[ad_1]
They do not know what to do with Naomi Osaka.
In a drawing he designed for the Australian Herald Sun on September 10, illustrator Mark Knight represents Serena Williams in the US Tennis Championships finals game. It's a classic racist caricature: Williams appears as a figure-nosed character with neglected hair and big lips reminiscent of the minstrel or mammal.
Behind Williams is his competitor Naomi Osaka. Its appearance has been distilled to its lowest common denominator: fair skin, thin frame, blond hair. She might as well be Maria Sharapova.
Caricatures, by their nature, are intended to distort and exaggerate. But they also want to be symbolic, representative; shortcut for a concept or idea.
Here the story is clear: Williams is considered the big ugly black woman and angry. Osaka, on the other hand, has been described as an innocent white girl, even if she is not even white.
Many tennis fans have pointed out that Carlos Ramos' small referee stole Williams and Osaka from what should have been a much less controversial game. But Osaka has been deprived of something else: his agency, his identity, his story and his darkness.
During the talks, Osaka insisted on accepting both her Asian and Black heritage, admitting that she represents Japan at sporting events, but that she does not identify herself as Japanese only. She proudly represents her Haitian side.
Yet the biracial identity of Osaka is embarrassing in a racist narrative that turns Williams into a stereotype. It is more appropriate to focus on all things that are not stereotyped: her clear skin, her soft nature, her tearful apology after winning the match. In this way, Osaka is framed, if not as a white woman, and then as a more acceptable and acceptable version of darkness – like the kind of black person who does not make you recognize their darkness.
But there are actually two stories at play here. There is one in which Osaka is reduced to a silent and silent victim; in tears; not quite white, but not black either. Journalists ask him if Williams' "behavior" has caused Osaka to lose its respect, reinforcing coded stereotypes that have everything to do with colorism, the myths of model minorities, and the implicit hatred of Black women's culture like Serena Williams. .
And then there is this other story, opposed and well-meaning, that portrays Williams as a feminist activist, fighting for women's rights and double standards in a sport that treated her unjustly on the basis of race and sex .
In the case of her match against Osaka on Saturday, Williams's actions, the way she broke that racket, the manner in which she demanded respect from the referee, recall all the times she was forced to smile and to grit your teeth. arbitrary dress codes or frequent random drug testing, or racist insults and insults from certain tennis audiences.
I fought with this story as well, because although it is important and valuable in many ways, it is also an oversimplification of what happened during this game.
Because what happened during the match was not only political. It was deeply personal. It was a human drama played for millions of people. It was bigger than all the stories we could put there. The cartoon, the headlines – they all conform to the constant and collective inability of the culture to see black women as complex and capable of expressing a myriad of emotions, from anger to joy through to the despair. Or to allow two black women to achieve excellence at the same time.
Knight's drawing is what happens when we flatten entire human beings, when the story and its stories become much more important than the nuance. In the process, racist and sexist assumptions are perpetuated and we deprive people of their right to be weak and strong, of the totality of their humanity.
Here is the bottom line: Saturday, two talented tennis players – a black, a Japanese and black – played a deeply emotional game, and these emotions came to the surface for a host of reasons.
But it was not a question of villain and victim, good or bad, black and white. Williams is an icon, a legend. And she is a fallible and whole human being. Just as Osaka is more than just Japanese, more than tearful and apologetic. She is a fierce competitor with a distinct personal story, and not a symbol of acceptable blackness to armament against Williams.
Indeed, she has a lot of things, but what matters perhaps the most, is who she can be seen, especially on the court:
"I'm just a tennis player who plays another tennis player," said Osaka after accepting his trophy.
It would be nice if Knight and all the other people who are trying to shape how we see this game go forward can remember it.
[ad_2]
Source link
