I have always liked Naomi Osaka. The tennis star is creative on the court and candid in interviews, especially about her mental-health challenges. I was disappointed when she lost last week in the U.S. Open to Amanda Anisimova, who was defeated in the final on Saturday by Aryna Sabalenka.
But I also think Osaka was dead wrong in her remarks at the tournament about racism. And recognizing that might be a key to breathing life into my moribund political party.
I speak of the Democrats, of course, who too often view the world through the prism of racism. But most Americans — including most Americans of color — don’t. We need to lose that habit if we want to start winning again.
Witness the imbroglio at the Open between the Latvian player Jelena Ostapenko and Taylor Townsend, who is African American. Townsend won a point by hitting the net cord but didn’t raise her hands in apology, as per traditional tennis etiquette. A visibly furious Ostapenko yelled at her, claiming that Townsend had “no class” and “no education.”
Then Osaka let fly with her own volley at a post-match press conference. “It’s one of the worst things you can say to a Black tennis player in a majority white sport,” declared Osaka, whose father is Haitian and whose mother is Japanese.
In other words, she was saying that Ostapenko’s remark was racist.
The internet agreed, blowing up with indignation about the “racist Latvian tennis player” and threatening to boycott Adidas, Ostapenko’s sponsor. Never mind that Townsend herself said she “didn’t take it that way,” when asked if Ostapenko’s rant was racially charged.
There is an ugly history of anti-Black racism in the U.S. — and in many other parts of the world — but we are not simply products of it. We are all different. We are all individuals. And you can’t presume to know what’s in each of our hearts.
Townsend said that, too. Historically, she noted, African-Americans have faced a “stigma … of being ‘not educated.'” But she didn’t know if Ostapenko had that in mind during their courtside argument. “So whether it had racial undertones or not, that’s something she can speak on,” Townsend said.
Ostapenko did speak on it, of course, and vehemently denied the charge. “I was NEVER racist in my life and I respect all nations of people in the world,” she posted on social media. “For me, it doesn’t matter where you come from.”
Her own vexed history backs that up. Put simply, Jenna Ostapenko is nasty to lots of players. And it doesn’t matter where they come from.
In 2021, she told Australian player Ajla Tomljanovic she had “no respect” after Tomljanovic accused Ostapenko of faking an injury to get a medical timeout. The next year, following an upset loss to Germany’s Tatjana Maria, Ostapenko threw a water bottle at her chair and said Maria was “lucky” to win. Ostapenko was booed off the court and savaged on social media. “Can we please acknowledge that Ostapenko is the worst sport in the game, right?” one commentator wrote.
Indeed, Naomi Osaka nodded to the same pattern in her own remarks indicting Ostapenko’s allegedly racist statement to Townsend. “If you’re genuinely asking me about the history of Ostapenko, I don’t think that’s the craziest thing she’s said. I’m going to be honest,” Osaka said.
Let’s be honest, then. We have a white player with a long record of berating other white players. But when she berates a Black player, she’s supposedly being racist. Her personal history doesn’t matter. All that matters is the global history of racism that preceded her.
And if you want to keep losing elections, my fellow Democrats, keep looking at life that way. In a 2023 poll by Public Agenda, 77 percent of Americans agreed that it’s a “serious problem” that “people are too quick to accuse others of racism.”
And if you think it’s just white people who say that, think again. In the survey, 77 percent of Latino Americans and 76 percent of Asian Americans agreed with the statement. The fraction of African Americans who agreed was slightly lower — 68 percent — but still represented a sizeable majority.
No wonder our party has been hemorrhaging voters, especially voters of color. As the same poll demonstrated, two-thirds of Americans think racism “makes life difficult” for non-whites. But they’re sick and tired of making everything about racism, as left-leaning white people are wont to do.
In a 2017 study, whites who attended or graduated from college were much more likely than Blacks or Hispanics to agree that so-called “microaggressions” — like “where are you from?” or “you speak good English” — were offensive. And polls routinely show that college-educated whites perceive more racism in our society than Blacks or Hispanics do.
Are we to imagine that these oh-so-smart white people sense racism more acutely than its targets? That sounds borderline racist in its own right. And it’s a formula for yet more defeat down the road.
So we need to turn things around, right now. Say it loud, Democrats, and say it proud: we are all individuals, and we are all different. Racism is real. But if we assume that it governs everything, we will be laughed off the court. And out of office.
Jonathan Zimmerman teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania and serves on the advisory board of the Lepage Center for History in the Public Interest.
