Serena Williams cries "discrimination" over drug testing

[Madmick]

Confused by this part in article...

"..Cops responded to the 911 call but quickly left the property when the misunderstanding was discovered. It was not known whether Williams submitted to the drug test."

If the cops responded and left and the tester remained would not Serena be REQUIRED to submit to the test or that gets reported as a serious violation?

This does not speak to guilt like Aldo having the off duty cop in the gym kick the tester out while he hid.

That is a spectacular question, isn't it? The answer is no. They still didn't test her.

She just throws a tantrum, and they don't hold her to account because she's Serena. Keep reading. She just did it again in 2018. This time she didn't even bother locking herself in her panic room.

 

[TheTimeIsNotNow]

Pics?

Of both please....for research purposes

 

[panamaican]

She posed it with a question mark. That's fishing. If you would like to entertain other possibilities, be my guest, but I firmly opine the history of black athletes decrying discrimination based on racial grounds warrants the strongest reading, from Jesse Owens to Jackie Robinson to today, and since she offered no other explanation, she invited all interpretations, including my own, all with equal validity. Mine is the strongest reading,

Argue your case. Is she decrying sexism? Anti-Americanism?

Sure, here's a simple other possibility. She thinks they are discriminating against her relative to all other female tennis players because of her success.

Yours is the weakest reading possible, especially given your examples of Jesse Owens and Jackie Robinson actually involved overt statements of racial discrimination and overt responses to it. When most black athletes allege racial discrimination they state the race component. For example when Kaepernick took his formal position against the anthem he specified that it was about police treatment of black people, not generic police treatment. When LBJ's house was vandalized, he specified his belief that race played a role. Here, Serena makes no reference to race at all.

Your example is even weaker given that her sister doesn't get tested very much. You think that Serena Williams is alleging racial discrimination while probably knowing how little her own sister gets tested? You think it's an allusion to racial discrimination when she references that she gets tested more than other tennis players. Yet she would have to know that there are other black tennis players in the group of people who are getting tested less than she is?

Your reading is weak. She says discrimination. References herself vs. all tennis players. The obvious read is that they are discriminating against her compared to all tennis players, not just white ones. Not black ones vs. white ones. You have to make a special leap of illogic to read in that it's specifically about race.

 

[MikeMcMann]

That is a spectacular question, isn't it? The answer is no. They still didn't test her.

She just throws a tantrum, and they don't hold her to account because she's Serena. Keep reading. She just did it again in 2018. This time she didn't even bother locking herself in her panic room.

Seems like the agency might not be really into catching their (top) athletes then and told to back off.

 

[Madmick]

Sure, here's a simple other possibility. She thinks they are discriminating against her relative to all other female tennis players because of her success.

That's not "discrimination". An individual is not a group.

 

[HereticBD]

She posed it with a question mark. That's fishing.

That's quite the reach.

Feel free to interpret it as you will, but it sounds more like a star player being a "whoa is me" diva, and annoyed that she's being tested so often over other more insignificant players. I think if she wanted to make it about race, she would've made it clear. It's not like women's tennis is all white girls and her.

However, the lady doth protest too much, me thinks. She's probably doping, and throwing this shit out there in a desperate attempt to get them to back off.

 

[Leagon]

I mean...she's not wrong.

These kind of "come on, black people" posts are annoying, and it's obvious when the person making the post actually doesn't have much interest in, investment in, or experience with actual black people.

How any person on Sherdog can pretend that black athletes don't get disproportionate comments about their physique is insane. People of west African descent generally have more fast twitch muscle fibers. Dark skin enhances the aesthetic of muscle tone, which is why bodybuilders tan so heavily.

The obvious counter is that buff white athletes get accused of being on roids too, but that's not the point. Our definition of what looks like a PED user is retarded. Professional athletes aren't using steroids to impress chicks, they're doing it so they can train harder, perform better, and avoid injury. Black/brown athletes are often under greater suspicion simply because what we think a PED user looks like happens to be a look that is more common among athletes with some west African ancestry.

This isn't particularly controversial of her to say. People accuse Serena of being on roids all the time. I've never heard Sharapova or any of the other, less muscular female players get accused. Hingis, Graf, Navratilova, all dominant players, none considered to have a "suspicious" physique.

That said, Serena is for sure on PEDs, imo.

 

[Madmick]

That's quite the reach.

Feel free to interpret it as you will, but it sounds more like a star player being a "whoa is me" diva, and annoyed that she's being tested so often over other more insignificant players. I think if she wanted to make it about race, she would've made it clear. It's not like women's tennis is all white girls and her.

However, the lady doth protest too much, me thinks. She's probably doping, and throwing this shit out there in a desperate attempt to get them to back off.

How many cases, historically, of athletes decrying "discrimination" based on success can you cite or recall? How many movements have grown up with the stars of a sport linking arms and initiating social, politically-minded movements to end the "discrimination" against...winners?

@panamaican just grossly misread my allusion to the history of real discrimination against black athletes in sports in a similar fashion. It wasn't about me analogizing Serena's claim to those cases, but her implying it with reference to that term. This is the most richly invested connotation with that term, and I am accusing of her abusing that: of pandering with that subtext.

Let's see where this story takes us. You think it's going to be received as her pushing for investigation into discrimination against those who earn the most money and championships?

 

[salamander]

On the deepest level, I agree with this, but practically speaking, I only use this language because I understand the black community remains so distrustful of individuals with my skin color, and our motives. For that reason our moral authority is often treated with less respect by these people (this is our own fault; our history has laid a groundwork for the very rational distrust of our institutions of power).

Don't read more into it than that. I'm simply conceding that my voice will not be the one to lead the black community in these matters. They need to embrace it themselves.

Yeah, we're gonna need a little more than this to ban her from the cookout, or even deny her a plate.

Her clout is approaching almost Oprah-esqe dimensions in her paticular sphere of influence- soon she'll be the one handing out all the paper plates, meaning- she'll undoubtedly seek to expand this clout post-career, so to try and take down a whale like that with what is essentially "I'm a jacked black chick, deal it." ain't gonna cut it. We need to see blood in the stool before we call an ambulance. We need an armada of victimhood before we cast her into the Cosby-ian abyssal of the black pariah.

My preference would be that all comminuties trend away from celebrity worship and most especially mindless tribalism. But that would probably vaporize most of the threads in the war room. Besides, there isn't much fun or money in self-reflection. I ain't sucking this war room titty for my emancipation, i do it to be titilated.

And since you've recently been in the mode of checking people's papers let me state that when i do stray from generic shitposting I generally package in criticism's of my "tribe" and my personal belief systems while kvetching about others. I'm too lazy too rummage through my post history, but i'm speaking the truth in this regard.

Look, the best we can do right now is feed y'all a Trevor Noah, and maybe you toss in a Chrisette Michele...I'm gonna try to ring up my peoples in Parkdale and maybe see if i work something out to include a slightly battered Blackface Drake for the added goodwill and some good ol' Canadian content?

 

[Farmer Br0wn]

If you come into tennis looking like you should play football, expect to get tested.

This line gave me a belly laugh.

I'm going to steal this line for future reference if I'm ever in a conversation about similar Sports.

 

[vengeful]

The black community should treat this with greater hostility than any other. This blatant attempt to exploit the very real history of white racism, and appeal to those who are constantly suspicious of it even when they cannot prove it, due to that history, is the cry of wolf that deafens white ears to valid sociopolitical grievances.

Don't tell me this is an isolated incident or an outlier. It's been happening over and over and over the past several years. This is a constant threat. You will always have to internally police it. Many people in your community will repeatedly attempt to exploit what is real for personal gain, and it cheapens the cause.

Serena Williams feels singled out in tennis' drug testing


...then attempts to hedge after throwing our her troll pleading for sympathy by pandering to race fears...



Hmmm, that's funny, Serena, why do you think the anti-doping authorities might be hawking you a bit more closely than the rest? Think it might have something to do with you pulling a Lance Armstrong?
Report: Serena locks self in panic room


I noticed that happened around the time they weren't testing you! Maybe your character has been established, and they understand now how to keep you honest. On your own, you're not.


To the black community from a white friend: please, don't let this go unchecked and unpunished. You have to stigmatize this strategy of exploitation.

Otherwise, even the noble might not come when you call for help. They won't believe you.

So you think she's targeted for a test she didn't take 7 years ago at the time the tester came but was tested and passed the next day? When USADA allows people to have 3 whereabouts violations that expire over time?

lol that's some shitty logic

 

[Madmick]

These kind of "come on, black people" posts are annoying, and it's obvious when the person making the post actually doesn't have much interest in, investment in, or experience with actual black people.

This is ignorant of my life, and the identity of my immediate family. Please, don't cast accusations by implication in ignorance. It makes a fool of you.

 

[salamander]

And lol at the notion blacks in sports don't pigeon-holed. Lamar Jackson just haaaad to be a reciever in a lot of people's eyes. Most of them were blue.

Now granted, the white running back is as rare as the dodo...


























.......but that's because they're really just fullbacks anyway

 

[panamaican]

That's not "discrimination". An individual is not a group.

Yeah, it is discrimination. Female tennis players with Serena's build and success rate vs. other tennis players. An individual is not a group. But a group can have only a singly individual within in it at a given point of time. But we're getting into semantics here and moving a little bit away from the point.

Serena can allege that the testing agency is discriminating against her without extending that discrimination to mean "because she's black". It's not in the language that she wrote, she made no allusions to race or even to other individual tennis players so that we could make a specific characteristic contrast. It's simply not there and reading it as a race claim requires a huge leap of logic.

On top of that, it's strange watching you try to turn it into some black community chastisement - "Oh, the black community should be hostile to a tennis player complaining about her treatment within her sport..." That takes a bad misread on your part and extends it into some weird racial moralizing.

That's the insane part. Even if Serena was claiming racial discrimination...why would you make it about the "black community" instead of just Serena? And from a "white friend"? Fuck that's absurd shit. What does you being white have to do anything?

The more I think about it, the more absurd the entire thread appears to be.

 

[Ruprecht]

I mean...she's not wrong.

These kind of "come on, black people" posts are annoying, and it's obvious when the person making the post actually doesn't have much interest in, investment in, or experience with actual black people.

How any person on Sherdog can pretend that black athletes don't get disproportionate comments about their physique is insane. People of west African descent generally have more fast twitch muscle fibers. Dark skin enhances the aesthetic of muscle tone, which is why bodybuilders tan so heavily.

The obvious counter is that buff white athletes get accused of being on roids too, but that's not the point. Our definition of what looks like a PED user is retarded. Professional athletes aren't using steroids to impress chicks, they're doing it so they can train harder, perform better, and avoid injury. Black/brown athletes are often under greater suspicion simply because what we think a PED user looks like happens to be a look that is more common among athletes with some west African ancestry.

This isn't particularly controversial of her to say. People accuse Serena of being on roids all the time. I've never heard Sharapova or any of the other, less muscular female players get accused. Hingis, Graf, Navratilova, all dominant players, none considered to have a "suspicious" physique.

That said, Serena is for sure on PEDs, imo.

Outside of the US, I'd say Nadal cops more accusations.

Spoiler

 

[Madmick]

Yeah, it is discrimination. Female tennis players with Serena's build and success rate vs. other tennis players. An individual is not a group. But a group can have only a singly individual within in it at a given point of time. But we're getting into semantics here and moving a little bit away from the point.

Serena can allege that the testing agency is discriminating against her without extending that discrimination to mean "because she's black". It's not in the language that she wrote, she made no allusions to race or even to other individual tennis players so that we could make a specific characteristic contrast. It's simply not there and reading it as a race claim requires a huge leap of logic.

On top of that, it's strange watching you try to turn it into some black community chastisement - "Oh, the black community should be hostile to a tennis player complaining about her treatment within her sport..." That takes a bad misread on your part and extends it into some weird racial moralizing.

That's the insane part. Even if Serena was claiming racial discrimination...why would you make it about the "black community" instead of just Serena? And from a "white friend"? Fuck that's absurd shit. What does you being white have to do anything?

The more I think about it, the more absurd the entire thread appears to be.

You believe this is the strongest reading of "discrimination"?

I think it has to do with the fact she hides from anti-doping agents in her panic room like Lance Armonstrong. I think it has to do with her refusing to take out-of-competition tests at specific times, potentially very inconvenient times, by throwing a tantrum when accosted, and forcing the accosting agent to camp out on her estate-- ultimately to no avail. I think it has to do with the fact that she got busted by Russian hackers for cheating, and this was somehow covered up by the testing bodies.

I think Serena wants to distract from all that by trolling those most distrustful of authorities, and who are most likely to decry "institutionalized racism".

And I'm calling that out.

 

[panamaican]

@panamaican just grossly misread my allusion to the history of real discrimination against black athletes in sports in a similar fashion. It wasn't about me analogizing Serena's claim to those cases, but her implying it with reference to that term. This is the most richly invested connotation with that term, and I am accusing of her abusing that: of pandering with that subtext.

I didn't misread it. You proferred them as examples. If you didn't intend for them to be the points of comparison then you should have used different examples. Bringing up Jesse Owens and Jackie Robinson in a discussion about whether or not Serena Williams is insinuating racial discrimination only works if she is actually making allegations that rise to the level of what those individuals experienced.

You're either exaggerating her statement or reducing the experiences of the others individuals to make even the slightest parallel. And I directly pointed out that the biggest absurdity in your comparison is that Owens and Robinson spoke openly about the discrimination being racial. Serena makes no such statement so and allegation that she's pandering to the subtext of Owens and Robinson is weak at best and ignorant as to what Owens and Robinson were addressing at worst.

 

[Madmick]

I didn't misread it. You proferred them as examples. If you didn't intend for them to be the points of comparison then you should have used different examples. Bringing up Jesse Owens and Jackie Robinson in a discussion about whether or not Serena Williams is insinuating racial discrimination only works if she is actually making allegations that rise to the level of what those individuals experienced.

You're either exaggerating her statement or reducing the experiences of the others individuals to make even the slightest parallel. And I directly pointed out that the biggest absurdity in your comparison is that Owens and Robinson spoke openly about the discrimination being racial. Serena makes no such statement so and allegation that she's pandering to the subtext of Owens and Robinson is weak at best and ignorant as to what Owens and Robinson were addressing at worst.

*Proffered.

I have clarified the reason for my allusion to that history. I am specifically criticizing her for exploiting the lingering wounds from those old, valid examples with her specific language. Her complaint does not match them explicitly, but her desire to be perceived in the same light is-- yoked by the invocation of this term.

 

[panamaican]

You believe this is the strongest reading of "discrimination"?

I think it has to do with the fact she hides from anti-doping agents in her panic room like Lance Armonstrong. I think it has to do with her refusing to take out-of-competition tests at specific times, potentially very inconvenient times, by throwing a tantrum when accosted, and forcing the accosting agent to camp out on her estate-- ultimately to no avail. I think it has to do with the fact that she got busted by Russian hackers for cheating, and this was somehow covered up by the testing bodies.

I think Serena wants to distract from all that by trolling those most distrustful of authorities, and who are most likely to decry "institutionalized racism".

And I'm calling that out.

You're not calling out anything, you're just making shit up. You write an entire paragraph about cheating and doping and then without any intermediary explanation you claim that her response is to claim racism. Even though she never says racism, never says black, never alludes to white tennis players being treated differently, etc.

Seems more like you're looking for it to be about race and so anything that you can vaguely misinterpret as race you have chosen to do so.

 

[Ruprecht]

I've never heard Sharapova or any of the other, less muscular female players get accused.

Sharapova copped a 15 month ban by the way for using Meldonium.
Successful Eastern Block athletes definitely raise suspicions.