Many of us had never heard of professional tennis player Caroline Wozniacki until she mocked Serena Williams’ famous curves by stuffing towels down her tank top and tennis skirt during a tennis match.
As soon as the photos surfaced online, bloggers and social network users reacted with outrage at the perceived racism.
Katie Halper, a blogger for Feministing.com, wrote: “Making fun of somebody’s body is inappropriate, sexist, offensive and problematic. But given the history and current-day context of racialized standards of beauty, and the hypersexualization of people of color, when a white woman makes fun of a black woman’s body, especially in a way that hypersexualizes her and draws on the stereotype of black women’s big butts, it’s racist.”
The 22-year-old Russian isn’t the first tennis player to make fun of Serena’s ample assets.
When tennis star Novak Djokovic stuffed a towel down his shirt to imitate Williams’ breasts in Novenmber, Yahoo! sports called his imitation “hilarious,” adding, “The likeness to Serena, you’ll surely agree, is uncanny.”
So far Serena has not commented on the brewing controversy.
More from Sandrarose.com: