Analysis by Jada Yuan
Staff writer
Updated April 9, 2023 at 5:04 p.m. EDT|Published April 9, 2023 at 4:29 p.m. EDT
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Jill Biden, who avoids controversy so assiduously that she often ventures into boring, found herself in a rare, self-made pickle over the past week. Juiced on enthusiasm from attending the NCAA women’s basketball championship final on April 2 in Dallas, she said she’d suggest to President Biden that he invite not just the winning team, the Louisiana State University Tigers, to the White House — as is tradition — but also the losing University of Iowa Hawkeyes team, whom LSU had trounced, 102-85. “You know what? I’m going to tell Joe I think Iowa should come, too, because they played such a good game. Right? Winners and losers … that’s good sportsmanship!” she said in extemporaneous remarks before a political speech in Colorado the following morning.
Anyone who watches sports knows that’s an immediate “nah.” Winning is the point.
A week of bad headlines, Twitter takes, a “Saturday Night Live” sketch and harsh media commentary have followed, including an April 6 segment of about five minutes on “The Daily Show,” in which guest host Roy Wood Jr. and correspondent Desi Lydic debated whether the issue with Biden’s comment was racism or sexism. LSU’s star forward, Angel Reese, who is Black, has fantastic eyelashes and is known as the “Bayou Barbie,” had called the first lady’s suggestion “A JOKE” on Twitter. In interviews, she said she felt hurt by the comment, would not accept Biden’s apology (the first lady hasn’t apologized) and would rather meet a different president and first lady. “We’ll go to the Obamas. We’ll see Michelle. We’ll see Barack,” Reese told the podcast “Paper Route.”
On Friday, in a move of seeming damage control, the president made congratulatory phone calls not just to LSU head coach Kim Mulkey, but to Reese as well. Since the initial outcry, both the team and Reese have said they’ll accept a White House invitation, although no date has been set.
How did a mildly tone-deaf, off-the-cuff, kind of grandmotherly comment about “sportsmanship” turn into one of the worst weeks and longest-enduring missteps of Jill Biden’s tenure as first lady?
“If both teams’ starting five were all White or all Black, that is not a story,” says Theodore R. Johnson, a senior fellow at New America focusing on race, democracy and American identity. “The subtext of the game was an LSU squad that had only Black players in their starting five and an Iowa squad that had only White players, and it was a Black version of basketball versus a White version of basketball. That was not explicitly at play, but a lot of people saw it that way.”
As Reese added confidently in her podcast interview: “I just know that if the roles were reversed … we would not be getting invited to the White House.”
To understand what happened, first look at the context. That NCAA final wasn’t just any game. It was the most-watched women’s college basketball game in the history of television, with almost 10 million viewers tuning in. Many sports commentators see this year’s tournament as the moment that vaulted the sport into the national mainstream. When LSU won, it was the first championship in the program’s history, after being considered underdogs all season. Reese, a sophomore, was named most outstanding player of the Final Four.
Biden’s comment the next morning immediately diminished that, as LSU was still celebrating and hadn’t even managed to get back to Baton Rouge, even if it wasn’t intentional. As “The Daily Show’s” Lydic pointed out, the first lady was proposing that the country “honor White losers the same as Black winners.”
“She turned the White House into a participation trophy,” Wood said. “Dr. Jill Biden treated these adult women like a bunch of high-schoolers who had to be invited to the slumber party no matter what.”
Staff writer
Updated April 9, 2023 at 5:04 p.m. EDT|Published April 9, 2023 at 4:29 p.m. EDT
Share
Jill Biden, who avoids controversy so assiduously that she often ventures into boring, found herself in a rare, self-made pickle over the past week. Juiced on enthusiasm from attending the NCAA women’s basketball championship final on April 2 in Dallas, she said she’d suggest to President Biden that he invite not just the winning team, the Louisiana State University Tigers, to the White House — as is tradition — but also the losing University of Iowa Hawkeyes team, whom LSU had trounced, 102-85. “You know what? I’m going to tell Joe I think Iowa should come, too, because they played such a good game. Right? Winners and losers … that’s good sportsmanship!” she said in extemporaneous remarks before a political speech in Colorado the following morning.
Anyone who watches sports knows that’s an immediate “nah.” Winning is the point.
A week of bad headlines, Twitter takes, a “Saturday Night Live” sketch and harsh media commentary have followed, including an April 6 segment of about five minutes on “The Daily Show,” in which guest host Roy Wood Jr. and correspondent Desi Lydic debated whether the issue with Biden’s comment was racism or sexism. LSU’s star forward, Angel Reese, who is Black, has fantastic eyelashes and is known as the “Bayou Barbie,” had called the first lady’s suggestion “A JOKE” on Twitter. In interviews, she said she felt hurt by the comment, would not accept Biden’s apology (the first lady hasn’t apologized) and would rather meet a different president and first lady. “We’ll go to the Obamas. We’ll see Michelle. We’ll see Barack,” Reese told the podcast “Paper Route.”
On Friday, in a move of seeming damage control, the president made congratulatory phone calls not just to LSU head coach Kim Mulkey, but to Reese as well. Since the initial outcry, both the team and Reese have said they’ll accept a White House invitation, although no date has been set.
How did a mildly tone-deaf, off-the-cuff, kind of grandmotherly comment about “sportsmanship” turn into one of the worst weeks and longest-enduring missteps of Jill Biden’s tenure as first lady?
“If both teams’ starting five were all White or all Black, that is not a story,” says Theodore R. Johnson, a senior fellow at New America focusing on race, democracy and American identity. “The subtext of the game was an LSU squad that had only Black players in their starting five and an Iowa squad that had only White players, and it was a Black version of basketball versus a White version of basketball. That was not explicitly at play, but a lot of people saw it that way.”
As Reese added confidently in her podcast interview: “I just know that if the roles were reversed … we would not be getting invited to the White House.”
To understand what happened, first look at the context. That NCAA final wasn’t just any game. It was the most-watched women’s college basketball game in the history of television, with almost 10 million viewers tuning in. Many sports commentators see this year’s tournament as the moment that vaulted the sport into the national mainstream. When LSU won, it was the first championship in the program’s history, after being considered underdogs all season. Reese, a sophomore, was named most outstanding player of the Final Four.
Biden’s comment the next morning immediately diminished that, as LSU was still celebrating and hadn’t even managed to get back to Baton Rouge, even if it wasn’t intentional. As “The Daily Show’s” Lydic pointed out, the first lady was proposing that the country “honor White losers the same as Black winners.”
“She turned the White House into a participation trophy,” Wood said. “Dr. Jill Biden treated these adult women like a bunch of high-schoolers who had to be invited to the slumber party no matter what.”