Thread by @IBJIYONGI

This. This whole incident triggers so many memories for me of when I stood up for myself and for Black students and other students of color and was punished for it, sometimes severely.

https://twitter.com/professorcrunk/status/1038548772270292992

My career was shifted and nearly completely derailed repeatedly because I asked for justice, I asked for fairness, and even sometimes when I just asked for compassion.

If you all hate us asking for fairness, maybe be fair so we don’t have to?

My first experience with this was in THIRD GRADE, yes the age of 8, asking my teacher why she left all the kids with two Black parents off our class play program, if it was racism. I was curious. She threw me out of class. The lesson? Don’t call racism what it is.

Later I was forced to go into an important professional stage without a needed letter of recommendation because the person felt that I was too strong in my commentary about anti-Black racism.

These are silencing tactics. And they operate to crush our souls.

So many Black women are being triggered today. I’m not the only one.

Punishing Black women for defending themselves and their communities is about breaking Black women. It is a practice that goes back to slavery.

You beat someone enough psychologically or physically, maybe they stop trying to be themselves, stop trying to make you respect their humanity. What’s powerful about #SerenaWilliams is that she refuses to be broken.

Naomi is an extraordinary player. A Black woman. An Asian woman. The hope and the dream of the Haitian Revolution. I hope that she will have an easier time than Serena has. This is not a promising start, that the referee didn’t consider how he was marring her experience.

I think Naomi had a good chance at winning that match, and now she will never know if it was just her skills or referee interference. That’s so deeply unfair to her.

Being robbed of the chance to see what we are capable of by white supremacy is all too common.

I hope Naomi does what Serena did many times over the years: come back and win harder. The persistence and strength is there.

I don’t hope for #SerenaWilliams because I know she can and will.

For people saying that this is a sad moment for Naomi because an Asian woman was robbed of her crown by Serena’s experience with anti-Blackness, you are missing a critical piece of the story:

A young Asian woman who is also Black just witnessed her idol, a Black woman, get treated like shit in front of her. Now she will struggle with feeling like she can’t stick up for herself because otherwise she too, as a Black woman, may be punished.

They are BOTH victims of anti-Blackness here: Serena as the direct target and Naomi as a terror victim.

Every Black woman watching that, every Black girl, was being told to know her place. Naomi was one of them. Today she was the victor, as Serena has been many times before, but if she “gets out of line” maybe she will be in Serena’s shoes. Imagine playing in those conditions.

Look, here’s the other thing: Naomi may be lighter skinned than Serena but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen to her one day. So Asian American commentators who are failing to note the threat that this constitutes to her: you are failing to understand what your hero is facing.

And Asian Americans choosing not to be outspoken about the anti-Blackness Naomi is facing should think carefully about what message that sends to people who are Black and Asian about their place in Asian American communities. Black women are out here defending them. Will you?

The Electric Ladies are preaching. What are the rest of you doing?

So this same umpire tried it on Venus, and Serena saw the writing on the wall and wasn’t going to play games with him and was tired. One day Naomi may find herself in the same situation, helpless against unjust gaslighting, and she may ask for justice too. That’s how this works.

What you say today informs Naomi of how she will be treated in the aftermath of a confrontation with misogynoir.

I think some of y’all would prefer an Asian American hero who doesn’t have to face anti-Blackness, and that is some seriously anti-Black shit.

This is heroic too, and it is critical to see Osaka's identities cannot be separated but are rather entwined:

https://twitter.com/IBJIYONGI/status/1038869164029616133