Is this impression of Serena Williams a form of blackface?

[Addien]

I just want TerraPrime to know that I love him.

[Fragile Bird]

Except the point is that the format of the mockery is a recycling of previous racist tropes. Sometimes, it can be both a floor wax AND a dessert topping.

Yes, for Americans. For the child of Polish parents born in Denmark, highly unlikely. For a lot of us Canadians, we saw someone who indicated she was disguised as Serena with some padding, having fun, not someone using a racist trope making a political statement.

[Yana]

Honestly, I believe that the "racist" part of the story is the reaction everyone had after this, confirming all the stereotypes about the racial body images. Having said that, I still believe it was a very poor and rude joke. Making fun of someone for the way they look is definitely not ok.

Wozniacki was out of line. That, however, doesn't surprise me, she is rude and annoying and pretty average player, no wonder she tries so hard to attract attention.

[IheartTesla]

Tesla I really object to your logic on diversity, living and working in inner city Sydney I'm exposed to constant racial and cultural diversity. Living and working in northern Idaho I saw 10-20 people of color (including Latinos, I'm not sure if POC usually encompass them or not) in a year.

I think you are being more than a little unfair comparing inner city Sydney to northern Idaho. And my purpose isn't to diminish your Sydneys and Torontos and what valuable insights those cauldrons of cultural diversity bring to racial understanding in your respective countries, but simply to mention we have much more of the same. That is, for every Sydney we have a DC and an LA and a Seattle and a Miami (heck lets throw in Boston too).

Also, the US is a unique snowflake when it comes to race relations particularly because of our (well, I aint American but I feel like I can speak knowledgably about this) history. And it is primarily because of that many of us are more sensitive to issues pertaining to race.

Anyway it may be that Serena is ok with all of this, and that is fine, but it could also be that people of an older generation (for instance) may not be ok with this, and I'd at least acknowledge that sentiment a little bit.

Final point, I cant really respond to all the 'segregation' talk in current day America. Someone will have to be more specific as to what they are talking about.

[Fragile Bird]

Honestly, I believe that the "racist" part of the story is the reaction everyone had after this, confirming all the stereotypes about the racial body images. Having said that, I still believe it was a very poor and rude joke. Making fun of someone for the way they look is definitely not ok.

Wozniacki was out of line. That, however, doesn't surprise me, she is rude and annoying and pretty average player, no wonder she tries so hard to attract attention.

She's 22 years old, she's won 20 singles titles, she was number one in the WTA for 67 weeks, I wouldn't call her an average player. As far as I can tell, pretty well all the tennis players are pretty rude, because the sport attracts strong, aggressive players from both sexes. A colleague of mine played US college tennis, not good enough to turn pro, and she is so A type she runs circles around everyone in the office. Go, go, go. And yes, she calls a spade a spade and (or a mother fucking shovel, if necessary :lol: ) and has an good sense of fun.

[karaddin]

Well two points in response, the first is that Sydney is where I have lived since I was 17 apart from my year living in Couer d'Alene Idaho so they are two places I have personal experience in to draw a comparison. The other is that the unfair comparison is the point, an individuals exposure to racial diversity and tension is heavily influenced by the locality that they live in, I don't see what relevance to an individuals opinion there is whether there is 1 Sydney or 100 Sydney's in their country, what matters is whether they live in a Sydney or a CDA Idaho. I think perhaps I was misunderstanding the point you were arguing and it wasn't about an individual within a country but rather the racial culture of the country? If so that makes a lot more sense to me.

Regardless I yield that Americans certainly have more perspective on white vs black racial issues than anywhere else, and these arguments seem to largely revolve around people from outside that cultural context being ignorant of that context. In this case the impression I have is that there would be a decent chunk of Americans who would have been ignorant of any potential racial overtone, and not due to them being racists, but obviously I could be wrong.

Whether a non american needs to be concerned about this when not even in America is another conversation, but complicated in this case by the target of the gag being american.

[Sci-2]

I can't believed I missed another episode of "In Soviet Russia, You Who Sees Racism is Racist!"

This might be light hearted, malicious but not intentionally racist, or just plain racist. I haven't seen anything that clarifies what Serena thought, though I missed a lot of pages here...

[Ken Stone]

Honestly, I believe that the "racist" part of the story is the reaction everyone had after this, confirming all the stereotypes about the racial body images. Having said that, I still believe it was a very poor and rude joke. Making fun of someone for the way they look is definitely not ok.

Wozniacki was out of line. That, however, doesn't surprise me, she is rude and annoying and pretty average player, no wonder she tries so hard to attract attention.

I agree with the first part of what you said, but disagree it was rude. She pretty much "made fun of her" for having an awesome body. It's not the type of thing you really get upset over, I wouldn't think.

[Shryke]

Yes, for Americans. For the child of Polish parents born in Denmark, highly unlikely. For a lot of us Canadians, we saw someone who indicated she was disguised as Serena with some padding, having fun, not someone using a racist trope making a political statement.

Yeah, this seems like it wasn't meant as racist, wasn't seen as racist by Serena and only takes on racial connotations for some people for whom the racial stereotype is something they know of and thought of.

Seems a pretty thin thing to hang the "it's racism" argument on.

[TerraPrime]

Re: Shryke and Fragile Bird

Yeah, this seems like it wasn't meant as racist, wasn't seen as racist by Serena and only takes on racial connotations for some people for whom the racial stereotype is something they know of and thought of.

Seems a pretty thin thing to hang the "it's racism" argument on.

Yes, for Americans. For the child of Polish parents born in Denmark, highly unlikely. For a lot of us Canadians, we saw someone who indicated she was disguised as Serena with some padding, having fun, not someone using a racist trope making a political statement.

Let's be more precise here.

I am not accusing Wozniacki of being a racist.

I am saying that the way she mocked Serena Williams' body matched the same race-based denigration of black women's bodies of yore, and which still goes in under different guises today. I am, as I alluded to in drawing a comparison to the sexism in atheist conventions incident, responding more to the reactions to someone pointing the racial element of that jest.

I have done things and said things that were racial in nature without being aware of the meaning. For instance, I was saying "I got gyp'd" up till about 5 years ago because I was not aware that it was derived from the negative stereotype concerning the Roma culture (didn't make the connection since I thought it's "jibb'ed"). Did I cause offense to others along the way? Of course I did, even though I did not intend to.

Some people intend to cause offense, but most don't. I think we accept that, in general, when some kind of insulting remark is made, it's more likely due to thoughtlessness or ignorance than it is to true malice. The reaction to these incidents, however, is more troubling sometimes than the actual incident itself. None of us perfect and I am sure I will continue to use racist language inadvertently at some point. When it is point out to me, however, it'd be rude and inconsiderate to then defend my error by arguing that those who took offense, rightfully so, are wrong to do so, or that they're over-sensitive, or that they're playing the race card, or any number of things that further trivialize their experience. If there's a cogent argument that's historically and culturally relevant as to why a word or a phrase is racist, then I'm glad that someone takes the time to educate me (like I learned from British folks that "Paki" is an offensive term).

But, you know, to each their own. As I answered Mr. E., there's absolutely no compelling reason why anyone should care about this stuff. I'm just glad that quite a few people do.

Re: Addien

I just want TerraPrime to know that I love him.

As Wilde said of people losing their parents, once is a misfortune, but twice and it looks like carelessness. ;)

[Sci-2]

Either we are free to say what we want, or we are not.

That applies legally. I'm not sure why that'd even be an issue here.

[Shryke]

But you are saying, or just heavily implying, that it's racist on some level anyway.

It's like, if I meet a guy from some fictional caribbean island where the local stereotype is that black people are a bunch of lazy, stupid geese jugglers. And while hanging out with his guy and my black friend, I tell my black friend to juggle some geese for us.

Am I being racist or just making a Firefly reference? Depends who you ask it seems to me.

If I was accused of racism for that comment, I'd consider it ridiculous and I'd bet so would anyone else not from this fictional island. Is it actually an error? Why should I feel it is? What makes something racist? What gives something racial connotations? How many people have to think it's racist before it matters?

Because that seems the fundamental question here. Some want people to feel bad about this incident. Either because it's racist to begin with or because they don't believe it's got any racial connotations. And they are doing this based on a premise that is in no way universal.

So it seems really a question of how many people do you think need to think what Wozniacki did was not cool before we can start throwing around normative statements about this shit.

[Galactus]

, the US is a unique snowflake when it comes to race relations particularly because of our (well, I aint American but I feel like I can speak knowledgably about this) history. And it is primarily because of that many of us are more sensitive to issues pertaining to race.

It's really not. Most of the americas have similar issues and history, as does eg. South Africa. There's nothing really special about the USA in that regard, it's just how these settler-colonies look.

[TerraPrime]

But you are saying, or just heavily implying, that it's racist on some level anyway.

It is racist, "on some level." To be exact, it's on the level of fetishizing and sexualizing black people due to the association of black people being more animalistic and thus less in control of their desires. It's a different sort of exiticizing than, say, East Asian women get or the de-sexualizing that East-Asian men get, but all of these are racist at their roots.

If I was accused of racism for that comment, I'd consider it ridiculous and I'd bet so would anyone else not from this fictional island. Is it actually an error? Why should I feel it is? What makes something racist? What gives something racial connotations? How many people have to think it's racist before it matters?

Because that seems the fundamental question here. Some want people to feel bad about this incident. Either because it's racist to begin with or because they don't believe it's got any racial connotations. And they are doing this based on a premise that is in no way universal.

So it seems really a question of how many people do you think need to think what Wozniacki did was not cool before we can start throwing around normative statements about this shit.

I believe I answered that already:

Some people intend to cause offense, but most don't. I think we accept that, in general, when some kind of insulting remark is made, it's more likely due to thoughtlessness or ignorance than it is to true malice. The reaction to these incidents, however, is more troubling sometimes than the actual incident itself. None of us perfect and I am sure I will continue to use racist language inadvertently at some point. When it is point out to me, however, it'd be rude and inconsiderate to then defend my error by arguing that those who took offense, rightfully so, are wrong to do so, or that they're over-sensitive, or that they're playing the race card, or any number of things that further trivialize their experience. If there's a cogent argument that's historically and culturally relevant as to why a word or a phrase is racist, then I'm glad that someone takes the time to educate me (like I learned from British folks that "Paki" is an offensive term).

I mean, take the "Paki" example. I'm not British. I do not live in the U.K. Does that mean that I'm in the right to argue with someone on whether the word "Paki" is a racist term? Will you? Will you seriously argue with a U.K. resident who objected to someone on this board using the word "Paki" because, hell, that's their racial baggage, not yours!

[Elder Sister]

Actually, you're perftectly right about that.

The trouble is, this is an internal American issue. Other countries didn't have millions of black slaves in 2nd half of 19th century, didn't tear themselves apart with half a million deaths because some people wanted to keep slavery on the menu, then went on with massive segregation well into 20th century; as others said, other countries don't have the same past with horrible treatment of Black people - mostly, I think, because they just didn't have a sizable Black minority, they sold Africans into slavery in centuries past but didn't keep them in vast numbers in the metropolis.

Considering the segregation and all the racist crap that went on to keep the Black minority down, it's no wonder people are sensitive over these issues in the USA. Specially since all is not well and rosy even nowadays.

But Americans need to deal with the most blatant racial problems in America first, not waste time looking at everything silly foreigners with a quite different history of race relationship (and usually with only a very recent racial cohabitation history) will do, because things can't be considered the same way - besides, having some European blokes changing their behaviour towards other races won't help in any way to improve the lot of the US Black community, it'll just be a waste your time instead of targetting what can really be usefully done.

Now, if people want to look for awfully racist stuff, it isn't hard. Go to some football game in Europe and see the moronic fans making monkey noises or throwing bananas to the few Black players; this kind of repulsive shit occurs fairly often, despite clubs and organisations denials. That's racism, racist stereotyping, racist slur.

I actually agree with your statement that I bolded. However, I answered the way I did in the response that you quoted because the OP asked if I thought it was racist. I did, and still do. The question wasn't if the global community, or if the country of Russia finds her antics racist. The question was whether I do or not.

Regarding your comments about America, I think they are right on the money. I wish more of my countrymen had the ability to speak as honestly as you do about race relations. I think if they did, we would be in a much better place. Racism is still a very real problem. We have a large segment of the white population in total denial about this. We have a tremendous issue in the African American community with drugs, crime, and poverty, and an unwillingness to address some of these issues. I was hopeful that Obama would do this; we'll see.

Also, regarding your point about this being an 'American' problem, if you are a global participant in an international sport, it behooves you to comport yourself in a way that does not reflect poorly on yourself or others. Obviously, Russia doesn't have the race issues we have in America. But how hard is it to Google some of this crap? It took Terra all of what, five seconds to pull that crap up?

Come on.

[TerraPrime]

It took Terra all of what, five seconds to pull that crap up?

7 seconds!! And then I spent at least 2 minutes checking each link and picked 3 (because someone once said that link dumping your Google results does not constitute evidence for argument).

[Castel]

Also, regarding your point about this being an 'American' problem, if you are a global participant in an international sport, it behooves you to comport yourself in a way that does not reflect poorly on yourself or others. Obviously, Russia doesn't have the race issues we have in America. But how hard is it to Google some of this crap? It took Terra all of what, five seconds to pull that crap up?

Why would you google it when it had no bearing on your decision at all? Without context you don't really think about stepping lightly. Do you google every joke you make of a friend? For some I imagine that the possibility of an issue doesn't really register.

[Sci-2]

I think it's more when you hear something has racist connotations, one should find out more info about it.

If this isn't intentionally racist, and it's something this player has done before, then one big question is what Serena thought. Was it a joke between friends?

If it's an accident, then it still is a teachable moment. Like TP said, sometimes we do things that are offensive without realizing it. When it's unintentional, I don't think there needs to be a penalty (still seems unprofessional to me).

But it might be a good time to stop.

[Darth Visenya]

It's not racist, it is however rude, yes Wozniacki may be a lot more attractive than Serena but doing what she did is a very unattractive personality trait.

[Sci-2]

yes Wozniacki may be a lot more attractive than Serena

:dunno: :shocked: :stunned:

[amazing how things vary from person to person]