It was an eventful weekend in pop culture this past weekend, and one instance that caught world wide attention was Serena Williams’ tennis match against 20-year-old Naomi Osaka. Williams, 36, was docked a game after calling the umpire a “thief.” This led Osaka to winning her first Grand Slam title on Saturday, beating Williams in what seems to be the most controversial US Open final.
To make matters worst, the Internet went crazy today after an Australian cartoonist, Mark Knight, shared his very racist sketch of what he perceived to have taken place that day.
twitter.com/Knightcartoons/status/1039017329030393856
Knight’s cartoon was published in The Herald Sun, a Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper. The extremely derogatory illustration shows Williams as a literal big baby having a tantrum on the tennis court. The nearly undefeated tennis player is shown with enlarged lips jumping up and down with a spat-out pacifier alongside her. Her fists are also clenched like an angry child.
Not only did they have our girl Serena looking crazy, but the cartoon also shows Osaka, who is of Haitian-Japanese descent, as a white girl with blonde hair…seriously, where they do that at? One can clearly look at Osaka and see that her hair is not at all blonde, or straight.
Well done on reducing one of the greatest sportswomen alive to racist and sexist tropes and turning a second great sportswoman into a faceless prop. https://t.co/YOxVMuTXEC
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) September 10, 2018
The Set Back
J.K. Rowling was one of many angered public figures, but Kathy Griffin also had something to say as well as a ton of woke twitter fans. It’s just crazy how in 2018 it is still ok to publish something blatantly racist and sexist about one of the best female tennis players in the world. What y’all think?