Naomi Osaka – latest in moving goal posts

It should be clear by now to the dimmest sportsman and sportswoman that what we have here, far from being the myth of ‘white superiority’, is a serial confession of a ‘white’ inferiority complex.

People would remember how Hitler’s attempt to showcase ‘Aryan’ superiority at the Olympic Games in 1936 was turned upside down by Jesse Owens. What that was about was made apparent by his refusal to shake hands with (actually to come anywhere near) Jesse Owens, and by the admiration with which the German (‘Aryan’) athletes greeted Jesse’s performances.

Around the same time a native (aboriginal) cricketer bowled Don Bradman for a duck. Bradman said that he was the fastest bowler he had faced – Larwood et al not exempted. But the cricket administrators let him win numerous Sheffield Shield matches for Queensland – and kept him out of the Aussie team.

Althea Gibson won Wimbledon twice – but she was not allowed in to use the toilet facilities there.

When Evonne Goolagong won the Wimbledon the first time, the British establishment including especially the BBC and its other media, chose to drop her distinctly native name and referred to her by her ‘anglo’ husband’s name.

Since then we have had the openly racist attacks on Serena and Venus Williams by an establishment that includes match officials, ‘chair umpires’ and others. The ‘white’ administrators and their media have never failed to tell the world that Serena is on a quest to ‘catch up with’ the “record” of Margaret Court – “24 grand slam titles in the Open Era” though in fact Court had won only 11 – the rest were in tournaments for amateurs.

In recent times we have had reports on Ashleigh Barty, also a native of Oz, the current No.1, Sloane Stevens, and just last week on Coco Graf that are as negative as ‘they” could make them. And now their assault on Naomi Osaka is clearly and, in the case of the French organisation, undoubtedly, racist.

It is not widely known that as the French record in Algeria amply proved, the French were – and continue to be as ridiculously and as lethally racist as the ‘Confederates’ in the USA. It should come as no surprise however to secondary school children everywhere that France continues to believe that ‘white’ Europeans have bigger haha brains than say Africans. France won a football World Cup not long ago but failed to mention that its team was composed entirely of ‘non-whites’ mostly from Africa.

In the UK there is a ‘black’ footballer who has punctured racism in that sport and made administrators and fans alike run for cover. Nevertheless, racism in the Metropolitan police and among ‘white’ fans continues to run strong.

We have also had the managers of motor sports fighting to keep the World Champion, Lewis Hamilton, from flagging white racism within that sport: they are not done yet. Jackie Stewart was brought in to try to tell the world that Hamilton’s eight championships counted for less than his own (three).

And what venom is being spewed by the head of the French tennis tournament on Naomi Osaka for declining to be quizzed by the press: the penalty for that, $15,000 was already extracted, when the man and his wo/men came up with threats of further penalties, that bore no relation to Naomi passing up an interview.

It stands to reason (if such notions as fair-play have a place at all in tournaments run not by sportsmen but by businessmen who are besides racist) that the French body of organisers should be outlawed and no internationally recognised events should be held there until that is done.

GAMINI SENEVIRATNE