In the second section of her book Citizen: An American Lyric, Claudia Rankine covers the themes of injustice, aggression, and identity. Rankine uses several examples from Serena Williams’ career to demonstrate the struggles of a Black woman in a prejudiced industry. In the author’s words, many people from the tennis world “felt like her black body didn’t belong on their court” (Rankine, 2014, p. 27). From this point, Rankine attempted to explain why Williams developed an aggressive response to perceived injustice and how tennis forced her to forfeit a substantial part of her blackness.
Rankine begins her explanation with a story from the 2004 US Open women’s semifinals, when Mariana Alves, the distinguished chair umpire, made five bad calls against Serena, most likely costing her a win. One can see how Rankine puts great detail into describing Serena’s outfit and behavior. She tries to make the reader imagine a picture of Williams “in her denim skirt, black sneaker boots and dark mascara”, “wagging her finger and saying “no, no, no,” in disbelief (Rankine, 2014, p. 27). From that description, it is evident that Serena endured severe psychological trauma, as she was robbed of a win by unfair officiating. However, Rankine also emphasizes Williams’ image and behavior, which looked alien in a conservative tennis world. From here, the author builds a narrative that Serena Williams fell victim to racial prejudice. Tennis could not tolerate the emotions of a young Black woman who was not afraid to call out injustice openly.
The trauma caused by injustice manifested again in 2009 when Serena struggled in a difficult match versus the skilled Belgian Kim Clijsters. Earlier in the match, Williams smashed a racket against the court, receiving a warning of a point penalty in case of another code violation (Rankine, 2014). Serena was losing 5-6 in the second set when a line judge called a foot fault. Rankine (2014) falsely claims that the controversial call was made at match point. In fact, Williams was losing 5-6, 15-30, which means that she still had a chance to win (Lewis, 2018). Nevertheless, Serena responded with a threat to shove the ball down the lineswoman’s throat (Rankine, 2014). As a result, this aggressive outburst cost Williams a point penalty and an instant loss in the match.
The author attempted to use diction and rhetorical questions to build sympathy for Serena with exclamations such as “What? What! Are you serious?”, trying to demonstrate the harshness of prejudiced officiating. Moreover, Rankine (2014) went as far as praising Williams for “fighting crazily against the so-called wrongness of her body’s positioning” and resisting against “sharp white background” of tennis. With all due respect, one can hardly agree with Rankine’s assessment of these events. Tennis is a game decided by inches, and when a line judge sees a violation, they must call it regardless of when it happens during the match. By 2009, Serena had become one of the biggest tennis stars, so it seems delusional to consider a humble line judge a part of a racist environment.
However, an example from the script to a video on World Cup 2006 makes the reader understand what might have provoked Serena’s meltdown. When Italian player Marco Materazzi insulted Zinedine Zidane’s Algerian heritage, Zidane was not thinking about the World Cup final anymore. Materazzi’s insults prompted Zidane to headbutt the Italian without a second thought. In this regard, Rankine (2014) correctly demonstrates that aggression may likely emerge as an initial response to perceived injustice and discrimination. The author compares the body to a carriage that hauls its weight and all memories (Rankine, 2014). Zidane’s aggression likely stemmed from the street code of Marseille, where he grew up. Likewise, Serena snapped in 2009 because she drew a parallel between a foot fault call and Maria Alves’ bad officiating in 2004.
In conclusion of Section 2, Rankine hints that by 2012 Serena developed a calm, reserved attitude as a result of becoming ambiguous. According to Rankine (2014), Williams might have separated her Black identity from her tennis personality. Given the context of Serena’s path in tennis, one can argue that Williams abandoned what held her back. Serena learned from her previous mistakes and matured as a person and an athlete rather than surrendering her blackness.
In particular, Williams stopped wasting her mental power on arguing with umpires and line judges and probably understood that occasional bad calls cannot stop a dominant player from winning. Rankine (2014) compared tennis with systemic racism, when “randomly the rules everyone else gets to play by no longer apply to you” (p. 29). If anything, Serena’s example demonstrates exactly the opposite — the physical prowess of her black body made Williams unstoppable regardless of everyone else’s performance. Once she learned how to control her temper and separate old injustice from situations in the present, Serena became a truly dominant force in women’s tennis. In the end, a combination of physical might, technical skills, and impregnable mental resilience contributed to her legacy as a legendary Black athlete more than several aggressive outbursts celebrated by Claudia Rankine.
References
Lewis, B. (2018). Serena knew during meltdown she’d been down this road before. New York Post.
Rankine, C. (2014). Citizen: An American lyric. Graywolf Press.