Uncategorized February 23, 2017
You don’t have to be a tennis fan to have heard of Serena Williams. She’s a pop culture icon, one of the top female athletes worldwide and a black woman making strides in a white-dominated sport. Williams has reached records never seen in any tennis player. She’s the latest player – male or female – to hold all four major single titles simultaneously and she won four Olympic gold medals, a record breaking number for women’s tennis. One of the most remarkable things about Williams is her unapologetic ambition and determination to win.
Since childhood, whether on or off the court, Williams knows that she is both fierce and fabulous.
Home schooled along with her sister Venus, Williams grew up in Compton, California. In 1992, a company called Trans World interviewed 11-year-old Williams asking who her role model was. Williams declared that she didn’t want to be like anyone else that she wanted people to be like her.
Today Williams has certainly accomplished that feat. Author JK Rowling even admits to looking up to her, according to ABC.
Not only is Williams making strides as an athlete, she’s making strides as a black athlete in a predominantly white sport. VICE reported in 2015 that it was statistically more likely to get into Harvard than it was to see a black or Asian man win the Grand Slam. In an essay Williams wrote for Wired on increasing diversity she cites her own experience with adversity.
“I’m a black woman, and I am in a sport that wasn’t really meant for black people,” Williams wrote. In the same essay Williams admitted to using aspirations as her passwords. Williams isn’t afraid of confidence. She doesn’t fit the female mold of humility and meekness—she can’t if she wants to win.
Being a successful black woman in the U.S. in any field presents challenges, but Williams conquers it gracefully. In 2015 she was Sports Illustrated’s sportsperson of the year. She designed her cover photo shoot herself opting for a tight lacy black jump suit and a golden throne. In the picture she stares directly at the camera, lounging on her throne, with her one long heeled leg provocatively hanging off the armrest.
The cover received lots of back lash not only for featuring Williams, but also for being too sexy. Williams was the first female athlete to grace to cover alone since a 1983 cover featuring Mary Decker, according to ESPN.
Sports Illustrated stated that the cover had been Williams’s idea to express her own ideal of femininity, strength and power.
Despite criticism, Williams is determined to succeed in everything she does. Outside of sports she’s launched her own fashion line, her own nail line, has made guest appearances in several TV shows and is adding movie credits to her repertoire, and has voice acted in several shows including her favorite show, Avatar the Last Air Bender. She also started The Serena Williams Fund which focuses on increasing education opportunities and decreasing violence, according to her website. Through the fund Williams was able to help open two Kenyan schools in 2008 and 2010. She made it a rule that her schools must be at least 40 percent girls because Kenyan girls aren’t often allowed to go to school, and she accomplished it.
Williams teaches us a valuable lesson that hard work and self-love can help you accomplish the seemingly impossible.
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