Many people can agree that Serena Williams is one of the best tennis players in the world, with 23 Grand Slam singles titles. That number is insane, considering Roger Federer has 20 Grand Slams.
The interesting thing, though, is that when I Googled “tennis player with the most titles,” Federer came up instead of Williams. In fact, four different men with fewer titles came up before her.
This is just one small example of the sexism that runs rampant through the world of tennis — and most other sports as well. Williams seems to be the constant target of not only sexism, but racism.
Most recently, this came in the form of an offensive cartoon posted in The Herald Sun, an Australian newspaper. The cartoon depicts Williams competing in the final for the U.S. Open, during which the umpire accused her of “coaching,” which is a form of cheating in tennis.
Naturally, Williams defended herself, because being accused of cheating is not something anyone particularly enjoys. While her coach may have been guilty of coaching, Williams claims that they were not trying to communicate anything and that he was simply cheering her on.
Regardless of what actually happened, many people were referring to Williams’ defense of herself as a “meltdown,” as if no other tennis players have angrily disputed a call.
In fact, when I was researching tennis player meltdowns, I noticed there seems to be numerous instances of players (mostly men) bashing their racquets over their head, or in Marcos Baghdatis’ case, smashing four racquets. Comparatively, I would not say Williams had a meltdown.
As a result of her “meltdown,” a cartoonist named Mark Knight decided to depict Williams having a temper tantrum as the umpire asks her opponent, “Can you just let her win?”
There are many things wrong with this cartoon.
First of all, the drawing very much mimics that of Jim Crow-era depictions of African-Americans. The overdrawn nose, lips, body and the frizzy hair are quite obvious, and before even reading anything about this cartoon, I noticed that theme.
All it takes is a high school education to be aware of that — in most high schools, racism in America is covered quite extensively because it is such a big part of our history. Many other students and I have seen the racist drawings from the Jim Crow era and the ways black people used to be depicted, so it was not hard to make that connection.
The illustrator tried to defend his drawing by saying the cartoon was about her “poor behavior.” He should be intelligent enough to realize that drawing a black woman like that would be offensive, regardless of his intent.
Instead of recognizing his mistake and owning up to it, though, he and his boss decided to print it on the front page of The Herald Sun and draw even more attention to it. Even if he did not mean to be racist before, he now refuses to educate himself and understand his mistake.
Additionally, his drawing of her opponent was racist as well. He drew her to be a white, blond woman, when Naomi Osaka is both Haitian and Japanese — definitely not a white, blond woman. This white-washing definitely demonstrates the ideals this cartoonist holds.
I cannot help but feel bad for Williams, because this is just one event in a long string of attacks against her. It is clear that Williams has been the target of both sexism and racism in the past few weeks, and I am tired of hearing about stupid things such as dress code violations and seeing racist depictions of one of the most powerful tennis players in history.
