Week 6 Reading Response, Karen Leonardo – ENG 2100: Writing 1 with Jay Thompson

A moment from Rankine’s excerpt that struck me was when he spoke about Serena’s semifinal against Belgium’s Kim Clijsters. The line judge called out Serena for stepping on the line while serving which is called a ‘foo fault.’ The cameras do not show the feet while serving therefore there was not proof of it happening. Apart from there being no proof everyone else like Serena, her sister, even various commentators said there was no foot fault. that moment in his excerpt struck me because it’s insane how people want to see others fail so bad. It stated, “Even the ESPN tennis commentator, who seems predictable in her readiness to find fault with the Williams sisters, says, “Her foot fault call was way off.” Yes, and even if there had been a foot fault, despite the rule, they are rarely ever called at critical moments in a Grand Slam match because “You don’t make a call,” tennis official Carol Cox says, “that can decide a match unless it’s flagrant.” The fact that people go overboard to even point out small details in unnecessary moments to see others lose, especially Serena who is a different race than everyone that is around her, just shows how racist one can be.

While reading Rankine’s excerpt I noticed she applied two of the analysis lenses from Blankenship, Graves, and Eickmyer’s list. Those lenses are constraints and critical race theory. She uses the analysis lense constraints (resistance rhetors face from the audience) when she described how Serena plays in a court where she is the other black women who is seen. Rankine describes how it was very rare to see black women in a space that is so prominently white. It stated, “From the start many made it clear Serena would have done better struggling to sur-vive in the two-dimensionality of a Millet painting, rather than on their tennis court—better to put all that strength to work in their fantasy of her working the land, rather than be caught up in the turbulence of our ancient dramas, like a ship fighting a storm in a Turner seascape.” That shows just how much others did not think she would survive or flourish in an environment like that. Rankine states how no one could protect her from the environment she will be in. Rankine uses the analysis lense critical race theory (being stereotyped/marginalized/disempowered based on race) when Serena was seen as a “gangster” in the court. When Serena was falsely faulted she would get mad at the commentators for good reasons because she clearly did not do what they claimed she did. In the excerpt it stated,”In any case, it is difficult not to think that if Serena lost context by abandoning all rules of civility, it could be because her body, trapped in a racial imaginary, trapped in disbelief—code for being black in America—is being governed not by the tennis match she is participating in but by a collapsed relationship that had promised to play by the rules. Perhaps this is how racism feels no matter the context—randomly the rules everyone else gets to play by no longer apply to you,…” That comes to show how Serena really feels as if all the game rules go away once she’s in the court. She is playing by the rules but apparently, according to the commentators she is making mistakes she doesn’t even noticed that she is making.

A specific moment I noticed words were not necessary when trying to communicate was when I was in school. Every time that it was time to pick partners and I was not sitting near my friends we would always communicate with our eyes. Right when the teacher said the words, “Find a partner,” me and my friend made direct eye contact, it was if we knew exactly what was about to happen. When I looked at her thinking, “You want to be my partner.” She looked at me in response nodding her head as if saying, “Of course!” I smiled back and we went on with our class time. When I think of the moments that I have communicated using facial expressions or just head gestures it really comes to show that we are able to communicate even with the people that speak a different language than us. We don’t necessarily need to know a certain language to be able to simply communicate in emergencies.

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