Ok. I have one thing to say about this. That one thing may end up being a long or short comment, but weâll see where I end up.
This whole thing really upset me on a very personal level. Whether or not you agree on the validity of the umpireâs initial call, the penalty was too much, for one. Thatâs the first thing.
And then everything that followed (and here we get to what I found so personally upsetting). As a Black woman, I saw myself in Serena in that moment - from this man taking umbrage with how SHE dared to speak to HIM to the point where he felt her behavior was aggressive enough to warrant a further penality, to the how the press characterized what she said to the umpire as her âlashing outâ, or having the âmother of all meltdownsâ - it was so frustrating to see the actual video footage of what happened and read these publicationsâ completely overblown take on the incident because I, as a Black woman have been on the receiving end of this same type of bullshit (from men of all races, white women and Japanese women) in the workplace and elsewhere .
Express an opinion- too angry.
Matter-of-factly declare something unfair - too aggressive.
And the unbelievably screwed up thing about being in that situation is, once you start to defend yourself (reasonably), youâre painted as combative, unreasonable, irrational, and even sometimes dangerous, all because of some peopleâs hang-ups about your race and gender at the same time.
I also find it especially egregious, again as a Black woman, that so many commentators and journalists are painting Naomi Osaka as the non-Black foil to Serena the Black brute (that awful cartoon is the perfect example of that), even though Naomi is also Black! She is a biracial Japanese and Black woman. There is lots of historical context to the stratification of Black people regarding their phenotypical closeness to or distance from whiteness as a background to this shaping of the Serena vs Naomi narrative here. And thatâs bullshit because, Serena is Naomiâs hero, and Serena was warm and supportive towards Naomi during the trophy ceremony (or did people like the New York Post journalist completely miss that video and later, Naomiâs interview with Ellen DeGeneres?)
But lastly, it was seeing people I thought I knew happily run with this narrative as gospel, and gleefully disparage Serena as brutish, aggressive and arrogant, needing to be âknocked down a peg or twoâ. People whom Iâve actually had in my home. And then I have to wonder if thatâs how they see me too. What kinds of things are they saying about me behind my back whenever I express an opinion about or disappointment with something? I almost cried over the weekend over this. So many people here on FB made me super uncomfortable with their takes on the whole thing.
jbbartram-illu
gummygunk
romaincrisis
stormborns
titsay
