(CNN) An Australian newspaper has doubled down on a cartoon of multiple Grand Slam tennis champion Serena Williams widely denounced as racist both at home and in the US.
"A champion tennis player had a mega tantrum on the world stage, and (the) cartoon depicted that," he said, referring to a piece published by cartoonist Mark Knight Monday after the US Open final in which Williams had a dispute with the umpire over his allegedly sexist treatment of her
The cartoon showed Williams jumping up and down next to a broken racket and pacifier, with large, exaggerated lips and nose reminiscent of racist depictions of black people in the US during the Jim Crow era
Williams' opponent, Japan's Naomi Osaka, is depicted as a skinny blonde woman, to whom the umpire is saying: "Can't you just let her win?"
The US-based National Association of Black Journalists said the cartoon was "repugnant on many levels."
"(It) not only exudes racist, sexist caricatures of both women, but Williams' depiction is unnecessarily sambo-like," the group said in a statement. "The art of editorial cartooning is a visual dialogue on the issues of the day, yet this cartoon grossly inaccurately depicts two women of color at the US Open, one of the grandest stages of professional sports."
EDITORIAL | The world has officially gone mad when a celebrated cartoonist is condemned by the social media hordes for depicting a famous sports star throwing an unedifying tantrum.https://t.co/cqIAoq9DLq — Herald Sun (@theheraldsun) September 11, 2018
Angry reaction
Knight -- an award-winning cartoonist who has worked for the Herald Sun for decades -- told his employer he was "amazed" by the reaction to the cartoon, which he said did not attract significant criticism until it was picked up on Twitter by users in the US.
"It's been picked up by social media in the US and my phone has just melted down," he said. "The world has just gone crazy."
Criticism was voiced from within Australia however, where the furore comes after months of hand-wringing and criticism over the country's attitudes towards race after a neo-Nazi was invited on air by a national broadcaster.
"I take no pleasure in saying this, but, right now, it feels like there has never been a more exciting time to be a dog-whistling politician or race-baiting commentator in Australia," outgoing Race Discrimination Commissioner Tim Soutphommasane said last month.
On Twitter , Australian author Benjamin Law compared headlines from American newspapers which "matter-of-factly" described Knight's cartoon as racist to coverage within his country.
"It isn't a subjective call," he said. "Embarrassing to see the Herald Sun doesn't realise defending Knight's cartoon supports the case swathes of Australian media is blind to its own racism."
This isn't the first time Knight's work has been criticized in this manner . A cartoon from August 10 was widely denounced after it depicted faceless black figures destroying a Melbourne subway station, echoing a caricature of African gang crime in the city which is not supported by statistics.
"The racist vilification of Melburnians from the Herald Sun continues apace," local lawmaker Rohan Leppert wrote in response to that cartoon. "Utterly shameful."
Another day, another moment where Australia needs the rest of the world to remind us how racist we are. pic.twitter.com/SVLllWMCwx — Benjamin Law (@mrbenjaminlaw) September 10, 2018
Lack of representation
Despite Australia's proud multiculturalism and the fact that today one in four Australians were born abroad , the upper strata of society remains predominantly white.
According to a report by the Australian Human Rights Commission earlier this year, 95% "of senior leaders in Australia have an Anglo-Celtic or European background."
In business, the report found there was "a combined total of 11 chief executives who have a non-European or Indigenous background," or 3% of the total.
Indigenous people are especially under-represented, and have themselves been the subject of racist cartoons in the Australian press.
Knight was denounced for a 2012 cartoon published on Australia Day, which marks the start of European colonization of the continent, while the late Bill Leak was frequently criticized for his portrayals of Indigenous people.
While the US has deep racial divides and ongoing issues related to the legacy of slavery and post-reconstruction discrimination, it is more diverse than Australia. Non-white people make up over 23% of the population, and 11% of Members of Congress are people of color . The voices of non-white people are also more prominent in the US media than Australia's.
2) every week I have casual conversations with Americans who say "well, Australians are super racist", and it stings. It's stings because it's a generalisation, but also because it's often true. You don't have to look hard to see and hear it. And today's cartoon SHOCKED Americans — Eddie Perfect (@Eddieperfect) September 11, 2018
On Twitter, Australian musician Eddie Perfect, who is based in the US, reflected on this difference after he received some criticism for calling out Knight's cartoon.
"Got about 200 tweets from Aussies angry I 'spoke for them'," he said. "This cartoon hit hard in the US. Things are VERY different here, where image, race, history and struggle are REAL."
In a follow up tweet , Perfect said he frequently hears comments from Americans about Australians being racist "and it stings."
"(It) stings because it's a generalisation, but also because it's often true," he added. "You don't have to look hard to see and hear it. And today's cartoon SHOCKED Americans."
Australian broadcaster Neil Mitchell took the opposite tack on his morning radio show on Melbourne-based 3AW.
Following an interview with the cartoonist, he said the reaction "shows an awful misunderstanding of Mark Knight and this country."
"I looked at that cartoon and it didn't even cross my mind it was about race," he said.
“Thomas Nast, Winsor McCay, Will Eisner, R. Crumb all used blackface imagery; Dr. Seuss did viciously racist anti-Japanese cartoons during World War II, and on and on,” Mr. Berlatsky said. “Using exaggerated racist imagery for comic effect is one of the most characteristic moves of the comic medium.”
It is hard to believe, he said, that Mr. Knight did not know this history. A spokeswoman for The Herald Sun said Mr. Knight was too busy to be interviewed. But cartoonists who have tried to defend similar work in the past have argued that this history inoculates them — that it’s just how cartooning works.
No way, Mr. Berlatsky said.
“The problem is that picking up racist iconography from 100 years ago in order to attack a black woman still makes you racist, even if you think you’re participating in the tradition of comics rather than in the tradition of racism,” Mr. Berlatsky said. “The tradition of comics very often has been the same as the tradition of racism, and you can choose to push back against that, or you can be racist. Knight has chosen the second option.”
But is it fair to hold an Australian to an American standard?
Not being American, some cartoonists argue, is no excuse.
“While Australia has its own unique colonial history separate from the United States, the Western world, including Australia, share an aesthetic history,” said Ronald Wimberly, an artist and designer known for his commentary on race and comics.
That history includes an effort “to dehumanize black and brown people by degrading their features into symbols of the subhuman,” Mr. Wimberly said, offering a detailed critique of the U.S. Open cartoon, which he described as a failure on many levels:
“Is this cartoon racist? First, what is this cartoon doing? What’s the object? The text is a pretty clear, if flaccid, punch line regarding Serena Williams’s poor sportsmanship. It alludes to Serena being childish and angry (I’d argue that the text relies on racist, sexist tropes, too). But cartoons are a drawing medium. Now, I don’t want to blindly attribute intent, but setting aside the possibility that the cartoonist is just that poor a draughtsman, the drawings seem to ridicule Serena’s appearance. These aren’t very good likenesses. Mark isn’t using the medium to support his joke by, say, depicting Serena as a baby, in which case the pacifier should have been more prominently featured. Cartooning uses the shorthand of symbols to depict things. This is our craft. Using symbols. The pacifier is a symbol of immaturity, it alludes to a baby throwing a tantrum. But Mark is also drawing from a different history of symbols here. Racist and sexist symbols. Mark critiques the appearance and performance of Serena’s body in relation to race and sex, not her sportsmanship.”
Mr. Wimberly said there was only one conclusion that anyone who knows anything about cartooning or race could come to: “Whether or not Mark intended to draw on the racist history of the symbols, he has. His intent is irrelevant. Either he is a deliberately racist cartoonist — or an incompetent and careless cartoonist.”
Mr. Kindred, the cartoonist in Virginia, said that it ultimately comes down to quality, not just sensitivity.
“We want people to make better commentary,” he said. “Racism is a lazy joke to lean on.”
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News Corp has come under global condemnation for publishing a racist, sexist cartoon depicting Serena Williams in its Melbourne paper.
The cartoon by Mark Knight, published in Rupert Murdoch’s Herald Sun tabloid on Tuesday, depicted the tennis star having a tantrum on the court at the US Open after she lost to Naomi Osaka on Saturday. The depiction of Osaka has also been criticised as making her appear as a “white woman”.
The way Knight drew Williams has been compared to the racist illustrations ubiquitous during the US Jim Crow era and Sambo cartoons.
Condemnation of the cartoon has come from American civil rights activist the Rev Jesse Jackson, British author JK Rowling and numerous sports broadcasters, journalists and activists.
Speaking on ABC, Knight said he had “no knowledge of those cartoons or that period” and he thought the said people were “making stuff up”.
“I’m upset that people are offended, but I’m not going to take the cartoon down,” he said.
“I can’t undraw the cartoon. I think people have just misinterpreted. Maybe there’s a different understanding of cartooning in Australia to America … It was a cartoon based on her tantrum on the day and that’s all it was.”
The National Association of Black Journalists said the cartoon was “repugnant” on many levels.
“The Sept 10 cartoon not only exudes racist, sexist caricatures of both women, but Williams’ depiction is unnecessarily sambo-like,” the association said.
“The art of editorial cartooning is a visual dialogue on the issues of the day, yet this cartoon grossly inaccurately depicts two women of colour at the US Open, one of the grandest stages of professional sports.”
Bernice King, the chief executive of the King Center and daughter of Martin Luther King Jr, said the Herald Sun’s stance was “unfortunate”.
It was “without consideration for the painful historical context of such imagery and how it can support biases and racism today”, she said. “Why wouldn’t a human being care about that?”
Be A King (@BerniceKing) So unfortunate that this is your response; and without consideration for the painful historical context of such imagery and how it can support biases and racism today. Why wouldn’t a human being care about that?
The Washington Post noted Knight drew Williams with facial features that reflected caricatures common in the 19th and 20th centuries.
“Knight’s cartoon conjures up a range of such caricatures that were branded on memorabilia and popularized on stage and screen of the era, including the minstrel-show character Topsy born out of ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’, as well as the title character in 1899’s ‘Little Black Sambo’,” the article said.
In an article published by the Herald Sun, Knight said he was “amazed” at the reaction, and said his cartoon was “not about race”.
“The world has gone crazy,” he said. Knight said reaction on social media was “unfair”.
“I tried to reply to these people but they just don’t listen,” he said. “On any given day you are a hero and on any given day you are a pariah. And you just have to live with it.”
Knight had publicly replied to one person on Twitter – US sportswriter Julie DiCaro – seeking an apology for her suggestion it was sexist.
Mark Knight (@Knightcartoons) Well Julie here’s a cartoon I drew a few days before when Australian male tennis player Kyrgios at the US Open was behaving badly. Don’t bring gender into it when it’s all about behaviour. I’ll accept your apology in writing😁 pic.twitter.com/NLV0AjPGsY
The executive chairman of News Corp Australia, Michael Miller, said criticism of Knight “shows the world has gone too PC”.
Michael Miller (@mm_newscorpaus) Criticism of Mark Knight's Serena Williams cartoon shows the world has gone too PC & misunderstands the role of news media cartoons and satire. Poor behaviour in any sport needs to be called out. #media #cartoons #markknight @Knightcartoons @theheraldsun https://t.co/KQFuvIJp0Q pic.twitter.com/sRo3AQ1cJW
Editor of the Herald Sun, Damon Johnston, also defended Knight.
“A champion tennis player had a mega tantrum on the world stage, and Mark’s cartoon depicted that,” Johnston said. “It had nothing to do with gender or race.”
The Herald Sun article ended with a series of other recent Knight cartoons, but did not include one from last month about Sudanese-Australian violence in Melbourne, which also sparked accusations of racism.
Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) This is Jim Crow-racist. He Sambo’d Serena Williams. I’m a bit surprised that @Knightcartoons didn’t include a watermelon. For those unfamiliar with the history invoked here, read about the coon caricature. https://t.co/ffmrk76MRM
Rev Jesse Jackson Sr (@RevJJackson) https://t.co/LgBOr5vgkA: #SerenaWilliams shown as angry baby, #NaomiOsaka as a blonde White Woman, in controversial #USOpen cartoon from Australian newspaper & cartoonist, #HeraldSun & #MarkKnight:
.@RevJJackson @SantitaJ @Knightcartoons @theheraldsun
https://t.co/7l7gKuwtWk
J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) Well done on reducing one of the greatest sportswomen alive to racist and sexist tropes and turning a second great sportswoman into a faceless prop. https://t.co/YOxVMuTXEC
NUFF (@nuffsaidny) The saddest part about Mark Knight’s cartoon depiction of Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka, is that he believes that he has done nothing wrong and that everyone is overreacting and does not understand the art of caricature. Racist bigotry at its finest.
Jeanette 📺📻🎙🦊 (@JNETTEKWAKYE) No matter what you think about this situation. THIS ‘cartoon’ is disgusting on so many levels. https://t.co/ks2cZDncGS
deray (@deray) The racist cartoon re: Serena at the #USOpen is a reminder that there remains a strong appetiteand acceptance for anti-blackness in the media and in segments of society. How did that even get published?
Steven W. Thrasher (@thrasherxy) As we all head to work this week, I feel very sad for the individual and collective consciousness of Black women, which has been & will be stressed hard. https://t.co/4oBhVZS2gu
Mark Di Stefano 🤙🏻 (@MarkDiStef) The Australian cartoonist of *that* Serena cartoon has form. pic.twitter.com/n7RhMzhADG
Ron Perlman (@perlmutations) Don’t know much about the Herald Sun. DO know this Mark Knight muthafucka shouldn’t be employed anywhere on this planet. https://t.co/46g7dh797h
The whole world has woken up to be faced with what we in Australia have apparently become immune to: yet another vile, racist cartoon, so base in its age-old reproduction of bestial caricature to nonetheless make us look again in horror before turning away in disgust.
Mark Knight’s cartoon for News Corp paper the Herald Sun made global headlines because it depicts Serena Williams, whose mistreatment by US Open tennis umpire Carlos Ramos on the weekend has given racists the opportunity to air their views. A chorus of white commentators has defended the cartoon; “It had nothing to do with gender or race,” said the Herald Sun’s editor, while Knight himself denied knowing of the existence of the Jim Crow-era cartoons of African-Americans.
Serena Williams’s treatment shows how hard it is to be a black woman at work | Carys Afoko Read more
If there is one thing that people the world over know about Australia it is that this is a deeply racist country. Not only are the original owners of the land treated as less than fully human, but we indefinitely lock asylum seekers in camps on all-but-colonised islands.
To be sure, it is wrong to single Australians out for racism, especially coming from the British who set the ball rolling, or the Americans who too live on stolen land and became wealthy on the backs of enslaved people. It is also eyebrow-raising when Europeans, who largely deny the ongoing material benefits of past colonialism and elect far-right governments, sneer at Australia.
Racism is always made debatable, a matter of opinion not of history.
Nevertheless, white Australia does not discuss race well. As Tracey Holmes remarked on Serena Williams, there was a “stark difference between commentary from the US and Australia”. Her report was a rare outlier. More typically, ABC 7.30’s Leigh Sales interviewed former professional tennis umpire Richard Ings who denied Williams had been the victim of racism or sexism. It was Sales too who called on the New Yorker not to “buckle” in the face of pressures to retract its invitation to white supremacist ideologue Steve Bannon in the interests of “free speech”. She was joined by fellow white journalist Sarah Ferguson, who tweeted a photo of herself with Bannon after her Four Corners interview with him, writing, “What’s wrong with this photo? NOTHING.”
The belief that airing white supremacist views is akin to holding those who express them to account is dominant across the Australian media and much of the public. But the problem is that our white-dominated press lacks the racial literacy needed either to challenge racists or to discern racism, in cartoons or elsewhere. Consequently, there is no serious discussion of what the origins and functions of race are, and why racism continues to proliferate and constantly adapt itself. Racism is always made debatable, a matter of opinion not of history. But if we cannot agree that Knight’s cartoon is the epitome of racism and that giving white supremacists a national media platform is dangerous, it will be much more difficult to expose the myriad, less overt ways in which race works in Australian life, if there were indeed much appetite for doing so.
The supposed debatability of racism is why it is possible for Knight to deny his cartoon is racist despite countless people, black women in particular, around the world saying that it is. Knight accuses Williams of having a “hissy fit” and “spitting the dummy” in total white innocence of how race-thinking constructs black women as uniquely angry, and people of colour in general as irrational and hysterical.
Around the internet today are countless white arbitrations of what really is and is not racism. While race has been described by the late theorist of racial capitalism Cedric Robinson as “mercurial”, its constant purpose has been the maintenance and expansion of white supremacy.
It is thus understandable that whites seek not only to ensure their continued economic, political and cultural dominance but also to hold the reins on the definition of racism itself. Releasing the grip would unmask both the ignorance of the white media and its simple lack of concern for the knowledge and experience of the majority of the world’s people, including those right here trying to have their voices heard.
Serena Williams again bears brunt of double standards in tennis | Anna Kessel Read more
As Cheryl Harris wrote in her famous article Whiteness as Property, racial regimes based on the theft of native lands and the enslavement of black people produce an association between the fact of being white and the right of possession. Not only are white people given the legal right to take ownership of stolen land, but whiteness itself becomes property, having intrinsic value as a quality that only white people can possess. At the same time, under slavery, black people become property. The privileges that accrue as a result of being white come to be expected by white people so that any threat to their status or their reputation is perceived as illegitimate, particularly when it comes from the racially subjugated.
In defence of Ramos, Ings said, “The rules are the rules and they need to be applied without fear and without favour.” But were we to have a racially literate media that was not almost entirely dominated by middle-upper class white voices, he would know that when it comes to black women, it is not that there are no rules, but that they are not the same. The idea that black women, even of the stature of Serena Williams, have either enjoyed favour or evoked fear in the face of whiteness is nothing but a bitter joke.
