"Went from hating on Caitlin for being white to..." - WNBA fans rally to protect Napheesa Collier from attacks over biracial identity

WNBA fans online rallied to protect Napheesa Collier from people attacking her for being biracial. Collier is the daughter of Gamal and Sarah Collier, with her father originally from Sierra Leone. Her mother, Sarah, who's white, grew up on a farm in Missouri.

In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, a fan, Raquel, with the username @SOULbeautifulme, called out people trying to diminish Collier's biraciality. Raquel claimed that these are not real basketball fans because they can only see race rather than talent on the court.

"I just want y'all to know these women do not like basketball at all & it was never about ball & I tried to explain this all season. Now Napheesa isn't black enough & no one ever gets to call us black women out on ignorant statements!! But I will do it.

"They went from hating on Caitlin for being white to now hating on any black player that is supposedly lighter than a paper bag or mixed. This isn't what supporting women’s sports should be like & idc who feels someway about what I said this is just IGNORANCE," the fan tweeted.

Other fans rallied behind her for her advocacy to call out toxic people trying to make it about race. Some even reckon Napheesa Collier should have been MVP because of how valuable she's to the Minnesota Lynx.

"I think the unfortunate thing is that the more they target players and fans on the basis of race, the more we see what really matters to "fans" like that," a fan replied.

"I agree....it's getting ridiculous. @PHEEsespieces in my honest opinion is the most "valuable" player on the planet," one fan wrote.

"Convo is never about ball with #them. Phee just tryna win a ring and mind her business," another fan commented.

While the WNBA increased in popularity, the number of toxic fans has also soared.

"Sports generally was a lot less toxic in the days before social media," a fan opined.

"Watching CC and her teammates is watching fun basketball. All this other stuff is exhausting," one fan responded.

"First it's "white privilege" what is it now? Mixed privilege? They don't want to grow," another fan remarked.

Some members of A'ja Wilson's fanbase weren't happy when Napheesa Collier was named the WNBA Defensive Player of the Year. They thought that Wilson deserved to win the award for the third time along with her third WNBA MVP trophy.

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Napheesa Collier on what it was like to be mixed race growing up

Napheesa Collier on what it was like to be mixed race growing up. (Photo: IMAGN)

While race has been a divisive topic in the United States, Napheesa Collier didn't look at it one way or another.

Collier told the Harvard Business Review that she grew up in a normal household that didn't put too much focus on skin color even as a mixed family in a predominantly white community in Missouri.

"My dad is from Sierra Leone, and my mom is from a dairy farm in Missouri, so very different backgrounds. And we never really, when I was really young, talked about race; it was just normal. My dad was black; my mom was white," Collier said.

Collier added that her parents only instilled a work ethic in her when she was growing up and never really needed to talk about race. She acknowledged having problems with some classmates in high school but knew how to handle it.