After Australian cartoonist Mark Knight created a caricature of Serene Williams’ temper tantrum at the U.S. Open, leftists quickly labeled Knight and his cartoon sexist and racist. Apparently, it’s both sexist and racist to point out when a black woman gets angry.
The brouhaha reminds me of an old Dave Chappelle bit where the comic relates a time when a restaurant assumed that he would order chicken because he’s black. Chappelle opines to the laughing audience, “All these years, I thought I liked chicken because it was delicious. Turns out, I’m genetically predisposed to liking chicken.”
[Caution: the video’s language is NSFW]
Chappelle’s point should be self-evident: Of course black people love chicken, it’s delicious. That’s why white people love chicken and brown people love chicken and every-other-other-color people love chicken. Chicken is almost universally recognized as delicious.
You know what else is universal? Anger and selfishness. And, because she is a human who makes mistakes like the rest of us, Serena Williams threw a temper tantrum at the U.S. Open this past weekend. Except pointing out that Serena Williams is a flawed human just like every other woman (and man) is considered sexist and racist.
In case you’ve been avoiding the internet for the last four days, during the U.S. Open Women’s final, Serena Williams was penalized for breaking the rules. Now, in the issue of full disclosure, I’m no tennis aficionado and am unfamiliar with the nuances and peculiarities of the game. But, as I’ve read and listened to talking heads expound on the event, the general consensus is that Williams did break the rules. In fact, as ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith points out, the judge Serena Williams directed her ire at is known for expecting strict adherence from not just women but also men and harshly penalizing men.
The facts don’t matter, of course, and Serena Williams turned the whole thing into a statement on race and gender. Almost in unison, with a few exceptions, the left threw their collective hands in the air and joined in on Williams’ temper tantrum.
That’s the abbreviated version of events which brings us back to Mark Knight’s cartoon.
In the face of the accusations of sexism and racism, Knight told the Australia Broadcasting Corporation, “When I watched the U.S. Open, I was sitting there like everybody else, and I saw a world number 1 tennis player have a huge hissy fit and spit the dummy. That’s what the cartoon is about, her poor behavior on the court. Nothing to do with gender or racism at all.” His Twitter account has since disappeared, likely a result of the backlash from the cartoon.
Even if Serena is granted her argument that she was penalized for being a woman (which doesn’t make sense because she was playing another woman of color), Knight would still be correct that she had “a huge hissy fit” and behaved poorly on Saturday.
Because of her level of success and fame, Serena has multiple platforms to promote whatever message she wants. Stealing the spotlight from Naomi Osaka, the winner, is not okay. What should have been a glorious moment and career highlight for Osaka was ruined by Serena’s hissy fit. By her actions at the U.S. Open on Saturday, Serena displayed selfishness and a temper. The thing is, no one race or gender has a monopoly on selfish anger. Serena Williams was not acting like a black woman; she was acting like a human.
Stepping back and observing the criticism of Mark Knight’s cartoon, sexism and racism do peek their nasty heads out. By not allowing people to point out when women act like normal humans, leftists are denying that women are normal humans. In the leftist world, women are not allowed to get angry, be selfish, or throw temper tantrums. That sounds a lot like the oppressive Victorian ideals that denied women the full range of human emotions. Like the racist in the Dave Chappelle bit, leftists are denying universal human attributes to women.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member