Today along with Tuesday in class the topic about Serena Williams came up and we talked about her outburst at the U.S. Open. There were a couple of comments about Williams that surprised me that people actually thought.
The first comment was about how if Serena was a young, white woman that had that reaction, there would not be much complaining going on. However, I completely disagree because I really think that race is not as big of a factor amongst sports as it used to be, especially within an American event. My opinion could be completely wrong, but what examples are there recently other than the NFL coaching situation where there is "discrimination" amongst minorities.
The second comment was about how if Serena was a male that this situation would not be a big deal because people like John McEnroe blew up all the time. I also think this is crazy because whether your male or female and you throw a huge fit your going to get in trouble. Blount for Oregon recently, granted he threw a punch, but he got a huge penalty. Fights in baseball games happen all the time and the males are suspended multiple games for them. It does not matter male or female, the situation will be punished based on what it is that you do.
Let me know what you all think because I have been wrong before and I could be wrong about this so just let me know.
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I think this situation is completely different than a fight in baseball games or a play physically hitting someone. She never made physical contact with the line judge and she never said she was actually going to do something, she said "if i could." Clearly if you've ever played sports with competitive athletes they say things that are just as bad to referees and other athletes but are never penalized because people know that sport is emotional.I don't think that her outburst was such a big deal but everyone made it a big deal because tennis is typically a more "calm" sport. If she was playing basketball or a more physical contact sport the outburst would probably not receive as much publicity because its more expected in those sports!
ReplyDeleteLast night I watched an interview of Serena Williams on the Tavis Smiley program. Here is the link:
ReplyDeletehttp://a3urbanmusic.com/2009/10/serena-williams-interview-with-tavis-smiley/
This is a fairly long interview (25 minutes) but at one point, Tavis Smiley said that he believed the reaction to Serena's 'outburst' revealed both sexism and racism. He agreed with the point that if/when other males had such outbursts, it was not considered to be as startling. Further, he believed that there was racism, in that there would not have been the same outcry if a white player had said the same things. As an example, he pointed to the reaction of Federer (he actually said it was Nadal, which was incorrect) the next day. See what you think.