The Super Chickens of the world are screaming HE A RACIST. Why? For one thing, he took the same side almost all responsible sports beat reporters did. He didn't buy Serena's whine that a chair umpire was sexist, racist, and a villain who doesn't understand the sanctity of motherhood.
But, being a professional CARICATURIST, he choose to portray Serena in a very unflattering way...throwing a temper tantrum, breaking her racket, and...looking like a big fat-assed child. But, obviously, a BLACK child.
The caricature instantly drew the ire of J.K. Rowling, who spends most of her time bitching and huffing about anything and everything (except book piracy, which she can afford to ignore).
I wonder how J.K. would feel if she was called a pedophile. She's quick to call a cartoonist a racist.
How about calling an author of children's books a pedophile. What is your OBSESSION in life, oh female Rowling who pervertedly chooses a neutral gender "J.K." identity?
Are you hiding a secret male pedophile side of yourself? Can we infer in your weasly works, that you have a THING about underage girls and boys, akin to Jimmy Savile? That instead of writing about adults, you choose to write about hairless kiddies?
Or, are you a WITCH? You seem to dwell on the supernatural, and spells, and all kinds of un-Godly shit, J.K. Are you a WITCH or are you a PEDOPHILE?
Let's be nice about it. PAEDOPHILE. There, I'm using your British pronunciation. You Brits seem to have a strong history in this area, don't you?
OK. Point made, I trust.
If you write about casting spells and shit, you may NOT necessarily be a witch. If you write about children, you aren't necessarily a pervert.
But if your business involves caricature, how do you avoid depicting Serena Williams as being black? Where is that line...that literal DRAWN LINE...between making somebody look ugly because it's your job, and making them look like an ethnic stereotype?
Knight has defended himself only by saying that he took a chance on "punching down," knowing that these days, almost nobody has a sense of humor. Now his family is getting death threats, and the haters of the Internet, always seeking for new victims and new ways to scream HE A RACIST, and sulk about how unfair the world is, are targeting him and his paper.
Add to this, the fact that many are still not over the horrible "racist, sexist" way poor Serena was denied the U.S. Open championship. Billie Jean King has been Twittering that Williams is a victim, and that just because her coach illegally made signals to her, why, that mean umpire should not have called a violation. OBVIOUSLY, that horrible umpire was being SEXIST AND RACIST.
Has anyone praised the U.S. Open for hiring a Latino umpire? Carlos Ramos? Did Billie Jean bother to check this guy's record, and learn that he's a stickler for rules, and made unpleasant calls against various male tennis players? That's an inconvenient truth, when you want to pour out your bile on how unfairly your particular group has been treated.
I go back a long way with both Billie Jean King, Serena Williams and caricaturists. I've always loved caricaturists. Mean as they are, they are hilarious. At least, the best of them. I wouldn't call this guy Knight one of the best. But Jack Davis? Mort Drucker? I was so happy to get a chance to meet the godfather of 'em all, Al Hirschfeld. The subjects of caricature rarely enjoy the cartoon. At best, they pretend they do.
Serena and Venus? I remember when they first started. They had beads in their hair. After winning a doubles match, they would go to the stands where fans wanted autographs, and instead, take beads from their hair and give them as souvenirs. I thought they were charming. I thought they conducted themselves with a lot of class through the years.
When Serena her meltdown at the U.S. Open, it was spectacular. What pressure and anger made her pop so wildly, I have no idea. She wanted that record-setting victory to set her above the fairly forgotten Margaret Court. When she got a coaching violation, she could have (and usually did) put it behind her. True, she told a lineswoman that she'd cram a "fucking ball" down her throat because of a bad call. And yes, she's had a few other instances of physical or verbal foolishness. But mainly, I've seen her be calm on the court, and gracious in defeat.
But instead of ignoring the call (which most sportswriters believed was right, and most who don't follow tennis thought was wrong), she stewed. When things weren't going her way against a tough opponent who had previously beaten her, she threw her racquet. Umpires do not ignore that.
The people who insisted male players get away with throwing a racquet are wrong. The amateurs who recall John McEnroe being bratty THIRTY YEARS AGO, can't point to when he ever threw a racket, or didn't get a warning if he did. In today's game, despite boorishness and laxity in the rules of other sports, tennis has remained fairly traditional. It's not pro wrestling.
Billie Jean's grimace that coaching should be legal...is a point to consider, but it doesn't mean Carlos Ramos was wrong in calling the violation.
The U.S. Open was played under horrific conditions for many days. The weather in NYC was stifling. People struggled along with a "real feel" temperature of 100 sticky, suffocating degrees. Players in early matches sometimes quit when they were behind, rather than risk serious damage. BUT...on the day Serena played her final, it was cool and overcast. She could've been cool, too. Instead, she kept up an amazingly arrogant, condescending monologue about how she deserved an "apology" from the umpire. She kept obnoxiously demanding one. "Where's my APOLOGY?" She also shouted, "You're a THIEF. You STOLE a POINT from me!"
That was the last straw for the umpire, who called her on "verbal abuse." At this point she'd already lost the first set and was well on her way to losing the second. The "verbal abuse" call was well within the rules. Serena's defense was to scream that she hadn't used any dirty words, and that MALE players are much ruder. As if male players don't get called for it? She actually had the game stopped so she could appeal the rule to a higher official. Hell, she's SERENA WILLIAMS, the GREATEST OF ALL TIME. She's going after Margaret Court's record. A little R.E.S.P.E.C.T. please!
Serena went to far as to rant that she would never cheat, and that she was fighting against sexism, and racism, and for MOTHERHOOD. She had a new child! She took off some months to have a baby, and then she came back to tennis, as good as ever. Respect MOTHERHOOD!
The ruling stood. After the match, the crowd booed. The winner was in tears, apologizing for having won. Her first Grand Slam victory had turned into a nightmare for her. Twitter lit up with rage. Sports columnists took the side of Osaka, the winner. Many had little sympathy for Serena and recounted various examples of her rudeness and temper on the court.
As for Billie Jean King, I not only remember her victory against Bobby Riggs, I remember the match before that: when Bobby Riggs, a middle-aged man with a finesse game and little power, made the famous Margaret Court look pathetic. Yes, the same Margaret Court that Serena is so desperate to eclipse.
If I go by the same rules that Rowling has about caricaturists, and that King has about male umpires, should I be so narrow and obnoxious as to suggest that the only reason Billie Jean King beat Riggs, when Court failed, was because she's a lesbian? That while Court (just as good at the time as King) was intimidated by a male, the more masculine King was not? That King's victory was really some kind of lesbian hate-fight against all men? I know: ridiculous. But it seems these days "ridiculous" only goes one way. If something happens to a black, a lesbian, a woman or a Muslim, it's serious. If it happens to a straight white male, or a Jew, for example, it's ridiculous. Unimportant. Forgettable.
King rode the Riggs victory to greater fame than she had as a player. Everybody knew her now as somebody HISTORIC. Wow. She became a feminist symbol of EQUALITY. For doing what? For beating an old man who was a finesse and bloop player, very minor in his prime, and not nearly the challenge of many other old male players?
It would diminish Billie Jean King to challenge what she accomplished in beating Riggs. I also enjoyed it when she appeared with Riggs on an episode of "The Odd Couple," and both had some fun with their fame.
I do understand that the "fun" of caricature is limited to people who enjoy seeing somebody or some incident cruelly lampooned. I get it that people would be dismayed that the cartoonist didn't make the afro smaller, the lips smaller, the butt smaller.
I also understand that even top players can have a meltdown, and find excuses for why it wasn't their fault at all.
I also understand how the side-line trolls get involved, and how Rowling or King, or Andy Roddick, might want to show how indignant, and right-thinking and liberal they are.
We should also understand that these are perilous times for a lot of people, not just minorities, and that some people in the majority are now in the minority because it doesn't serve a higher purpose to give them a break. We should also understand that we are losing our sense of humor in this country. We should also understand that the intolerance displayed by Trump has led us to be more intolerant, trollish and ugly than ever before.
Perhaps, if people hadn't reacted to Serena's loss as if it was a sexist, vicious plot, there wouldn't have been a "racist" cartoon response.
This is how she actually looked. A caricature...is a caricature. It's not intended to be flattering.
Perhaps if Serena had held a press conference and said, "It was one of those days. I overreacted," nobody else would have started raging too.
Some one hundred years ago, D.W. Griffith titled a movie "Intolerance." Nobody remembers the him, anything about the film, or the title. It's history, and history keeps repeating itself, with more and more intolerance.
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