As Umpires Threatened to Boycott Serena Williams, It's Time to Stop Downplaying the Role of Racism

<p class = "canvas-atom-canvas-text Mb (1.0em) Mb (0) – sm Mt (0.8em) – sm" type = "text" content = "The Times of London is reporting that professional tennis umpires have threatened to boycott officiating Serena Williams' future matches after she's sitting officiating Carlos Ramos of "stealing" her points in the US Open. One of the umpires' bones of contention, supposedly, is that the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) and the United States Tennis Association (USTA) have backed Williams' claims of sexism in Ramos' docking the tennis star of two points, which may have cost The final against Naomi Osaka. "data-reactid =" 11 "> The Times of London is reporting that professional tennis umpires have threatened to boycott officiating Serena Williams' future matches after she's sitting officiating Carlos Ramos of "stealing" her points in the US Open. One of the umpires' bones of contention, supposedly, is that the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) and the United States Tennis Association (USTA) have backed Williams' claims of sexism in Ramos' docking the tennis star of two points, which may have cost her the final against Naomi Osaka.

How to get to grips with the world of sexism, which Williams has implied, conversations about Williams' treatment at the 2018 US .

<p class = "canvas-atom-canvas-text Mb (1.0em) Mb (0) – sm Mt (0.8em) – sm" type = "text" content = "BBC News 2018 tennis Grand Slams had a small amount of deductions, on average, than their male counterparts. But race was not taken into account in this calculus. It should have been. "Data-reactid =" 20 ">BBC News 2018 tennis Grand Slams had a small amount of deductions, on average, than their male counterparts. But race was not taken into account in this calculus. It should have been.

Williams, like Arthur Ashe and other Black tennis players before, has endured an uphill battle by virtue of simply playing a sport which has been segregated for centuries and considered a white nobleman's game. In fact, there have only been 28 Black men and 35 Black women to play tennis at an elite level, ever.

While Williams' pink star, so did racist attacks against her. She's been booed. She's been called the N-word. She and her sister, Venus were called "The Williams Brothers" because of their powerful physics and prowess on the court, and more. All along, Serena has been the target of messaging that she is not welcome in the sport she dominates. We can not ignore the role of racism.

What Williams Said to Ramos at the US Open, "Thief," was innocuous compared to what others said in the past. She did not threaten, and she did not curse. But the argument is not about whether it was not right: it's about the repercussions it incurred, which included a $ 17,000 fine in addition to the two-point deduction.

<p class = "canvas-atom-canvas-text Mb (1.0em) Mb (0) – sm Mt (0.8em) – sm" type = "text" content = "Videos of white tennis players berating umpires, multiple smashing rackets, threatening officials, and even hitting umpires with balls can easily be found online. There are not any of the players in the game. "Data-reactid =" 24 "> Videos of white tennis players berating umpires, multiple smashing rackets, threatening officials, and even hitting umpires with balls can easily be found online. There does not seem to be any instance of mass-boycott to result from those players' actions.

Consider John McEnroe (who sides with Williams), who abhor on-court behavior has become an almost beloved signature in professional tennis. Compare people with the experience of Williams, arguably the best living tennis player on earth, who in 2018 must still face racist cartoons that depict her physical and features styled in the way Black people were drawn during the height of the Jim Crow era.

Depictions of Osaka after her defeat of Williams also reinforce anti-Black stereotypes. Though Osaka is both Japanese and Haitian, is very obviously biracial, and grew up in Florida, it tends to be simply "Japanese." In the high-profile, racist cartoon that emerged after the US Open, Osaka was not even depicted at all – a blonde nondescript player was drawn in her place. Erasing Osaka's own Blackness serves to further isolate Williams as an aggressive outlier in her sport, and advances the racist trope of the violent, angry Black woman.

<p class = "canvas-atom-canvas-text Mb (1.0em) Mb (0) – sm Mt (0.8em) – sm" type = "text" content = "With the umpires threatening to boycott Williams' future games , they are saying that the most tennis players have had the best outbursts on the court, it's particularly the outbursts of the greatest tennis player of all time – a Black women – that are so damaging to their profession. "data-reactid =" 27 "> With the umpires threatening to boycotton Williams' future games, they are saying that they most (if not all) professional tennis players have had similar outbursts on the short, it's particularly the outbursts of the greatest tennis player of all time – a Black women – that are so damaging to their profession.

<p class = "canvas-atom-canvas-text Mb (1.0em) Mb (0) – sm Mt (0.8em) – sm" type = "text" content = " (Photo by Elsa / Getty Images)"data-reactid =" 28 "> (Photo by Elsa / Getty Images)

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