ScentOfDefeat
G.O.A.T.
Say what???
2013 US Open Women's SF: Flavia PENNETTA vs. Victoria AZARENKA[2]
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Say what???
veroniquem
Bionic Poster
I'm a bit at a loss what you mean here. I have American (ESPN/CBS) coverage and the commentators literally DROOL over Serena's slightest moves non-stop. I'm not sure what you're referring to.
ScentOfDefeat
G.O.A.T.
Nobody does. We're all at a loss. In fact, I was about to send you a private message asking you if you believed any of this. Personally, I'm starting to think it's just trolling of the highest degree. Nobody can be this obsessive with these particular issues.
veroniquem
Bionic Poster
The Williams sisters are treated as Goddesses by the American media. I suspect any commentator criticizing them would be fired on the spot lol.
Vanhool
Hall of Fame
Oh, I posted something and then regretted it, but what the heck here it is, still saved from when I cut it (devil wins):
Since everyone else is wading into this....I don't think it's just race, but race combined with class and gender expectations (if she was country club black or shy and sweet it wouldn't be a problem, or if she had her personality traits but was white it would be ok too).
I think these motivations do cause some people to hate on her and some to just feel a little uneasy. But she also has a strong personality, to say the least, and some people just wouldn't like her even without those factors. It's usually pretty obvious what is motivating people by the types of things they pick on and the way they say it.
I am so sick of people acting like the US is the only country where racism exists! Give me a break! Just because you yourself don't think you know any racists doesnt mean they dont exist. Guess what? I don't either! But apparently I'm surrounded by them unlike every other wonderful place in the world. Such a load of crap.
Delete last paragraph. Too much
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veroniquem
Bionic Poster
There is racism everywhere but the post pointed at the MEDIA and the media really couldn't be more in awe of Serena as they are.
ScentOfDefeat
G.O.A.T.
I've been a member for quite some time now and I still haven't figured out how to delete a post. Sometimes, when I don't feel like editing, I'm stuck with my own ridiculous utterances. 
I think race is somewhat related to the problem of prostitution in modern societies. Bear with me. Politics is about common ground. As the Greeks put it, we're exercising politics when we are simultaneously the creators and the objects of policy. Here in Europe many countries have tried to create inclusive policies for prostitutes, awareness campaigns, etc. But the core problem is not to include them, it's to have excluded them in the first place. It's because decades ago we cast aside the problem of poverty in the cities, as if it wasn't there, as if people with social problems who would then resort to selling their bodies only to survive were not "like us". The "us" here is the legislator. And whenever the legislator feels like he's almost of a different species in relation to the people he's legislating about, we have police instead of politics. And just like prostitution has been cast away into the fringes of society to become a police matter, so to has racism become a problem that can only be argued between groups of people who feel they are fundamentally different from the others. Those who claim they're not racist see racism everywhere, just like those who are indeed bigots find fault, sin and inferiority in every person who was born with different pigmentation. Politics is about presupposing equality and I don't think we can produce a generation of people who presuppose equality with "awareness campaigns". Everybody's aware. That's not the issue.
I think race is somewhat related to the problem of prostitution in modern societies. Bear with me. Politics is about common ground. As the Greeks put it, we're exercising politics when we are simultaneously the creators and the objects of policy. Here in Europe many countries have tried to create inclusive policies for prostitutes, awareness campaigns, etc. But the core problem is not to include them, it's to have excluded them in the first place. It's because decades ago we cast aside the problem of poverty in the cities, as if it wasn't there, as if people with social problems who would then resort to selling their bodies only to survive were not "like us". The "us" here is the legislator. And whenever the legislator feels like he's almost of a different species in relation to the people he's legislating about, we have police instead of politics. And just like prostitution has been cast away into the fringes of society to become a police matter, so to has racism become a problem that can only be argued between groups of people who feel they are fundamentally different from the others. Those who claim they're not racist see racism everywhere, just like those who are indeed bigots find fault, sin and inferiority in every person who was born with different pigmentation. Politics is about presupposing equality and I don't think we can produce a generation of people who presuppose equality with "awareness campaigns". Everybody's aware. That's not the issue.
If only...your comments concluded with "lol," so, I assume that you're kidding, but if you're not, you clearly haven't heard many broadcasts by Carillo or Evert(only Chrissie seems to have been dragged kicking and screaming over to the WS camp and has been complimentary to them lately).
Vanhool
Hall of Fame
I know....this guy just gets my goat sometimes, even though I sometimes agree with him. He's so angry and self righteous and rags on Americans evey week. I was responding to this part of his post:
It is sad to see that Serena Williams gets more respect in Europe, England, Australia, Middle East, even Canada THAN the United States. People at the Italian Open, they LOVE Serena they cheer her name, same thing in Spain and other countries. I was very impressed with the Italian fans for Serena during the Italian Open this year, she is LOVED overseas yet not in her OWN DAMN COUNTRY because of the color of her skin.
Yet in America, there is a kind of reluctant praise for Serena Williams because she's a BLACK WOMAN dominating women tennis which is a predominately white sport.
ScentOfDefeat
G.O.A.T.
Yeah, if anything the media should be interested in selling the Williams' story of overcoming social difficulties and achieving sports excellence. I'm pretty sure it appeals to a majority in what people still believe to be the "land of opportunity". I just don't see an America still dominated by racism and bigotry as some sort of conspiracy that includes the media. Ultimately, blatant racism in the media is bad business.
veroniquem
Bionic Poster
Carillo is brain damaged. You can't really pay attention to what she says. Why does she still have a job as a tennis commentator, I have no idea. She must have really, really high placed connections. Thankfully she's only on CBS, so we don't have to endure her to often.
ScentOfDefeat
G.O.A.T.
I wholeheartedly agree. And it bothers me that someone like her can have that job whilst some of us here - who probably know more about tennis than she does - couldn't even dream of it. But then again, I don't think they're specifically looking for good commentators.
veroniquem
Bionic Poster
If you have any insight into WHAT they're looking for (if not good commentators), please share. I'd love to know!
ScentOfDefeat
G.O.A.T.
Well, usually they're chosen within two categories: either they're part of the media apparatchik or they're related to the game in one way or another (ex-players, etc). So it's either the media protecting themselves and giving jobs to their boys (granted, some of them are good commentators, especially in the UK and France) or former players who are supposed to provide lots of "insight" but use the same clichés we all know.
In an ideal world, it should be people like the erudite crowd on Former Pro Player Talk who got these jobs. The argument about former players providing a lot of "insight" is fallacious, I've never seen any former player talk about things we don't already know.
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I remember a scene in an otherwise mediocre movie long ago, starring Rock Hudson-his last movie, I believe-James Earl Jones, and Sharon Stone. RH was an embattled Las Vegas casino owner, SS was his(much younger) girlfriend, and JEJ was a boxing promoter obviously patterned after Don King-including the electrified hair. SS had to share a small private plane with Jones, and she did little to hide her disdain for him but there was no room to get away. He was perfectly aware of this, but played along and asked, with puppy dog eyes "Why don't you like me? Is it because I'm Black?" Stone laconically replied, "Yes...but that's about 5th on the list." For once, Don King/JEJ was pretty much struck speechless, and could only stammer, "5th on the list?" Warming to her task, Stone leaned forward, looked him dead in the eye and said, "You're greedy, dishonest, ruthless, and phony." Leaning back into her seat, she smiled contentedly and finished, "... and THEN comes being black(as it turns out, she wasn't bigoted at all, she just wanted to mess with the bombastic JEJ)." Well, my impression is that the WS being black is, maybe, 3rd on the list(although you can make a case that everything comes down to race, I just don't believe that's true). Richard Williams is a lot of things NOT good, but, whatever else you wanna say about him, he's a guy who hadn't played tennis himself, learned about it from a book, and loudly and frequently told America that he was going to raise, not one, but TWO champions, both of whom would someday obtain the Number One ranking, and do this WITHOUT the usual path of slogging their way through the juniors and going to Bolleteri-like academies. For expressing this view, he was ridiculed and laughed at, loudly and frequently, but he left the critics with egg on their face, and many of them have never forgotten nor "forgiven" him for making them look like fools, and I suspect that would've been the case no matter what their race. Their "us vs them" mentality, instilled by Richard(and, wisely, IMO given their radical approach to the sport), and the Indian Wells incident, only deepened this dislike. In a similar vein, it infuriated some tennis people that they could have interests outside of tennis, kind of play the sport part time, and STILL be very successful, instead of keeping their nose to the grindstone practically every waking moment(most notably in a self serving Open Letter by a serial philanderer who shall remain nameless), and, once again, almost all of their no-distraction contemporaries are long gone, but they're still around and doing too badly, all things considered. THEN comes that they're Black, lol...
You two miscreants need to bow down and FEEL the AWESOME power that is Mary Sha-rillo:
"Carillo's unabashed and opinionated style of tennis commentary has drawn criticism from several top players, notably Andre Agassi, Serena and Venus Williams, and Maria Sharapova.[6] Nevertheless, she has been named Best Commentator by Tennis Magazine (1988–91), Best Commentator by World Tennis magazine (1986) and Broadcaster of the Year by the Women's Tennis Association (1981 and 1985)."
There's no accounting for taste, lol, but, even if the awards were deserved, the all were from about 30 years ago. What was that line from "Chinatown?" w.h.o.r.e.s, ugly buildings, and politicians all get respectable if they last long enough." MC doesn't technically fit into any of those categories, but, you get the idea...
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ScentOfDefeat
G.O.A.T.
She's the perfect example of what I was trying to say: former player infused with bitterness meets self-serving media apparatchik.
ScentOfDefeat
G.O.A.T.
And I agree that it has more to do with the way Richard Williams "produced" them than with blatant or concealed racial hatred. And that's why this whole issue is interesting in sociological terms. Whereas we can't say much about the general sentiment of the population towards the Williams sisters (there's just no data), we can at the very least analyze what's happening in the public sphere, where only a handful of people are the actual "voices" of tennis. And what's happening in that context is quite ambiguous because this public sphere of tennis is precisely made up of a crossover between the media establishment and the tennis establishment. And whereas the sisters and their story are good business for the media, they're a terrible thorn in the side of the tennis establishment. And because many of these pundits, commentators and "tennis experts" often fall in both categories, they play a very ambiguous double game of (sometimes) lavish praise and unfair criticism.
Amelie Mauresmo
Banned
I don't know how long you've been following Serena Williams career but she's attacked by the RACIST white American media too many times to count.
I am talking about newspaper articles, internet articles by people such as Jon Wertheim, Peter Bodo ect.
I am not talking about CBS and I am not talking about right now, rather overall. The USA media is only praising Serena Williams NOW because she's the LAST great tennis champion they have.
After Serena Williams RETIRES, American tennis is going to have a HUGE VOID. Serena is only receiving praise NOW because the USA press realize she's basically supporting American tennis ALL BY HERSELF.
Serena is the only one still winning grand slams, still number one, still at the VERY TOP.
When Serena was younger, she wasn't given the respect she so richly deserved due to RACISM.
However, when Venus and Serena were dominating the WTA together reaching grand slams together, the white people such as Mary Carillo, John McEnroe, Tracy Austin, Pam Shriver, Chris Evert, Mary Joe Fernandez were not happy about it. Carillo openly cheered for Justine Henin the Belgian many times. Carillo, doesn't even hide her hatred, for Serena Williams she's very open about it.
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