Venus Williams, left, and Serena Williams, right, during their women’s doubles match on day nine of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in London, Tuesday, July 5, 2016. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Why does race have to be the wildcard in so many controversies?
Frankly, it’s hard to pick a side in most sports arguments these days. The president made it a race issue when the National Anthem protests became a hot button in the National Football League by insulting the players, most of whom are African-American.
Now, all the controversy about Serena Williams at the U.S. Open has a racial overtone that makes it hard to look at her penalties and fines and loss in the finals objectively.
The first wave of reaction was clearly racial, why the chair judge took away a point for getting sideline help for her coach and smashing her racket and an entire game for calling that judge a thief. Those violations and penalties should be adjudicated without race.
Men get penalized and fined for such all the way back to John “You Can’t Be Serious” McEnroe to current U.S. Open champion Novak Djokovic, whose outbursts and temper tantrums have cost him. And certainly, this isn’t the first time Serena lost her temper and even threatened line judges.
But because Serena is perhaps the greatest athlete of all time – among men and women – and she’s a 37-year-old new mother trying to win a 24th grand slam title should not giver her a pass. If Carlos Ramos had never taken points and games away in major events before, that’s one thing. But he has from white men.
Serena has earned our respect and even love from coming from a common background and dominating the game. She doesn’t deserve criticism for her looks, her hefty build or her loud outfits. She is an athletic phenomenon like we’ve never seen before and perhaps will never see again.
But as gracious as she is toward her fans and shows wonderful sportsmanship most of the time, she does lose it on occasion. Even with the severity of the penalties in the U.S. Open final, she could have come back and won. But she unraveled after the blowout and lost to who turned out to be a better player that day.
The reaction has been split from white Billie Jean King to ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith, a black commentator. It makes finding objectivity very hard.
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