RACE OR RAZE - VENUS, SERENA, AND TENNIS
BY JULIANNE MALVEAUX
I am going to have to, finally, give it up for sports. I’m no fan, have
never been, and think that those who are sport-obsessed are one inning short
of a baseball game (ignorance has never inspired me to pass up a metaphor).
Still, as the people of color start blazing into white folks terrain, I can’t
help marvel at their entrance and the turmoil it causes.
Venus Williams started playing professional tennis in 1994, when she was just
16. She’s earned more than $8 million playing tennis in seven years, and
millions more in endorsement money. Her sister, Serena turned pro in 1995,
and has earned almost $5 million in tennis winnings to date, an amount that
is dwarfed by the endorsement money she rakes in. The sisters are ranked #4
and #10 as I write, but forget the money and the rankings; they are the
hottest thing that has happened to tennis. They are black, baaad, bold, and
confident, so much so that, in Nikki Giovanni’s words “even their errors are
correct”. Indeed, Venus Williams dropped 32 unforced errors in her first
round at the US Open and barely broke a sweat. The girls are so bad that a
white Sports Illu8strated Reporter is raking up the dollars for his new book,
titled Venus Envy, that recounts the last year on the tennis circuit. His
cover shows Venus, headless, from her chest to her upper thighs, which are
locked in a tennis-ready stance. His writing hardly sizzles, but it serves
up a mighty punch, especially when is offering up the inside dirt of tennis.
From his title, one thing is perfectly clear – Venus Williams is the sizzle
that goes with the tennis steak. She is the center of the tennis world.
It doesn’t take a book to make the point. This week’s cover of Time Magazine
shouts out “The Sisters vs. the World.” There’s Venus in Reebok green, arms
outstretched; Serena, blonde braids and hoop earrings flying. There’s
trash-talking writing, gossip and innuendo. And two stupid Martinas (Hingis
and Navratilova) doing their race-baiting best to get somebody’s goat.
Hingis, the self-centered, self-described diva who has held the #1 position
for 203 weeks (and refers to herself as “the Queen”), says that Venus and
Serena get sponsors because they are black. They have a lot of advantage
because they can always play the race card, she said. AS soon as Time
Magazine hit the stands, she apologized, e1uivoated, and said she didn’t mean
to hurt anybody’s feelings. She is young, white and dumb (high=school drop
out, compared to the Williams’ who have undertaken post-secondary education),
so what do we expect? Navratilova, on the other hand is a 45-year old
lesbian who has been around the block with discrimination a few times. Why
did she say the Williams’ are being handled with kid gloves because they are
black? Was it her Venus Envy or her menopausal hormones acting up? Or is
she truly clueless?
There are a lot of clueless people out there. They criticize the Williams
girls for attitude, when their real problem is with their altitude. They say
Richard Williams, the girls’ colorfully outspoken father is a pest and a
pain, without acknowledging that tennis courts are littered with strange
tennis dads, including rip=off artists, alcoholics, and people so disruptive
they’ve been banned from the courts. Richard Williams does a little dance
and talks a little stuff, but compared to the falling down drunken crooks
that some tennis divas call daddy, he is relatively harmless.
The Williams family is packing harmful heat though, and that is in the
presence of their tennis rackets. Venus Williams knocked off 3 top seeds in
less than 27 hours, playing the strategic tennis her opponents won’t give her
credit for. Serena put Capriati to bed before she came to the US Open, and
though she dropped a bunch of errors, she won her match in a little over an
hour. Venus and Serena don’t have to utter a syllable; all they have to do
is play tennis. And play, they do, with energy, enthusiasm, and aplomb. So
why is there so much hating out there?
Time magazine hardly packs the gossip wallop of People, but they reference
the race card when they speak of the Williams sisters. They also say the
girls may be aloof and arrogant, but any black person who has spent five
minutes breathing air knows that there are a bunch of put-down “a” words used
to describe us – aloof, arrogant, articulate (don’t you love it, all you have
to do is string a few words together to be put down for verbal sharpness).
When Time says Venus and Serena don’t blend in, they are saying more about
white folks and tennis then they are about Venus and Serena.
There’s a bottom line, though. Time calls it when they say it is the Williams
sisters against the world. Too often the crowd will cheer for anyone but
Venus or Serena, and too often, even at a tournament like the US Open, the
girls have imagine the applause that is due them. Part of their acceptance
has to do with race, but even as they get muted cheers they are razing the
nation’s tennis courts with their games gone ablaze. AT the end of the day,
the scores tell the story, and the commentators and competitors carry tales.
The sorry part of this story is the fact that this is the twenty-first
century, not the nineteenth. In tennis, as in life, race still matters.