Serena Williams Tantrum

[PSOL]

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RUJTii3fCR4/UPoqb5QqpRI/AAAAAAAADZA/1EMtHVBTJB0/s1600/Serena%2BWilliams%2BCaricature.jpg
So in light of all this, in reaction to J.J.,I decided to post a non racist Serena Williams caricature. Note the fact that this actually looks more like her. Note that she still looks muscled here but not broadened to look like a gorilla like in the cartoon. Her lips are exaggerated here but not taking up 1/3 of her face in racist cartoon. We see her face an exaggeration of hers here, in the racist one her face just doesn’t look like her. In fact it looks labeled a lot like what an old time mammy( or whatever the Australian slur for aboriginal is) caricature would look like.

I can’t believe I had to do this work to prove to the few non-racist, whistle deaf users here that this is indeed racist.z

[C r a b c a k e]

Here is a cartoon of Jimmy Carter:

Context matters, and all caricaturists should be aware of that. For example, a lot of cartoonists will give disproportionately large and curious noses to politicians, even those with quite dainty little facial features. However, almost everybody (that isn't deliberately trying to cause controversy) will know that drawing a cartoon of, say, Benjamin Netanyahu with a bulbous hook nose would be drawing upon the same anti Semitic tradition as Julius Striecher. Another example would be giving Shinzo Abe a prominent overbite, or, yes, giving Serena Williams large, protuding lips and a simian body.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

J. J., this isn't the first time that cartoonist released something racist. It just got attention only in Australia before. While you rightly point out that cartoonists use exaggeration, he drew an unrecognizable stereotype. I'd like to compare some of his other cartoons, but the Herald Sun is beyond a paywall, he deleted his Twitter account, and his Facebook requires a login, and I don't have nor will I get a Facebook account.

Can you show some of the others, or at least descriptions?

The other player was drawn as darker than the referee. 

She looked like a tanned blonde. Naomi is as dark in skin tone as Serena in real life and she had a few blonde highlights in her hair.

The most egregious example I saw of his other work was one that raised controversy just last month.

http://junkee.com/herald-sun-mark-knight/171138

[Badger]

Williams acted with poor sportsmanship for sure. And it doesn't excuse for one minute the grotesquely racist black Mammy caricature this cartoonist used. Double stupid ass cracker points for turning her biracial opponent into a Nordic goddess.

Extra props to all the twits here who can't comprehend that no one would have ejected this cartoons portrayal of Williams poor Behavior if the cartoonist had basically gone to a 1920s billboard ad caricature of a black woman.

[J. J.]

Can you show some of the others, or at least descriptions?

The other player was drawn as darker than the referee. 

Even for you this is a deeply stupid hill to die on.

Can you this pattern of racism with this cartoonist.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

rules that are only occasionally enforced should not be rules.  In real life or in sport.  Too much potential for abuse.

This is one of the odder misconceptions that's come with the media firestorm: the rules against on-court coaching in Slams are routinely enforced. The issue is the manner of the enforcement, as there will always be an element of subjectivity in the enforcement of the rules in any sport.

Where it gets messy in this particular case is that some umpires are definitely less likely to issue code violations against high-profile players, and that Ramos has a habit of overcompensating for this. Where it gets messier still is that there's a widespread perception amongst female players (of whatever profile or ranking) that they are less likely to be given the benefit of the doubt and/or 'soft warnings'.

[J. J.]

J. J., this isn't the first time that cartoonist released something racist. It just got attention only in Australia before. While you rightly point out that cartoonists use exaggeration, he drew an unrecognizable stereotype. I'd like to compare some of his other cartoons, but the Herald Sun is beyond a paywall, he deleted his Twitter account, and his Facebook requires a login, and I don't have nor will I get a Facebook account.

Can you show some of the others, or at least descriptions?

The other player was drawn as darker than the referee. 

She looked like a tanned blonde. Naomi is as dark in skin tone as Serena in real life and she had a few blonde highlights in her hair.

The most egregious example I saw of his other work was one that raised controversy just last month.

http://junkee.com/herald-sun-mark-knight/171138

I would not call depicting a person of color as a "tanned blonde" racist.  There are two depictions of people of color by the same cartoon, one that you claim is racist and one that you don't.  That is a good that cartoonist is not racist, because he is not depicting black people uniformly in one way; you appear to regard one as being a favorable depiction.

On the second one, in the US it would be.  I would two specific questions:

1.  In Australia, are hoodies and ball caps associated with people of African descent?  In America, it would be, but I don't know one way or the other about how things are across the Pacific.

2.  Was this a depiction of previously televised event, in the context of the cartoon?

[J. J.]

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RUJTii3fCR4/UPoqb5QqpRI/AAAAAAAADZA/1EMtHVBTJB0/s1600/Serena%2BWilliams%2BCaricature.jpg
So in light of all this, in reaction to J.J.,I decided to post a non racist Serena Williams caricature. Note the fact that this actually looks more like her. Note that she still looks muscled here but not broadened to look like a gorilla like in the cartoon. Her lips are exaggerated here but not taking up 1/3 of her face in racist cartoon. We see her face an exaggeration of hers here, in the racist one her face just doesn’t look like her. In fact it looks labeled a lot like what an old time mammy( or whatever the Australian slur for aboriginal is) caricature would look like.

I can’t believe I had to do this work to prove to the few non-racist, whistle deaf users here that this is indeed racist.z

Well, the full lips and hips could be considered racist.  I think it legitimate character, but it could be regarded as racist. 

[J. J.]

Here is a cartoon of Jimmy Carter:

Context matters, and all caricaturists should be aware of that. For example, a lot of cartoonists will give disproportionately large and curious noses to politicians, even those with quite dainty little facial features. However, almost everybody (that isn't deliberately trying to cause controversy) will know that drawing a cartoon of, say, Benjamin Netanyahu with a bulbous hook nose would be drawing upon the same anti Semitic tradition as Julius Striecher. Another example would be giving Shinzo Abe a prominent overbite, or, yes, giving Serena Williams large, protuding lips and a simian body.

You mean like this controversial one:



The controversy had nothing to do with his nose, nor the large nose of Druze.   

As Freud said, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

I came across one that "One shows a demonic Hasidic Jew [with a Star of David on his hat] manipulating hand puppets of Bibi Netanyahu and Barack Obama."  Netanyahu is not depicted in a stereotypical Jewish manner nor Obama in a stereotypical African American manner, but the cartoon is clearly antisemitic.  You can follow the link here:  https://medium.com/@AryehCW/why-glenn-greenwald-is-wrong-about-charlie-hebdo-anti-semitic-cartoons-and-satire-b654796a0080

[dead0man]

rules that are only occasionally enforced should not be rules.  In real life or in sport.  Too much potential for abuse.

This is one of the odder misconceptions that's come with the media firestorm: the rules against on-court coaching in Slams are routinely enforced. The issue is the manner of the enforcement, as there will always be an element of subjectivity in the enforcement of the rules in any sport.

that's not what my tennis fan friend said.  He said it's almost never called, especially in the finals of a Grand Slam.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

he did agree with this part though.  Ramos is a bit of a dick and ladies are judged harsher than dudes.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

J.J.'s willful disbelief brings to mind an image of country-club whites in the South in the 1950's patting each other on the back after a round of golf for not being racists because they kept the KKK out of their town, even as the black bartender refills their drinks as they sit at the clubhouse bar the black caddies aren't allowed to get even a drink of water from. The water spigot outside is good enough for them.

It's also gotten me to do something I should've done long ago and put the goldbug on ignore.

[J. J.]

J.J.'s willful disbelief brings to mind an image of country-club whites in the South in the 1950's patting each other on the back after a round of golf for not being racists because they kept the KKK out of their town, even as the black bartender refills their drinks as they sit at the clubhouse bar the black caddies aren't allowed to get even a drink of water from. The water spigot outside is good enough for them.

It's also gotten me to do something I should've done long ago and put the goldbug on ignore.

Frankly, I think that the view that depicting an individual in an editorial cartoon cannot be racist when other people of the same race (and gender) in the same are not depicted that way.  It is saying, "Oh, we cannot depict someone, who happens to be Black, unfavorably, because that person Black." 

That type of thought that an individual cannot be the subject of a negative caricature because of their race, is racist.  It is saying that there should be unequal treatment due to race.

I'm not agreeing with the cartoon, and I think Williams may have a point about unequal treatment, due to gender.

[Lurker]

rules that are only occasionally enforced should not be rules.  In real life or in sport.  Too much potential for abuse.

This is one of the odder misconceptions that's come with the media firestorm: the rules against on-court coaching in Slams are routinely enforced. The issue is the manner of the enforcement, as there will always be an element of subjectivity in the enforcement of the rules in any sport.

that's not what my tennis fan friend said.  He said it's almost never called, especially in the finals of a Grand Slam.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

he did agree with this part though.  Ramos is a bit of a dick and ladies are judged harsher than dudes.

Any actual evidence of this? As in, stats that indicate the female players are punished more often?

[Devout Centrist]

What a pleasure to see so many new tennis fans on this forum, especially JJ!

[Progressive Pessimist]

I don't see what's wrong, Serena Williams is a horrible person.

Let me explain this in simple words:

Serena Williams = black woman
This caricature = blatantly racist in the worst ways
Her personality = irrelevant to that matter

K? Or would you think it's legitimate to depict a Jew as a white-nosed lizard if he's a bad person, or to depict a Muslim as a terrorist if he's just a bad person?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

J.J., spare us the false talking point of this being about a single cartoon.  You actually would have the start of an argument if it were, but as has been pointed out, this cartoonist has a history of using racist stereotypes and yet you continue to defend him.  Sometimes a pipe is indeed a pipe and if you can't see this, you need to smoke something else for a while.

[136or142]

J.J., spare us the false talking point of this being about a single cartoon.  You actually would have the start of an argument if it were, but as has been pointed out, this cartoonist has a history of using racist stereotypes and yet you continue to defend him.  Sometimes a pipe is indeed a pipe and if you can't see this, you need to smoke something else for a while.

This is a Rupert Murdoch 'news' paper.  I don't know why anybody would expect anything different.

[J. J.]

J.J., spare us the false talking point of this being about a single cartoon.  You actually would have the start of an argument if it were, but as has been pointed out, this cartoonist has a history of using racist stereotypes and yet you continue to defend him.  Sometimes a pipe is indeed a pipe and if you can't see this, you need to smoke something else for a while.

I am not saying it is a single cartoon; it is this cartoon, which depicts two people of color.  One of those, you describe as "racist," the other you describe as "a tanned blonde."  Do you feel the "tanned blonde" is a racist depiction?  That is not a hypothetical question.

Here is another cartoon by the same cartoonist, Mark Knight, also about "bad behavior" in tennis.



Kyrgios happens to have a Malaysian mother.  Is that cartoon show a bias against Malaysians?  The woman in the cartoon has a much darker skin color than anyone else in.  Is she of color and, if so, is that depiction racist? 

[Meclazine for Israel]

Sydney Morning Herald's response:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-12/serena-williams-herald-sun-republishes-mark-knight-cartoon/10235886



Mark Knight wrote:

"I saw the world number one tennis player have a huge hissy fit and spit the dummy," Knight said on Tuesday.

"That's what the cartoon was about, her poor behaviour on the court.

"I drew her as an African-American woman. She's powerfully built. She wears these outrageous costumes when she plays tennis. She's interesting to draw. I drew her as she is, as an African-American woman."

[136or142]

Odd that none of the 'anti PC' cartoons depict the idea of billionaire power broker Rupert Murdoch as being 'for you' as the joke that it is, or that none of the cartoons correctly mock climate deniers as the idiots and tools that they are.  Or that Donald Trump supporters are complete morons.

I guess being 'anti PC' is okay as long as its from a right wing perspective.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Kyrgios happens to have a Malaysian mother.  Is that cartoon show a bias against Malaysians?   

Your pathetic response might carry some weight if Knight had drawn cartoons criticising white tennis players when they've behaved badly, and they certainly have. Sadly, all this tack has done is point out an apparent double standard on Knight's part, and your inability to see bias unless a person openly admits to being proud of it.

[Take your vitamins and say your prayers, Brother!]

As for the cartoon, I'll just declare this:  We need to stop all cartoon drawings of people with exaggerated features because those drawn of minority public figures will automatically be excoriated as racist or sexist.  That's it; no more cartoons.  Problem solved.

The folks on Atlas have informed me it's come to that, so I'm going to roll with that.  Better to eliminate the genre' in the event that a racist work might eminate from it than continue the genre and have things like this create these firestorms.

As for Serena Williams' behavior, she was wrong and she compounded her wrongs rather than reversing herself.  That's true, in and of itself.  John McEnroe was a jerk in his time, and contrary to what people say here, he drew a lot of flak and a number of fines and suspensions, and there are, to this day, a certain contingent of tennis fans who simply can't abide John McEnroe for his ungentlemanly antics in a gentleman's game.

Tennis and Golf are non-body contact sports that are designed for people to be able to enjoy for a lifetime.  They are not body contact sports designed for younger athletes (as are football, baseball, hockey, soccer, and even lacrosse), where emotions can be ramped up instantly by hard body contact that raises one's defenses and triggers one's startle responses and "fight-or-flight" impulses.  There is no reason for tantrums in these sports, any more than there is for attorneys to have tantrums in Court.

And for the sport to have integrity, officials need to believe that intimidating tactics against them will not stand.  That's why, in other sports, you have managers and coaches pitching fits; to intimidate officials.  That's also why coaches and players get tossed.  "The ump is right, even when he's wrong!" said my Little League coach, and this was part of teaching youngsters to control their emotions; it's an aspect of all sports that develops maturity and self-control in its participants.

Is Serena Williams a role model?  Of course she is, whether she wants to be one or not.  Bill James, the baseball Sabermetrician, once said "Athletes are Heroes; that is their job." and he's not wrong.  Serena Williams' job that day was to compose herself, redirect herself, and model how other people of all ages should react to undue hardship.  Think about it; how much of the problems of child discipline is due not to the initial act of a child, but from the child's inability to redirect themselves and go on?  Serena Williams, on Worldwide TV, could not perform the emotional task we expect our kids to perform.

Was it a bad call?  Were the bad calls multiplied?  Was the ref a jerk?  Was he biased?   Let's give Serena Williams the benefit of the doubt on all of that; does that justify her behavior?  No, it doesn't, and no one in normal life gets to do that without sanction.  Were there better courses of action?  Playing through it would have been one.  If the wrongs of the ref were egregious, a dignified press conference laying out the injustices would be another.  If the ref was biased, filing a grievance with the ITF.  

Now the question isn't whether the ref was biased, but whether Williams was treated more harshly than unsportsmanlike male tennis players.  And perhaps she has been, but she's also the Number 1 player in the World.  When you're the Number 1 player and you act that way, it has the appearance of a player throwing their weight around to intimidate an official more than if this were, say, a frustrated journeyman having a run of bad luck with ref's calls.  This isn't how a Number 1 player handles it.  To this day, John McEnroe hasn't lived down his reputation as a spoiled brat.

Lots of athletes I know have had bad days and have reacted badly in certain situations.  Some have made it right, and others have continued to be jerks.  One thing I would suggest to Serena Williams is that she's not some sort of essential feature of our society.  We can get along just fine without professional jocks, and people are not unreasonable in expecting that professional jocks model sportsmanship.  I can understand anger about bad calls, and I can forgive untimely outbursts from jocks.  (Forgiveness does come easier when the athlete admits where they're wrong.)  But she's not a victim.  Not at all.  And the idea that she is one is so far beyond reasonable as to be stupefying.

[Badger]

Sydney Morning Herald's response:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-12/serena-williams-herald-sun-republishes-mark-knight-cartoon/10235886



Mark Knight wrote:

"I saw the world number one tennis player have a huge hissy fit and spit the dummy," Knight said on Tuesday.

"That's what the cartoon was about, her poor behaviour on the court.

"I drew her as an African-American woman. She's powerfully built. She wears these outrageous costumes when she plays tennis. She's interesting to draw. I drew her as she is, as an African-American woman."

The fact that in his Mind's Eye this image is one of a typical African American woman, really says all one needs to know.

[Take your vitamins and say your prayers, Brother!]

Sydney Morning Herald's response:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-12/serena-williams-herald-sun-republishes-mark-knight-cartoon/10235886



Mark Knight wrote:

"I saw the world number one tennis player have a huge hissy fit and spit the dummy," Knight said on Tuesday.

"That's what the cartoon was about, her poor behaviour on the court.

"I drew her as an African-American woman. She's powerfully built. She wears these outrageous costumes when she plays tennis. She's interesting to draw. I drew her as she is, as an African-American woman."

The fact that in his Mind's Eye this image is one of a typical African American woman, really says all one needs to know.

Serena Williams is hardly a "typical" African American woman, in any sense of the word.

Again:  Let's do away with this entire genre' of exaggerated cartoons so no one is offended.  Get rid of them all.

[J. J.]

Kyrgios happens to have a Malaysian mother.  Is that cartoon show a bias against Malaysians?   

Your pathetic response might carry some weight if Knight had drawn cartoons criticising white tennis players when they've behaved badly, and they certainly have. Sadly, all this tack has done is point out an apparent double standard on Knight's part, and your inability to see bias unless a person openly admits to being proud of it.

That is a cartoon of of a tennis player behaving badly.  His father is Greek.