Why Are They Saying The Serena Williams Caricature Racist?
A comic was published depicted Serena Williams as having a temper tantrum and people are decrying the comic as a racist caricature. But what exactly makes it racist? We are now even hearing that umpires may boycott Serena over her sexism claims after the US Open Final. Is this issue really about gender and race or is it about someone breaking the rules and complaining about it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBynDg1TnQI&list=PLxQaod7tWvYIujAxNsDkb6iP-S9wTKS4W
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The Serena Williams controversy is continuing, because now we've moved on from just a tennis match with some controversy into a full-on battle within the culture war over sexism and racism.
We're hearing now that anonymous sources are telling The Times in the UK that umpires may actually boycott, refuse to officiate any match with Serena Williams due to unfair treatment.
And outside of this, there is a comic depicting Serena Williams as a crybaby that people are saying is racist.
But the question becomes, is it really about sexism?
Is it really about racism?
Or is this an instance in which an official said you broke the rules and you got caught?
Is it an instance where someone made a comic making fun of Serena Williams for having a meltdown or a tantrum, and it's not really about racism?
Is drawing a caricature of Serena Williams racist?
Well, some people seem to think so.
So today, those are the questions I want to pose.
In the culture war, we often confuse honest criticism for racism or sexism.
And how can we actually overcome that?
But before we get into that, let's take a look at what actually happened with the umpires and then with the comic.
From Eurosport, umpires could boycott Serena Williams' matches after U.S.
Open outburst.
Umpires aggrieved at the treatment of Carlos Ramos by Serena Williams during the U.S.
Open final could boycott the Americans' matches, a report in The Times has suggested.
Ramos was branded a liar and a thief by the 23-time Grand Slam champion, who later claimed sexism was behind his decision to dock her a game during Saturday's defeat to Naomi Osaka.
The Women's Tennis Association and the United States Tennis Association were among those to back Williams in the aftermath of her outburst.
However, a report in the Times alleges the lack of support for Ramos, coupled with Williams' claims, has riled umpires.
An anonymous official told the Times that there was a growing consensus that umpires were not supported by the USTA on several occasions, and that Ramos was thrown to the wolves for simply doing his job and was not willing to be abused for it.
Umpires are discussing whether they could take action to stand up for their profession.
One suggestion being floated is to refuse any match assignments involving Williams until she apologizes for vilifying Ramos and calling him a liar and a thief.
Amid the commotion, Osaka, already a setup before the first violation, held her nerve to become Japan's first winner at a major.
The International Tennis Federation offered support for Ramos on Monday evening,
saying in a statement Mr. Ramos's decisions were in accordance with the relevant rules
and were reaffirmed by the U.S. Open's decision to fine Ms.
Williams for the three offenses.
Ramos penalized Williams for on-court coaching, racket abuse, and calling him a thief.
Williams demanded to speak to the tournament referee after the final decision, but it was not overturned.
Yesterday I covered this, but a quick refresher.
Serena basically said that men often break the same rules and get away with it.
But, I looked at several instances where Serena Williams broke the rules and didn't get away with it.
At one point, she berated a female judge and received a penalty.
Another time, she bashed her racket and threw it and received a penalty.
And I wonder why those moments weren't considered sexist.
But now, because of this behavior, you have people within the culture war jumping to the defense of Serena Williams, saying, this is sexism.
But you have other people saying, look, you can't speed because everyone else is speeding and then get upset when you get pulled over for speeding.
You broke the rules and whether or not the umpire decides to penalize you for them is entirely up to the umpire.
You can't claim it was sexist.
But following this, the other day we saw a comic that was published in Australia that depicted a caricature of Serena Williams as a crybaby and everyone started saying, holy This is racist.
Mark Knight Cartoons published this image of Serena Williams as a crybaby breaking her racket and there's a pacifier on the ground.
The ump is asking the other player, can you just let her win?
He said, my tune in today's The Herald Sun on Serena Williams US Open.
One of the first responses we see is Julie DeCaro.
She says, where was this cartoon for all the men who have broken their rackets over the years?
And Mark Knight responded, Well, Julie, here's a cartoon I drew a few days before when Australian male tennis player Kirgios at the US Open was behaving badly.
Don't bring gender into it when it's all about behavior.
I'll accept your apology in writing.
And we can see this comic, where he says, A tennis umpire gives a sulky Nick Kirgios a pep talk during the US Open.
What should have happened?
The man being dragged away by the ear.
Now I want to look at some of the criticisms for this comic as to why it's racist.
But I think what's interesting here is that Mark Knight actually brought up an interesting point inadvertently.
That in his previous comic, this man Nick Kyrgios was getting a pep talk when he should have been punished.
And in the other comic he's showing Serena Williams having a tantrum, but he's kind of making an interesting point that Kyrgios should have been punished and wasn't.
So it's interesting then that people are coming after him simply because he's criticizing everybody.
Amy Siskins said, Mark, do you make these same cartoons for every white male
athlete who shows intensity during a heated contest? Or are you reserving it for a
black woman because of your biases based on gender and race?
Ask yourself in a quiet moment, then do better.
A breakdown from NBC New York Newspaper's cartoon of Serena Williams as toddler having tantrums slammed as racist and sexist.
A number of users said they had reported the cartoon to Twitter.
They mentioned the tweet from Siskin that I just read and then said, Other users said they were so offended they had reported the image to Twitter for being racist.
The image was compared to the depiction of black people in Little Black Sambo in an 1899 children's book, which sparked a rash of counterfeit versions featuring racist stereotypes of people of color.
I would say delete this, but this display of racism is so blatant in the year 2018 that it belongs in a museum to raise awareness to future generations about what African Americans are going through today, Eugene Goo tweeted.
It was not Knight's first time in the spotlight for his cartoons.
Earlier this August, the award-winning cartoonist's image of caricatured African teenagers was branded racist by local politicians.
But the Herald Sun, the paper that published the comic, is backing their cartoonist.
Jeff Reiter for The Sun says, Australia's finest cartoonist Mark Knight has dismissed a global Twitter storm over his depiction of a tantrum-throwing Serena Williams.
The Herald Sun's veteran cartoonist says his portrayal was never about race or gender, rather the sporting superstar's bad behavior at the U.S.
Open.
Knight's take on Williams' blow-up showed the 23-grand slam winner spitting the dummy and stomping on her tennis racket, as the chair umpire told U.S.
Open champion Naomi Osaka in the background, can you just let her win?
Knight said, Now naturally, you know I have some thoughts on this matter, but before I do that, I want to present another article that says exactly why this cartoon was racist, and then I'll give you what I think about it.
Serena is about her poor behavior on the day, not about race, the world has just gone crazy.
Now naturally, you know I have some thoughts on this matter, but before I do that I want
to present another article that says exactly why this cartoon was racist, and then I'll
give you what I think about it.
From the Age in Australia, don't get why the Serena cartoon was racist?
It's the cartoon that nobody is laughing about.
Mark Knight from the Herald Sun has caused an international storm with his depiction of Serena Williams, one of the greatest tennis players of all time, throwing a tantrum during the final of the U.S.
Open last weekend.
They say that in itself is not the problem.
The trouble is that Knight has gone out of his way to depict her not as a champion athlete, but as a wild and barbaric, full-lipped, ugly and ape-like.
Over the course of Tuesday afternoon, readers of the Age website flooded the comments section.
The feeling ran very strongly in favor of the cartoonist.
There was a feeling that everyone should lighten up, that this was yet another case of PC gone mad.
The cartoon was simply a harmless caricature, like the one of Morrison or say Malcolm Turnbull, in an aristocratic top hat or Tony Abbott with big ears and red speedos.
But taking this view is to look through a prism of white privilege that conveniently ignores centuries of history and the way black people have been depicted in Western culture, from Shakespeare's Othello to Adam Goodes to people donning blackface in the infamous skit on Hey Hey, It's Saturday.
Because Kyrgios' heritage had nothing to do with his cartoon, and politicians are always fair game for ridicule and scorn.
Put simply, mocking the powerful is totally different to belittling minorities.
And so, look, I understand the argument.
However, Serena Williams is a millionaire.
She has 10 million followers.
She is not vulnerable.
She is not weak.
Not only is she incredibly physically strong, she's influential in social culture and politics, and mocking her has nothing to do with attacking a vulnerable minority.
She isn't.
It may have been more difficult for her, if that's your stance, that white privilege and all these things are holding certain people back.
But the problem I typically have with identitarianism, which typically refers to identity politics, is that here we have someone who is one of the most powerful people in the world, both physically and influentially, being given a break when someone makes fun of her because they call it racist.
It's important to realize, in Australia they have a different history to the United States, and thus they're not going to look at this depiction the same way Americans do.
As The Age noted, which is an Australian site, many people were on the side of the cartoonist saying this is PC gone mad.
It's possible that people in other parts of the world don't understand the cartoons in the United States, the Jim Crow era, or what these things might mean to Americans.
And a lot of what we're seeing is Americans criticizing this cartoonist.
And don't get me wrong, it's not just Americans.
We did see criticism from J.K.
Rowling and other people from other parts of the world.
But this seems to be an effect of American culture bleeding out into other parts of the world.
What we experience as Americans and what we believe is dramatically different to what people in other countries believe.
But because the internet and social media and American culture are so pervasive, many people are saying, no matter where you're from or what you've done, it's racist and here's why, because American culture is paramount.
Caricatures often are insulting to some people.
They exaggerate certain features.
Like the comic we saw of the other tennis player with huge ears, it's meant to make fun of, in a sense, to exaggerate characteristics about them.
And that's what this cartoonist did with Serena Williams.
A lot of people have a problem with that because they feel you shouldn't make a caricature of a minority due to the history of the United States, but this is not an American.
And this comic was not published by an American newspaper.
Is it then okay for Americans to tell a different culture what is or is not acceptable?
Obviously, there are people in Australia who do believe it's racist, and that's fair.
What I see a lot of is people believing that criticism is due to their race or identity.
I think this is a huge disservice to people of minority statuses and oppressed communities, because you can be a bad person of any race.
White people can be bad.
Black people can be bad.
Mexicans can be bad.
Not every person is a good person.
And sometimes people are deserving of criticism based on the content of their character.
In this circumstance, Serena Williams is ridiculously powerful.
And she threw a tantrum.
I do not believe that criticizing Serena Williams is punching down in any way because of how wealthy and powerful she is.
But let me know what you think in the comments below, and we'll keep the conversation going.
How do you feel about this?
I know a lot of people who surf YouTube are naturally going to side on the opinion that Serena Williams is just throwing a tantrum, and it's absurd to blame this on racism or sexism.
But there are a lot of people who believe that this was racist and was sexist.
So comment below, we'll keep the conversation going.
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