The Herald Sun’s Serena Williams cartoon draws on a long and damaging history of racist caricature
Whether Mark Knight and his editor realise it or not, the controversial Serena Williams cartoon draws on at least 200 years of racist and sexist caricaturing of African and African-descended people, writes Clare Corbould in this crossposting from The Conversation.
In the aftermath of the dramatic US Open women’s final between Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka, Herald Sun cartoonist Mark Knight sketched a cartoon of Williams that has drawn opprobrium worldwide.
Critics such as writer J.K. Rowling and basketball player Ben Simmons have denounced it as racist and sexist. However, the Herald Sun’s editor defended Knight, saying the cartoon had “nothing to do with gender or race”.
Well done on reducing one of the greatest sportswomen alive to racist and sexist tropes and turning a second great sportswoman into a faceless prop. https://t.co/YOxVMuTXEC
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) 10 September 2018
But whether Knight and his editor realise it or not, the cartoon draws on at least 200 years of racist and sexist caricaturing of African and African-descended women.
Early cartoon caricatures
In the United States, the tradition of racist caricature began as slavery came to end. This was not a coincidence.
The first place to outlaw slavery in the newly formed United States was Vermont in 1777. Over the next 50 years, northern states abolished slavery at different rates. Then, in 1861, the nation went to war over slavery, and with the Union’s victory four years later, this dark period of the nation’s history officially came to a close.
But wealthy whites’ desire for cheap labour did not end. In order to maintain a permanent underclass of workers, new and pernicious forms of racial classifications emerged. These were designed to keep black people “in their place,” or prevent them from becoming “uppity.”
The 19th century also saw the solidifying of now-discredited forms of science that pegged races to a so-called ladder of civilisation. White people, in this logic, had ascended to the top of the ladder. In the United States, African-descended people were at the bottom. (In Australia, white people pegged Aboriginal people to the bottom rung.)
Alongside such ideas came new ways to represent – or misrepresent – groups of people in imagery. Racist and sexist caricaturing became a staple of newspapers and pamphlets, which were circulating ever more cheaply by the decade. This was “racism’s visual vocabulary”, to use a phrase coined by American professor Martha S. Jones.
American cartoonists exaggerated the features, clothes, speech and deportment of black people. The effect, as in Edward Clay’s famed “Life in Philadelphia” series, was to suggest that African Americans would never fit into city life as free people. Such stereotypes helped undermine free black people’s claim to citizenship and to rights as fundamental as the vote.
Stereotypes of black people took several forms. Zip Coon was a dandy who imperfectly mimicked modern city ways and never earned an honest dollar; the “mammy” existed only to take care of white people; harmless “uncles” or “sambos” were not very bright and good only for menial labour.
Cartoons often infantilised black people into odd-looking, overgrown “picaninnies”, similar to Knight’s depiction of Williams in his cartoon.
Damaging stereotypes of hyper-sexed black characters emerged too, including the “buck” and “Jezebel.” These served as yet another way to control black lives and labour.
Minstrels and film
Caricatures also extended beyond cartoons to what was fast becoming the most popular form of entertainment in the 19th century United States: blackface minstrelsy. Audiences across the country, and eventually all over the world (including Australia) revelled in this new comic form. Sharing a laugh by making fun of black people became one way that white Americans united with large new groups of immigrants.
The idea that African-descended people were somehow less human or less advanced also enabled white people of different classes to feel united and superior to black people. This feeling of superiority is what black intellectual and activist W. E. B. Du Bois called “a psychological wage”. It helped wealthy white people suppress alliances between poor white people and black people who had been enslaved, or their descendants.
Racist caricaturing was so useful to those in power that it by the end of the 19th century it was everywhere. Consumer goods, an ever-expanding market, were sold with images of caring Aunt Jemima and benign Uncle Ben (the latter is still on grocery shelves today, albeit with an updated image).
Such caricaturing continued to demean African Americans into the 20th century. Some of the very first short films and feature films in the United States centred on black characters who were stereotyped as lazy, thieving and/or stupid. The Jazz Singer, the first “talkie” released in 1927, featured Al Jolson in blackface singing a song called “Mammy”.
Right into my childhood in regional Australia, racial caricatures could be seen on TV’s Bugs Bunny, while more recent examples include Eddie Murphy’s donkey in Shrek (2001) and the Lion King’s hyenas (1994).
The purpose of racist caricature of African Americans is no longer to maintain a cheap workforce. It is also vital to note the ways African Americans have resisted, negotiated and minimised harm wherever possible. But such images do continue to perpetuate racist myths about black people’s natures and capabilities, with other deleterious effects. They have had a long, damaging history, and it’s time that 21st century media outlets such as the Herald Sun let them go.
Clare Corbould is associate professor at Deakin University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Well done Clare. You’ve pointed out what Robert Phiddian was unable to see.
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The donkey in Shrek is a racist caricature? The world has gone mad…
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Interesting that some male tennis pros have come out in her defence, saying she was certainly penalised for a sin they got away with and that the penalty was out of order. It seems that she might well have been justified in having a go and it might well turn out that the umpire is in trouble.
Which would make the cartoonist look pretty stupid, not to mention out of touch.
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She lost a game of professional tennis, there were many references that did not need to be made while pleading to the referee. This has probably highlighted how the person in question behaves behind closed doors. I think the cartoonist portrayed her in a reasonable light. Political Correctness gone mad, soon we will all be recorded for deformation because sensitive Sam or Sally are upset with our rebuke.
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Just as an aside the ITF have come out in support of the umpire saying he was correct in all of his calls and they backed his decision to make the penalty that he did.
The challenge here as in all sports with interpretation as part of the adjudication (AFL, Soccer, Rugby, etc..) is that different umpires will make slightly different calls on different days.
The issue here is not that maybe another umpire would/wouldn’t have made the call, the issue is whether it is because she was a woman he made the call to dock her the game.
Umpire says it had nothing to do with her gender and ITF says he made the right calls.
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This I am thoroughly confused by. Its.. a donkey.. ?
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Thank you for explaining this so clearly. The Herald Sun claiming on its front page that the PC police are taking away all the fun is misleading and I think frightening in its ignorance.
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Well done on your contribution on escalating the “divide and conquer”movement currently being rammed down the public’s throat globally by the media monopoly .
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Is that really so confusing? Anthropomorphised animals have been used to play out racist stereotypes for ages. Dumbo’s crows are clearly supposed to be African American (the leader of the crows is named ‘Jim’, because apparently Walt Disney wasn’t subtle), and the Asian stereotype cat in The Aristocats is pretty disgusting.
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So depending on your race, you expect a free pass for any abhorrent behaviour and cartoonists cannot satirise you? Not going to happen. These snowflakes need to get over themselves and harden up. Satire is back, and it’s got plenty of targets in its sights.
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The Herald Sun is correct.
It’s choice of defence is wrong.
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If you’re continually inclined to find things racist or sexist, stop looking at anything and you’ll no longer be offended.
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Martina Navratilova came out saying Serena was out of order. I’d back her over your unnamed male tennis players. Which I’d suggest makes you look pretty stupid, not to mention out of touch Ed. Smiley Face.
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