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Black Kos, Week In Review: Have tennis fans become less racist over the last 20 years? [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-09-15
Commentary by Black Kos editor JoanMar
Tennis crowned a new queen at the US Open this past weekend. Nineteen-year-old Coco Gauff fought her way into winning her first grand slam title. She became the youngest American woman to reach the final since her idol, Serena Williams, did in 2001.
x Congratulations to @CocoGauff for winning the US Open this weekend! You’ve shown that was hard does pay off. Sticking to your values actually does the whole world a favor. Thank you for being unapologetically excellent and showing us what a true athlete looks like! #CocoGauff pic.twitter.com/u7RjZz0eOc — Tyler Gordon (@tygordonsworld) September 14, 2023
As I watched the games, I couldn’t help but reflect on the huge difference between Coco’s champion journey and that of Serena 22 years ago. For every match that she played, Coco was the undisputable crowd favorite. The spectators loudly and enthusiastically rooted for her. They lifted her up when she was down, and in danger of staying down, and even had one (white) player in tears at what she described as the fans “making her out to be a bad person.” It was beautiful to see this young Black player actually having and enjoying homecourt advantage. That was not the case for Serena or Venus 20 years ago. In Serena’s 2011 run, she had to go up against the reigning tennis darling at the time, Switzerland’s Martina Hingis, and there was absolutely no doubt for whom the American crowd rooted. Ahem… it was not for the American. Back then, analysts spoke glowingly about the Swiss Miss’s intelligence and her superior tennis intellect. They openly contrasted her play with that of the “physical,” “athletic,” “powerful” Sisters. Venus and Serena would make history when they faced each other in the Final that year. But the crowds and the analysts/commentators were less concerned about that historic fact and more exercised about allegations that Richard Williams had fixed the match. For the actual game, the crowd was polite.
x Coco Gauff says Serena & Venus Williams are the reason she has the US Open trophy today:
“They’re the reason why I have this trophy today. They’ve allowed me to believe in this dream. Growing up, there weren’t too many black tennis players dominating the sport. It was just them… pic.twitter.com/IJN1viI4nx — The Tennis Letter (@TheTennisLetter) September 10, 2023
After Coco’s win on Saturday, Chris Evert said, “It’s hard to play an American in this arena.” CNN’s tennis reporter repeated the very same words on her report of the game. I laughed out loud the first time and snickered the second. Really? What short memories.
If Chrissy Evert talks long enough, the racism/bigotry is gonna seep out. Trust me. “She’s so humble,” Evert said of Coco after the match. As innocuous as the words may sound, they weren’t issued in a vacuum. To Evert, Navratilova, and their fellow commentators/analysts, the Williams sisters were not humble enough. They were not grateful enough. The nerve of them! We allowed you into our sport and you have the nerve to have outside interests. Arrogantly not playing in every tournament and then swooping in to win all the big tournaments. Wearing nonconforming attire (including those dangerous, life-threatening beads!), having media engagements, having businesses(!).
So now, what do we make of this seemingly overwhelming support for Coco? In the years since 2001, I contend that commentators haven’t gotten more socially conscious; rather, they’ve gotten more adept at controlling their language, and more aware of the backlash they’d face if the white robes were allowed to peek through. What of the spectators? In the era of donaldfuckingtrump and his all-pervading stench, racial attitudes have gotten worse, not better. So what gives in the tennis world?
Is this a new breed of tennis fans? Are there less bigots attending the games? Is it that they find Coco less threatening than the Williams Sisters? For the record, Coco is far more outspoken about political and race matters than the Sisters ever were. (Being Jehovah Witnesses, they were/are not permitted to get involved in “affairs of the world.”) A good test of where we really are may be the next time Coco goes up against Jessica Pegula. Who will the fans choose to support then?
In tennis — as in previously lily white gymnastics — Black athletes have stormed the citadel. The gate has been kicked off its hinges, and there’s no way to hold the fort. This shift in crowd support may simply be a case of resignation: “If we can’t beat ‘em, we might as well join ‘em.”
I’d love to hear your opinions on the matter.
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News round up by dopper0189, Black Kos Managing Editor
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Philyaw's debut short story collection won the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Story Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and is being adapted for TV by HBO Max. Associated Press: Author Deesha Philyaw has a 7-figure deal for her next two books
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Prize-winning fiction writer Deesha Philyaw, who struggled to find a publisher for what became her acclaimed debut “The Secret Lives of Church Ladies,” has a 7-figure deal for her next two books. Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, announced Thursday that it had signed up Philyaw and will publish her novel “The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman” in 2025. Mariner calls the book a “biting satire” of the Black church and “a deeply provocative” story about family, friendship and “sexual agency.” Philyaw, who attended several different churches as a child, is centering the novel around a megachurch leader. “In writing True Confessions, I really wanted to explore the narratives that 40- and 50-something Black women sometimes tell ourselves - as well as the narratives told about us - regarding our desires and aspirations,” Philyaw said in a statement. Her second book for Mariner, “Girl, Look,” is billed by the publisher as a “poignant new collection, giving a vivid snapshot of the interior lives of Black women across generations, drawing readers to consider Black women and girls’ vulnerabilities, invisibility, and beautiful contradictions, in a post-COVID, post-Breonna Taylor world.” Mariner has not set a release date for “Girl, Look.” “The Secret Lives of Church Ladies,” a collection of nine stories, was released by West Virginia University Press after several major New York publishers turned it down. It won the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Story Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and is being adapted for television by HBO Max.
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Rwanda’s atomic energy board says it has signed a deal with a Canadian-German company to build its first small-scale nuclear reactor to test what the company claims is a new approach for nuclear fission. Associated Press: Rwanda will host a company’s 1st small-scale nuclear reactor testing carbon-free energy approach
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Rwanda’s atomic energy board says it has signed a deal with a Canadian-German company to build its first small-scale nuclear reactor to test what the company asserts is a new nuclear fission approach in one of the world’s most densely populated countries.
Rwandan officials said Tuesday that the reactor won’t produce any electricity for the country’s grid. Instead, it will explore the technology developed by Dual Fluid Energy Inc. to address the need for low-carbon energy.
If all goes well, officials said, Rwanda and the company could set up a production line of such reactors in the central African nation as the country turns to nuclear power to help meet growing energy needs and adapt to climate change.
Much of the country’s electricity comes from hydropower and diesel plants, according to the Rwanda Energy Group, and only about 68% of people have access to electricity.
Dual Fluid Energy, founded in Canada in 2021, is one of more than 20 small modular reactor projects in development — using various approaches and fuels — that were assessed in a report this year by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Nuclear Energy Agency.
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