Angel Reese…LSU Lady Tigers Controversy…Bigger Than Basketball

Edwin Buggage Editor-in-Chief Data News Weekly It was a great season for the LSU Lady Tigers Basketball Team. Last year’s NCAA Champions made it to the Elite 8 this year, to be eliminated by their arch-rival Iowa led by Caitlyn Clark. This season the team took on more than basketball. It was one where the politics of race and gender became apparent. This was evident recently, as the Los Angeles Times apologized for publishing a story characterizing the team as “basketball villains and dirty debutants.” Historically, sports are often a proxy for politics, and these narratives are nothing new. In many ways. This is an “instant replay” whether it was Jack Johnson, Jesse Owens, Muhammad Ali, Colin Kaepernick, LeBron James, and now Angel Reese. This subtext that demonizes Black excellence is from the “racist playbook” of a country that was founded on the faulty premise that denied a people’s humanity. After a collective outcry of criticism, the writer Ben Bolch wrote on social media that he “failed miserably” in his choice of words and offered an apology when crafting his piece. Arguably, one that smacks of journalistic malfeasance. The fact that he and his editors did not see the explicit...