I Am Problematic

We are all very much online despite mounds of research showing that it’s bad for us and despite our own best intentions. So now we all have a platform. Not a platform for broadcasting our own thoughts — though, dear god, we have those too. A platform that organizes them. Like politicians, we have established positions on the issues of the day with talking points attached. In the left-leaning world, these platforms are homes in a planned community, templated copies of one another with only the most superficial details customized. We all believe modern society is a trash heap but some of us think a hot dog is a sandwich.

As a result, it’s tremendously jarring to find yourself on the wrong side of orthodoxy. I believe Serena Williams was wrong. Suddenly, I am problematic.

Yesterday, I was called racist and anti-woman on Twitter. It only happened twice, but that’s only because I don’t have a following. I was called these things by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, a theoretical astrophysicist who seems like a fascinating human being that I’d love to have coffee with despite her mind clearly operating on an entirely higher plane than mine. Doctor Prescod-Weinstein and I probably agree on a lot. As a black woman in science, she has experiences that are very different than mine, but I’d wager our platforms look roughly the same. Mine just has a breakfast nook.

But I think Serena Williams was wrong. And since every thought and event in your life is now a litmus test for your wokeness, I am problematic.

It would take 20,000 words to effectively communicate the nuance of this situation, and 20,000 more to thoroughly “well-actually”-proof it, but here’s the case from my perspective, a white collar, white male tennis player and tennis fan.

Williams was being outplayed by Naomi Osaka. Badly. Yes, Williams is the best tennis player in history. Period. She still has the game to turn any match, but her opponent was moving better, striking her groundstrokes with remarkably consistent depth and serving on a different level. It was stunning. The match felt over. Williams was visibly frustrated.

Her coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, tried to communicate to her that she needed to change her positioning. He admitted as much later. Whether Williams saw or not is immaterial. Whether players receive coaching constantly is immaterial. A rule had been broken, and a penalty was enforced by chair umpire Carlos Ramos, an official known as a stickler for enforcement of niggly rules frequently ignored. To say that Ramos would not have enforced the penalty to a male player is a stretch. Christopher Clary, who’s forgotten more about tennis that John McEnroe knows, wrote a lengthy piece in the New York Times detailing Ramos’s many confrontations with top players, male and female.

Here is where the parenthetical credentialing of my personal wokeness beings. Yes, I understand that women and men are treated differently in the world of professional tennis. Yes, I know that women are paid smaller purses, and yes, I am angered by this. Yes, I know that Alize Cornet was punished for turning around her shirt while Novak Djokovic sat proudly bare-chested between games in prime time in this very tournament. Yes, this is stupid and sexist.

There is no punishment for a first code violation; it is basically a warning.

Williams took the violation as a personal affront. She demanded an apology from a match official, which is a pretty strange request from an official in any sport anywhere. I’ve played sports my entire life and covered them professionally before transitioning to design. I’ve never seen an athlete respond to being punished for breaking a rule as an affront to his or her ethics. It’s a shocking and thought-provoking leap, to be honest. Is a soccer player given a yellow card for diving having his or her personal integrity questioned by the official? Yes, I know that Williams has been conditioned to respond this way by years of being held to an unfair standard. Yes, I know she has reason to feel picked on. But it’s an odd jump.

Williams was promptly broken again by Osaka and smashed her racquet. This is an automatic and undebatable code violation. It is also a sign of a tennis player melting down. Even if Ramos was harsh, Williams response signaled she knew the end was near.

She simply couldn’t let it go. She continued to badger Ramos throughout the change, threatening his career (“You will never umpire on a court of mine as long as you live”) and questioning his integrity (“You stole a point from me and you’re a thief too”). Ramos assessed a third violation and a game penalty. Williams fell apart.

This is the heart of the debate.

For Soraya Nadia McDonald, “Ramos’ refusal to respect Williams as an honest competitor doubled as a public and humiliating warning to the young Osaka.” Gillian White said “To see Williams’s comeback after a traumatic birth stymied over seemingly minor infractions seems unnecessary and malicious. To see the devastation that those penalties wrought on two women of color at the top of their sport, during what should have been a joyous time, is heartbreaking,” in The Atlantic.

I just don’t see it that way. And that’s problematic.

I see a fierce competitor who saw something she wanted desperately slipping away from her. I see a player who once told a lineswoman on the same court “I swear to God I’m fucking going to take this fucking ball and shove it down your fucking throat, you hear that? I swear to God!” losing her grip on the moment. After that incident cost her the final point in her loss to Kim Clijsters at the same stage in the same tournament, Williams said to the chair, “other people have said way worse.” She said almost the same words on Saturday. I believe she was right but also wrong. Other people have said way worse, but she still said too much. Either Ramos or Williams could have easily diffused the situation, but neither would or could.

One quote from Williams particularly bothered me. When approaching Ramos, she said, “There are a lot of men out here who have said a lot of things and do not get that punishment. Because I am a woman you are going to take this away from me? That is not right.” I don’t believe Ramos took anything away from Williams. I believe Osaka beat her. I believe Williams took Osaka’s moment. She redeemed herself in the aftermath with her gracious behavior, but she still stepped on Osaka’s triumph.

A 20-year old woman defeated her idol in the final of arguably the most important tennis tournament in the world and she didn’t even celebrate. My strive for purity in wokeness should have me laying this at the feet of Ramos. I do, but not entirely. Not even mostly. Voices that I like and respect on Twitter lined up behind that opinion.

I believe that in the past there has been a double standard for Williams. I believe tennis has frequently been unfair to her. I believe it was unfair just a few weeks back when the French Open changed its wardrobe policy. I believe that decision was racist and sexist and snotty and worthy of mockery. I believe she has been an incredible ambassador for the game and is the best athlete I’ve had the privilege of watching in my life. That’s all the orthodoxy that I’m supposed to believe. That’s where I’m on message.

But I also believe she was wrong on Saturday. And that is problematic.

It’s uncomfortable to be outside the tribe, and maybe that’s where the internet — Twitter in particular — has let us down. It has created a monoculture with no room for interpretation of anything ever. The final and biggest disclaimer: I am a white man. I speak from a position of privilege, and maybe this conversation is simply not for me to have. I know that women’s voices are systematically suppressed. I know there is a double standard. But I also believe that sometimes micro incidents aren’t necessarily correlated to macro problems. Sometimes a broken racquet is just a broken racquet. Sometimes losing composure loses you tennis matches. Believe me, I know.

I’ve run out of disclaimers for why I feel this way. All I’m left with is a thought, and it’s problematic.