Notes from a bitch…match point…

Shall we?
Full disclosure – a bitch is a former high school tennis diva, a huge fan of professional tennis and the kind of tennis viewer who watches that McEnroe/Borg match every damn time it comes on to fill in during a rain delay at Wimbledon.
I fell in love with tennis because it allowed me an outlet for my anger and frustrations built up while being bullied as a young child. There are idols…people of color who I could always look up to…but there was also the amazing satisfaction of hitting the living shit out of a forehand after a day filled with taunts and humiliations.
I also fell in love with the ceremony…the rules, the sorta- courtesy of players calling each others lines (translation – some of those players from “the club” cheated like a South Carolina Governor on a business trip)…and loved knowing that I was part of a tradition that went back hundreds of years.
Sigh.
Over the weekend Serena Williams, one of the greatest tennis players of all time, lost her shit on the court.
I’ve followed the Williams sisters since they were in braids and braces.
Serena doesn’t have a reputation for losing her shit…she has a reputation for channeling her intensity into her game.
But Ms. Williams lost her shit on the court…and one only insults her if one tries to act as if that outburst was normal match-based behavior for her.
Cough.
We’ve all lost our chili over some bullshit call. Hell, I still have a scar on my leg from a tantrum gone wrong (note to self – hit the ground with the racket, not thy leg).
Many of us have regretted our behavior post freak-out…just as Serena regrets her actions.
Tennis has addressed the incident…Serena has addressed it…and time will repair whatever damage has been done.
Black people get angry…black women get angry…anger happens.
Sometimes we express that anger well and sometimes we don’t…just like everyone else.
And, just like everyone else, black hall of fame tennis players will get some serious media attention when they lose it on the court.
Unlike everyone else, those black hall of fame tennis players will also get the added bonus of having racist knaves jump out of their caves and add their two cents to every damn article and post written about whatever incident went down.
Just once…just once, damn it…I’d like to be able to read an article about something a black athlete does without being subjected to a deluge of ig’nant as hell racist comments trying to use an individual’s behavior as proof that ALL black people are inferior beasts who should be kept locked up.
Just once…I can’t even imagine it…I’d like to be able to read an article like other folks got to read articles about Jimmy Connors – the facts, the opinions and the response minus the absolute statements about ALL black people (well, in Connor’s case it would have been ALL white people) blowing up unreasonably at a bad call, not being able to properly express their anger and generally being dangerous bad sports who should be banned from the court.
If I were a lesser person, I’d respond in kind for every Congressional “You lie!!” outburst, every tea bagger who steps over the line between protest and KKK rhetoric, every celebrity who falls from grace and every conservative lawmaker who gets outed for fucking around on his spouse.
But I’m not a lesser person (damn it!) so I must wade through the muck without tossing out a juvenile response featuring an example of a white person who has done the same shit or worse during a tennis match.
Sigh.
There is a weight that many public figures of color carry…the “credit to their race” weight that is added to everything they do, say and support. ‘Tis that weight that lingers…even after people of color have made history, broken down barriers and added their achievements to culture and sport.
And ’tis that weight, the predictable absolute statement-based racist comments and thoughts, that demonstrate just how post racial we are not…in politics, in sport or in life.