Serena Williams cartoon is ‘racist and misogynistic,’ says husband Alexis Ohanian

Alexis
Ohanian.

Photo by
Julian Finney/Getty Images

• The controversial cartoon that depicted Serena Williams as an
  angry baby with exaggerated features is “racist and
  misogynistic,” according to her husband Alexis Ohanian.
• The cartoon was published twice in Australian newspaper The
  Herald Sun and has been defended by the cartoonist and the
  paper’s editor.
• The editor is associated with “Male Champions of Change,” an
  organisation that needs “powerful men to step up beside women in
  building a gender equal world.”
• This relationship has left Ohanian “perplexed.”

Alexis Ohanian has responded to the controversial cartoon that
showed Serena Williams as an angry baby with exaggerated
features.

The drawing was published twice by The Herald Sun — once on Monday, where it
received a strong backlash around the world, and then again on the front page of its
Wednesday edition, alongside a headline that read: “Welcome
to PC World.”

The cartoon was a response to 23-time Grand Slam tennis champion
Williams’ behaviour during the 2018 US Open final on September 8.
Williams lost in straight sets to Naomi Osaka, but was given
three code violations for receiving coaching, for
smashing her racket, and for verbal abuse.

Cartoonist Mark Knight gave Williams grossly exaggerated features
like oversized lips, a big nose, and wiry hair. The drawing has been criticised
for using racist tropes — and Ohanian believes the cartoon is
“blatantly racist and misogynistic.”

Knight said earlier this week that he had been “unfairly” criticised on social
media, and that the world had “just gone crazy.” The Herald
Sun’s editor Damon Johnston defended
Knight, and the cartoon, by saying it “is not racist or
sexist.”

Ohanian thinks differently, adding his surprise that Johnston is
associated with the “Male Champions of Change,” an organisation
that says it needs “more decent, powerful men to step up beside
women in building a gender equal world.” For Ohanian, this seems
at odds with the paper’s stance on Williams, which also called
her “no feminist hero.”

In a tweet published on September 13, Ohanian said: “I am truly
perplexed to learn this editor of the Australian newspaper behind
the blatantly racist and misogynistic cartoon of my wife is a
‘Male Champion of Change.’ Is this supposed to be satire, too?”

Ohanian frequently stands up for Williams. When fans criticised
Ohanian and Williams for not celebrating the first birthday of
their daughter Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr., Ohanian gave the perfect
response. Williams, as a Jehovah’s Witness, does not believe
in birthday celebrations and Ohanian said his daughter “is loved
and will get to celebrate life with people who love her plenty of
times.”

He is no stranger to publicly declaring his love for Williams. To
welcome her back to tennis earlier this year, he installed
four giant billboards in
California that called her “the greatest mother of all time.”

He also called his marriage to Williams “a front-row seat to
greatness.”