the-perks-of-being-black:“…WhenI say the greatest athlete in a generation, I mean the greatest in an
the-perks-of-being-black:“…WhenI say the greatest athlete in a generation, I mean the greatest in any sport.Sorry, LeBron. Sorry, Tiger. Sorry, Derek. For fifteen years, over twogenerations of tennis, Williams has been a spectacular and constant yet oddlyuncherished national treasure. She is wealthy and famous, but it seems that sheshould be more famous, the most famous. Anyone who likes sports should loveWilliams’s dazzling combination of talent, persistence, style,unpredictability, poise, and outsized, heart-on-her-sleeve flaws. Butnot everyone loves her. Part of this is owing to the duelling -isms of Americanprejudice, sexism, and racism…. …Butit’s not enough to say that Williams would be more uniformly adored if she werea white woman, or a man. Instead, the failure to fully appreciate herimportance is perhaps evidence of our inability to appreciate the stubbornlyunfamiliar narrative arc of her career. Williams is underloved because, attimes, she has been unlovable and, in the end, mostly unrepentant about it—somethingthat might be admired as iconoclastic in a male athlete, but rarely endearswomen to a wide audience…. [Recently,]after a disappointing showing in the three previous Grand Slam tournaments,Williams said that she adopted a new way of thinking about the game, to putless pressure on herself by appreciating what she had already accomplished.‘That’s the beauty of my career,’ she said before the Open. ‘I don’t need to doanything at all. Everything I do from this day forward is a bonus. Actually, fromyesterday. It doesn’t matter. Everything for me is just extra.’ This is surelywisdom, but it is also a form of sports sacrilege. I don’t have anything toprove; I have been great—so great, in fact, that at this point winning doesn’teven matter.” Excerpted from anarticle by Ian Crouch for New Yorker MagazinePhotograph byDarron Cummings/APRead more -- source link
Tumblr Blog : the-perks-of-being-black.tumblr.com
#serena williams#amazing ladies