I am reasonable man, so just because a white person brings up racism, doesn’t mean he is racist or his point is invalid.
I try to analyze what they are trying to say and then decide the validity of the point.
Darren Rovell was tweeting how Maria Sharapova withdrawing from US OPEN which AMEX is a sponsor was a big blow for them because she is an endorser.
Maria Sharapova's withdrawal from US Open huge blow to American Express, who has her all over tournament pic.twitter.com/RAcpgW2b0y
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) August 30, 2015
Sharapova out is bad for AMEX, but not as bad as 10 years ago when Andy Roddick "lost his mojo" in the 1st round
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) August 30, 2015
Seems like a reasonable train of thought, but somehow Serena Williams came up. I’d imagine some of Rovell followers brought up that Serena is a bigger star and better player than Sharapova.
Rovell then had this to say.
I don’t believe he means that Serena Williams doesn’t deal with racism, I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt on that. You can look at her mentions at any time on Twitter and see she deals with a lot more hatred and slurs than your average tennis player.
The point I believe he is trying to make is that her being black and whatever racism she has faced hasn’t hurt her endorsement deals.
According to Forbes, Serena brings in about $13 million in endorsements a year. Maria Sharapova pulls in $23 million in endorsements a year.
That is a $10 million difference, even though Serena is the far superior player.
It would be like Jay Cutler having more endorsements than Tom Brady. It is hard to pinpoint if it is out-and-out racism, but you can’t be naïve in the fact that Maria Sharapova fits what society believes is the ideal woman. She’s tall, skinny and pale skin.
Companies care about making money and see Sharapova as the better ideal woman to pitch their products. That is a societal issue black women have dealt with since the beginning of time. They are constantly being judged and stereotyped about their body types. But, what should the companies do? They are trying to sell a product are they racists just because they are catering to their clients? Wouldn’t that make the users more racist than the supplies?
Serena is athletic, muscular and brown skin. That intimidates a lot of people, when it just be seen as another body type in the many body types that are in our society. If she was black, tall, skinny and give PC answers to everything would her endorsements be the same as Sharapova? Our society has so many stereotypes , double standards, prejudices we could talk about it for days, weeks, months and years.
A black woman and white woman can wear similar revealing outfits and the white woman will be called sexy and the black woman slutty or a hoe.
Mr. Rovell doesn’t have to deal with this day to day societal prejudice and ignorance, so I can understand why he thinks it would be idiotic, but the facts are if Serena was white and as dominant as she is, she probably would have more endorsements.
It is common for black athletes if they want to have a lot of endorsements to have to be seen as non threatening or as some would say “acting white”. Now, for some that is their natural personalities and there is nothing wrong with that, but others can’t be themselves to make the type of money of their white counterparts. Remember how they tried to play the ideal black man “Russell Wilson” against the stereotypical black man “Colin Kaepernick”. This happens daily not just in life but in the boardrooms across America.
I hope Mr. Rovell would maybe talk to some black women in media, sports and entertainment to get a clearly understand of the challenges they face. He might realize it isn’t that idiotic as it seems.