Reading Citizen by Claudia Rankine, she talks about the abuse that Serena Williams deals with as a black femme tennis player. At least three of her professional colleagues (two men, one woman) have impersonated/mimicked her by putting towels in their shirts and shorts like breasts and butts. I watched an interview with the woman who did it and her and the reviewer are just revolting - it’s all in good fun, we can’t possibly understand how it’s racist, it’s not about skin color, we’re good friends, she said she didn’t care- Rankine talks about how Serena keeps it together, exemplifies good "sportsmanship" in the game of tennis - the game of race relations, in which sexist and racist mimicry are all in good fun, and resistance to them are characterized as (over)reactionary, unsportsmanlike. She has to eat this abuse, the abuse of her colleagues, the officials that consistently shortchange her, costing her matches/money/prestige and putting high costs (fines) on her anger. I went to bed with a pit in my stomach. I felt ashamed for not thinking or talking that much about race here. I think that’s a pivotal part of the issue, white people don’t see themselves as the problem because it’s black and brown people who deal with racism, therefore (the logic goes) racism is only an issue when black or brown people are involved or in the room etc. Maybe we come upon another character here, like Sara Ahmed’s feminist killjoy, the anti-racist killjoy. For a white person in a white environment bringing attention to racism/absence of attention to racism is seen as obscene at worst and unnecessary at best, rather than the lack of dialogue being characterized as such, which is correct - no less, we then understand how the simple presence of black and brown people to many white people is seen as an interruption, a rupture, an embarrassing break in the liberal fallacy of a post-racial present.
Rankine also writes: ”A friend argues that American battle between the “historical self” and the “self self.” By this she means you mostly interact as friends with mutual interest and, for the most part, compatible personalities; however, sometimes your historical selves, her white self and your black self, or your white self and her black self, arrive with the full force of your American positioning. Then you are standing face-to-face in seconds that wipe the affable smiles from post your moths. What did you say? Instantaneously your attachment seems fragile, tenuous, subject to any transgression of your historical self. And though your joined personal histories as supposed to save you from misunderstandings, they usually cause you to understand all too well what is meant.” ... Makes me think about what is unspoken or denied about race/racialization in relationships, how to treat the historical dynamics (fear, power, judgement, internalized superiority and inferiority) within friendships committed to anti-oppression...