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Ryan Clark has added his family to his second round of apologies after a beef with former NFL player and podcast host RGIII went beyond the professional and into the personal.
The beef started when former NFL quarterback and former ESPN personality Robert Griffin III, reacted to Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark’s dustup during their game earlier this month that opened the WNBA season. Clark knocked Reese to the floor, prompting Reese to go after her before being held back by teammates. After both women dismissed it as a basketball play, Griffin weighed in, saying that Reese “hated” Clark.
Despite having no personal knowledge of any enmity Reese might have towards Clark, or lack of any, for that matter, RGIII made the comments on his podcast, which immediately resulted in pushback from a number of sources, including Clark.
But Clark, who played 13 seasons in the NFL career before moving on to media, made his criticism more pointed, saying that RGIII had little knowledge of the struggles that Black women face, as both of his wives have been white.
“When RG3 jumps onto the hate train or the angry train, it now follows what we saw from Keith Olbermann, what we saw from Dave Portnoy, as they poured onto Angel Reese to make her the villain, and Caitlin Clark heroic or hero story,” Clark said on The Pivot. “The one thing we know about RG3 is he’s not having conversations at his home about what Black women have to endure in this country. About what young Black women and athletes like Angel Reese have had to deal with being on the opposite side of Caitlin Clark’s rise and ascension into stardom.”
RGIII called a foul, saying that wives and kids shouldn’t be bought into a beef between the two men, although he made the comments on his podcast about Reese with his wife, Grete, sitting behind him. “There’s a line you cross in life and Ryan Clark sprinted past it,” Griffin said.
Clark continued, saying that Grete was “amen-ing” and clapping in the background, and said that when they worked together on MNF, Griffin continuously made racially charged comments.
“When I worked with RG3, he would make all of these sort of corny jokes about milk and how much he loved it and how important it was. And he always points out on social media the color of his wife’s white skin. As if the color of her skin is what makes her special. As if the color of her skin is what makes her a good wife.
“I’ve met the lady, I’ve had a conversation with her. I think she’s more than that. But it also leads to what Black women deal with a lot from Black men who have chose to date or marry outside of their race. They always feel like they have to go the extra mile to prop up the woman that they married or the woman that they’re with over Black women by denigrating Black women.”
After Clark’s comments, social media users pointed out that Clark’s oldest daughter, Jaden, is biracial. He apologized to Griffin via a Pivot video, saying that Grete didn’t deserve to be drawn into a conversation that didn’t initially involve her and that he should have found a better way to express his points.
“Families should be off limits. I started that by bringing her into it. I see that now. No matter what my intent was, the impact was different. If I had to do it all over again, I would do it a different way.”
But after the videos and the beef went viral, Clark says that his family caught strays, including his wife, Yonka, who is Black. That led to yet another apology as Clark said that his wife doesn’t seek the spotlight.
“I certainly didn’t want them to be the casualties of my Twitter or my media wars,” he said in another post. “Yonka in particular has taken a lot of heat, has taken a lot of hate. All she’s ever done is give her life to her family. All she’s ever done is make sure all of our kids, yes that includes Jaden, and Jordan, and Loghan, had the best home life, the most present mother, the best provider, the best support system that they possibly could.
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He added, “To her, to my children, I am sorry. I have to start to think about how my words impact, who they impact, and the effect and the fallout on you guys.”
Well, at least we don’t have to hear any more misguided, uninformed and downright ignorant takes about Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark this week. Their second matchup will be played without Clark, who’s nursing a quad injury, the Indiana Fever announced on Memorial Day. The two-week timeline for her return means she’ll likely miss the June 7th game against the Sky, still seeking their first victory of the WNBA season. The Fever are 2-2.
Social media is over the back-and-forth that all came from a simple foul. See the reactions below.