“A Recipe for Black Girl Magic”:
An Analysis of Serena Williams’ role in Beyonce’s Lemonade
Beyonce’s Lemonade is a visual album that expresses a message of black female resistance. Throughout her album, Beyonce features countless empowered and iconic black women in modern society. One of these features is of Serena Williams. Serena Williams is overwhelmingly deemed one of the world’s best athletes. However despite her unwavering success, Williams has faced many out of line criticisms that have racist undertones. The unjust critiques of Serena Williams support and convey the message of Lemonade, the often overlooked lives of Black women in America and its challenges. Despite, throughout all of the racist situations, Serena Williams remained strong and steadfast.
Throughout the publication “A Recipe For Black Girl Magic” Tatiyana Jenkins describes the stories of Serena Williams and how it represents the story of Beyonce’s Lemonade (Jenkins, 2017). Jenkins explains that throughout history, black women have countlessly tried to change aspects of their identity that marginalize them in an attempt to access some sort of power (Jenkins, 2017). Jenkins argues that this is true to Beyonce and it is true for Serena Williams. In the scene Apathy, Beyonce is singing one of her many hits “Sorry.” The scene is that Beyonce is singing “I ain’t sorry/ I don’t care about you” as she dances freely and without a care in the world (Jenkins, 2017). Serena Williams joins in and dances in the same way as Beyonce, having fun and dancing as if it was a girls night out (Jenkins, 2017). Jenkins explains the injustices Serena Williams has experienced throughout her career (Jenkins, 2017). However, Jenkins explains that this is an ode to these womens ability to overcome unnecessary obstacles in their career that aim to prevent them from achieving success (Jenkins, 2017). Jenkins explains how Williams has experienced umpires in tennis making false calls throughout her career especially during her matches in the United States Tennis Championships (Jenkins, 2017). In a wave of frustration (like any athlete) Serena Williams one retaliated at an umpire to which media ran with this story and called her terms such as ‘crazy’ or ‘churlish’ (Jenkins, 2017). The fact that an athlete sticking up for itself became a news story only when it is a black woman displays the injustices in the game (Jenkins, 2017). This is an unfortunate reality due to the fact that the tennis community is extremely white-washed (Jenkins, 2017). Jenkins quotes Claudia Rankin in Citizen, which I believe captivates these experiences of Williams very well, “Perhaps this is how racism feels no matter the context — randomly the rules everyone else gets to play by no longer apply to you.” (Rankin, 2014) This quote really shows how the rules were not written for a black woman in tennis just as the rules in America were not written for black people in general (Jenkins, 2017). Instead, the rules were written to punish black people and people of color and perpetuate success of whites (Jenkins, 2017).
Serena Williams has not only experienced injustices in the industry, but also blatant racism (Jenkins, 2017). As Rankin explains, Serena experiences overt racism from a female oponent, Dane Caroline Wozniacki (Rankin, 2014). The former number-one player, Dane Wozniacki, stuffed towels in her shirt and pants to enlarge her breasts and her butt to mock Serena Williams (Jenkins, 2017). The act of Wozniacki was blatantly racist, prejudice and disrespectful as she was making about black womens body. This is a body that is often hypersexualized and criticized especially compared to white women and white, blonde, thin women like Wozniacki (Jenkins, 2017). This narrative has been perpetuated and even worsened by the media. The Washington Post explains how an Australian News source created an extremely racist cartoon mocking Serena Williams at the US Open. The imagery of Serena Williams is very similar to the racist cartoons of the before and during Civil Rights era which mock the common features of black individuals. This is compared to a white woman in the background with a tame blonde ponytail that clearly follows the Westernized view of beauty standards.
The depiction of Serena Williams in this cartoon is racist and unforgiveable. It also shows how deep racism is in people’s perceptions of individuals and especially black women. This is why I believe that Beyonce’s Lemonade is so incredibly important because it shows the intimacies of life an the experiences of black women, the impact of intersectionality, and how racism persists to effect black women. Additionally, I think it was so expontentially important for Beyonce to include Serena Williams to uncover the injustices and show that even the most influential, successful and iconic black women in our society face these predjuces. Also, Beyonce’s Lemonade shows Serena Williams in a personal light (Jenkins, 2017). It shows Serena Williams lightheartedly dancing and twerking around with Beyonce in something other than tennis garb (Jenkins, 2017). This shows Serena Williams being empowering and using her body to show society that she doesnt care about these expectations perpetuated by the media that aim to constrict her or black women (Jenkins, 2017). Instead, she shows how beautiful being a black woman is and showing the key to black girl magic according to Jenkins (Jenkins, 2017).
Jenkins, T. (2017). A recipe for black girl magic: A critical study … — lawrence university. A Recipe for Black Girl Magic. Retrieved May 9, 2022, from https://lux.lawrence.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1113&context=luhp
Rankine, Claudia. Citizen: an American Lyric. Minneapolis, Graywolf Press,
2014.
