villain
Thomas was, of course, talking about Cunningham’s flagrant foul 2 on Jacy Sheldon last season, which she did in retaliation for Sheldon poking Caitlin Clark in the eye and bumping her after. Sophie was ejected and fined for her actions. Still, instead of being criticized, she became known as Caitlin’s enforcer, gained hundreds of thousands of social media followers, and was flooded with endorsement deals.
Meanwhile, Carrington immediately became a social media villain after a similar foul on Cunningham. The difference, though, was that as soon as DiJonai went to the locker room, she posted online on Threads about “white privilege,” which is what made the incident viral and why she drew flak. However, Thomas disagrees with that.
“That’s what privilege looks like,” he added, referring to Sophie’s foul on Sheldon. “When Cunningham fouls an opponent, she’s an enforcer. When Carrington does the same, she’s a danger.”
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Etan also called out Sophie’s viral pointing incident
Thomas went on to mention another incident involving Cunningham, the one when she repeatedly pointed at Phoenix Mercury forward DeWanna Bonner after Bonner told her not to point at her after a scuffle. Sophie received a technical foul for her antics, but the pointing incident became a viral meme and is celebrated everywhere the Indiana Fever star goes.
“But in considering white privilege, I posted an image on social media of Cunningham as a Black WNBA player and asked: How would it be viewed if the roles were reversed? If a Black player followed a white opponent around the court, staring her down and pointing in her face for 20 seconds. Would she still be called adorable? Or would she be described as threatening, aggressive, classless, and hostile?” Thomas continued.
“White privilege doesn’t require Cunningham to ask for it or be racist. It doesn’t require every referee, journalist, or politician to consciously think: ‘She’s white, so I’m going to treat her differently’. Privilege operates through assumptions, sympathy, and framing – through whose aggression gets contextualized and whose gets criminalized,” he concluded.
Before Monday’s game against the Seattle Storm, in which she scored a career-high 26 points, Carrington revealed that her “white privilege” comment wasn’t about the ejection or Cunningham in particular. It was about the long-standing complaint about the unfair officiating in the WNBA.
DiJonai also said she did not intend to go after Sophie’s head. She was just going for the ball, but unfortunately, she didn’t have enough lift on the play. But of course, she said that a couple of days later. If Carrington had given context to her tweet or hadn’t said it at all, none of these things would have happened.
Related: “It’s black privilege” – Riley Gaines slammed DiJonai Carrington’s post-ejection comments vs. Sophie Cunningham
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This story was originally published August 11, 2026 at 10:42 PM.