Viennese Trainspotter

watermeloncholy:

lucy-connelly:

mehreenkasana:

lucy-connelly:

mehreenkasana:

Just your average dose of racism against an athlete of color. In this case: Serena Williams.

Disgusting but typical.

apart from the last one how are any of these racist? not liking someone who is black isn’t racist it’s just not liking someone 

Sigh. “Gang”, “no class”, “gorilla” and other insults were used while comparing Serena to Maria Sharapova during the - actually, never mind.

i recognised the last one was racist so i don’t know why you mentioned it there. sorry i missed the gang sign one, but how is saying she has no class racist? i missed today’s final but i have seen serena play countless times, classy is not a word i’d use to describe her. i wouldn’t go as far as to say she has no class but i fail to see how that is racist. how is saying she’s built like a horse racist? that is a rude way to word it but she is built big that is undeniable her sister is the complete opposite it clearly has nothing to do with her race. how is not finding someone’s face attractive racist?

again not liking someone who is balck does not equal racism

Often, classism is tied to racism. A lot of classist complaints that you see are code words used to degrade black people and other people of colour… i.e. ghetto, classless etc. Classiness is coded as whiteness—classlessness is anything other than white. Here’s an example…a black person with dyed fire engine red hair or rainbow-coloured hair might be coded as ghetto, while a white person with dyed fire engine red hair or rainbow-coloured hair might be called cute. If a bar or club has mostly POC patrons, it might be coded as ghetto. If an immigrant family from China plants vegetables in their backyard, they might be coded as backwards whereas a white person doing the same thing might be coded as “environmentally friendly.”

Gabby Douglas has also been referred to as having less class than her white/lighter teammates. This is not a coincidence.

Other racially coded tactics used to degrade poc include comparing them to animals. “Built like a horse” is dehumanising. When you dehumanise someone, it makes it easier to treat them with disrespect. In fact, many black athletes do often get compared to animals. This is not a coincidence and it’s not harmless (for example, saying Michael Phelps is like a fish in the water has completely different connotations that aren’t racialised). Serena Williams is built like many other athletes are built, there’s no need to compare her to a horse when she’s a human being. 

You might not fully understand any of this, but when there are people who actually deal with racism and classism explaining to you how comments like this are coded words for very nasty stereotypes… it might do you some good to listen.