Mark Knight defends ‘racist’ cartoon image of Serena Williams

I’m late to this story because quite frankly I don’t care. But my final verdict is the cartoon is racist primarily because the artist used a white girl where a mixed race girl should be along with a judge talking to what appears to be a white girl trying to convince her to let Serena Williams win. In regards to the image of Serena Williams I was willing to ignore that image, along with the image of the pacifier, however, what I can’t excuse is the blatant use ethnicity of Naomi Osaka in that image.

Is Serena Williams a diva? I don’t know, probably, but artists tend to interpret things from their lens of reality and in this instance, the artist couldn’t resist in making Serena Williams’s opponent appear to be an aboriginal European woman. Nor could he resist the temptation to make it appear as if Serena Williams had been losing to European women her entire career, which may or may not has been true? I don’t know because I don’t really follow tennis.

My point here is if you’re going to embellish the racial characteristics of the Black or African American woman, you should have done or at least attempted to do the same thing with Naomi Osaka who is of mixed race and who doesn’t have a straight European aborigines nose.

During the match, Naomi Osaka did appear to dye her hair a dirty blonde but she certainly didn’t look like the individual depicted in that image. The depictions in that image appear to be rooted in animosity the Australian artist either has with Black Americans or possibly Australian aborigines as a whole.

Humans have a habit of internalizing problems they might have with other groups or individuals or people that remind them of particular persons and expressing that animosity via their chosen art form. European decent people aren’t the only ones guilty of doing this, but it exists.

I call it as I see it, the artist should do a better job in his artistry in the future. He could have even not given Naomi Osaka a place in his art and instead focused on the referee and Serena Williams, but either the artist wasn’t talented enough to take the time to express himself that way or he thought this would be a better interpretation. I’m not sure, don’t really care much, but the picture looks racist to me.

Interesting times ahead.