Speaker 1: Pushing. So we were on the We were on the
Speaker 1: Kenwood High School tennis team together, and I remember when
Speaker 1: we were on the team together that you were voted
Speaker 1: most improved players our junior year because I worked, because
Speaker 1: I worked really hard. So our junior year, our junior year,
Speaker 1: you really get really good. It's really admirable like you were.
Speaker 1: I know, that's right. So you were voted our junior
Speaker 1: year that award. That award is the second most important awarding. No,
Speaker 1: to me, it's first place. But I just want to
Speaker 1: add that our senior year you got voted most improved again.
Speaker 1: You got you. You were the only player in the
Speaker 1: history of any sport to get voted most improved two
Speaker 1: years in a row. That is only I looked at him.
Speaker 1: I am a hard work No, you are my game.
Speaker 1: You know that book from Good to Great? Come on,
Speaker 1: you should write a book Most Improved. I'm Khalil Dubron
Speaker 1: Muhammad and I'm Ben Austin. Were two best friends, one black,
Speaker 1: one white. I'm a historian and I'm a journalist and
Speaker 1: the better tennis player. And this is some of my
Speaker 1: best friends are in this show. We wrestle with the
Speaker 1: challenges and the absurdities of a deeply divided and unequal country.
Speaker 1: On this episode, we're going to talk about our favorite sports, tennis.
Speaker 1: I mean, this year's US Open was incredible in so
Speaker 1: many ways, two young women of color coming from way
Speaker 1: behind to capture the hearts and minds I'm tennis fans everywhere,
Speaker 1: and really that leads us into this fascinating discussion about
Speaker 1: women's tennis. Professional women's tennis. It's so diverse, and it's
Speaker 1: so much more diverse than other sports. How did it
Speaker 1: get that way? And what can we learn from it? Something?
Speaker 1: Don't One of the reasons that that women's professional tennis
Speaker 1: is is really diverse and that men's professional tenants is
Speaker 1: much less so is that for women who are athletic,
Speaker 1: this is the most lucrative professional sport. There's no other
Speaker 1: sport where you can you can make money like this
Speaker 1: and p W NBA nothing. Yeah. Yeah, And just to acknowledge,
Speaker 1: people like Billy Jean King are we're part of the
Speaker 1: effort to make that possible. Because even someone like ALTHEA Gibson,
Speaker 1: who was trailblazing in every way, uh and you know,
Speaker 1: led the game for in the mid nineteen fifties. Um,
Speaker 1: struggle financially because she she never made much money. Part
Speaker 1: of it was her amateur status when she was winning
Speaker 1: those tournaments. But you know, it's a it's a it's
Speaker 1: a tale that fortunately, in this case, we can say
Speaker 1: has led to a really positive outcome in terms of
Speaker 1: equity for women's tennis. And if you're a young man,
Speaker 1: whether you're white or black or Hispanic or Asian or whatever.
Speaker 1: In America, you know, the menu of sports that you
Speaker 1: can go to to if you're incredibly athletic and make
Speaker 1: a lot of money is much much bigger, and tennis
Speaker 1: is sort of down the list. And yet tennis remains
Speaker 1: this predominantly white elite sport totally, and so the progress
Speaker 1: of these black women and women of color in general
Speaker 1: is all the more stunning. Yeah. Yeah, So so let's
Speaker 1: look at what US women's tennis has actually done to
Speaker 1: become so diverse and what they still need to do.
Speaker 1: You know, you think about the Williams sisters, and you
Speaker 1: think about Sloane Stevens, you think about Coco Gough, Madison Keys.
Speaker 1: When the Williams sisters were in the US Open in
Speaker 1: twenty ten, they were the only two black women in
Speaker 1: the draw. Of one hundred and twenty eight. Yeah, in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty twelve black women were in that's a tenth
Speaker 1: of the entire draw. Yeah. No, it's incredible, and maybe
Speaker 1: there's a lesson there about how that happened. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: we're gonna look at how much that diversity has actually
Speaker 1: changed historically very very very white space. So let's do it.
Speaker 1: Serve it up, Khalil, spin the racket, let's go. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to take it easy on you. Okay, Before
Speaker 1: we talk about some of the greatest athletes who have
Speaker 1: ever lived, let's talk about ourselves. A couple of dudes
Speaker 1: from the South Side Chicago. Yeah. Yeah. We spend a
Speaker 1: week together this summer our families, as we do almost
Speaker 1: every summer, and what you and I end up doing
Speaker 1: is pretty much playing tennis every day like we've been
Speaker 1: we've been We've been doing this for most of our lives. Now,
Speaker 1: we've been playing tennis together for like thirty five years.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. We've tried to get our kids involved.
Speaker 1: You know, my two girls played youth tennis, took tennis
Speaker 1: lessons in tennis camp. We actually have a kind of
Speaker 1: strange tennis upbringing for the rest of the country. Being
Speaker 1: on the south side of Chicago, we're kind of in
Speaker 1: this this tennis bubble where a lot of the coaches,
Speaker 1: i'd say almost all of the teaching pros, and most
Speaker 1: of the players are black. Yep. I mean we came
Speaker 1: of age in it. And this southeast part of the
Speaker 1: city that was by the nineteen seventies was just brimming
Speaker 1: with tennis activity. And I remember, I have I have
Speaker 1: a crystal clear picture. I was probably five or six
Speaker 1: years old, and I was tagging along with my mom,
Speaker 1: who I have this total memory of her in like
Speaker 1: a total like badass tennis outfit, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: she had a cute outfit on that's right, that's right,
Speaker 1: and you know, a little little tennis skirt, and of
Speaker 1: course back then the rackets were wooden. I still remember
Speaker 1: her giving me one and uh and I asked her recently,
Speaker 1: you know, just to make sure my memory was correct,
Speaker 1: you know, did I get it right? Was it because
Speaker 1: of her that I was first exposed to the game.
Speaker 1: And here's what she said, Yes, you were a toddler,
Speaker 1: probably four or five. Then you had to hang along.
Speaker 1: There were other children there, so it was an open
Speaker 1: area and you could play with others and you were safe,
Speaker 1: and you can watch us if you wanted to. But
Speaker 1: you were kids, so you kind of played. So about
Speaker 1: the tender age of being you know, four or five,
Speaker 1: all the way up until I wanted to say, about
Speaker 1: eight or nine, I stuck with the game and until
Speaker 1: until I was about eight or nine. Yeah, until you
Speaker 1: were about eight or nine, until you were at the
Speaker 1: age where you had friends where you didn't have to
Speaker 1: come with me to tennis. But yes, you enjoyed it
Speaker 1: as well, and apparently so well as to the fact
Speaker 1: that you continue. Man, it's so great to hear your mom.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think I think people would be surprised
Speaker 1: and how sweet she sounds that to hear that that
Speaker 1: her nickname was Shorty rough. Yes, yeah, she did take
Speaker 1: no stuff stuff. So there's a tennis boom, and it's
Speaker 1: interesting to think how that creeps into all parts of
Speaker 1: American life. And there is a famous tennis match that's
Speaker 1: televised in nineteen seventy five of Arthur Ash beating Jimmy Connors.
Speaker 1: Jimmy Connors plays against Arthur Ash in a very exciting final.
Speaker 1: Despite the determination and spectacular points scoring of favorite Connors,
Speaker 1: the cool head of Arthur Ash helps him to stay
Speaker 1: on top. Arthur Ash being an African American male player,
Speaker 1: Jimmy Connors was like invincible, and he beats them in Wimbledon,
Speaker 1: and it's televised, And I think that also helps to
Speaker 1: sort of extend this boom into into Black America as well. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Actually I asked my mom about whether she had been
Speaker 1: influenced by seeing people play tennis, and she mentioned Arthur
Speaker 1: ashe directly. Yeah, you know, and so in our youth
Speaker 1: sort of feeding off of this boom. A tennis club
Speaker 1: opens on the South Side of Chicago. I'd be curious
Speaker 1: to hear what you think of like seeing leaders, seeing teachers,
Speaker 1: seeing coaches who are all black, and it imprints something
Speaker 1: on you, you know, it's it's not it didn't seem
Speaker 1: like a white sport, at least within that bubble. Yeah.
Speaker 1: First of all, to even have a racquet club in
Speaker 1: your neighborhood, you know, marks our neighborhood as largely middle class,
Speaker 1: which meant we had access in a way that wouldn't
Speaker 1: be true in the vast majority of communities that were
Speaker 1: predominantly black in Chicago or anywhere else. And of course,
Speaker 1: part of you know, even talking to my mom about
Speaker 1: this is being reminded of how the southeast part of Chicago,
Speaker 1: stretching from Hyde Park to Chatham and South Shore. You know,
Speaker 1: all these places were really for the nineteen seventies and eighties,
Speaker 1: a large pocket of black middle class communities. And out
Speaker 1: of these communities where we grew up, one of the
Speaker 1: most amazing black women tennis players emerged Katrina Adams. I mean,
Speaker 1: growing up going to the Hyde Park Racket Club, she
Speaker 1: was the best player, boy or girl that I ever saw.
Speaker 1: You know, that was powerful to see. And she comes
Speaker 1: out of the junior tennis among us and goes out
Speaker 1: to play at Northwestern University, and then she goes on
Speaker 1: the pro circuit and she wins twenty doubles tournaments. That's amazing.
Speaker 1: And after she retires, maybe this is even more amazing.
Speaker 1: She becomes the president of the USTA, the United States
Speaker 1: Tennis Association, and she's actually just written a book about
Speaker 1: her experience. It's called Own the Arena, Getting Ahead, making
Speaker 1: a difference, and succeeding as the only one. Yep, and
Speaker 1: you know what she means by the only one. So
Speaker 1: I went and interviewed her about diversity in women's tennis.
Speaker 1: People look at us differently. It's just an automatic thing
Speaker 1: to do, and I mean, that's just human nature. And
Speaker 1: so anytime they are doing something that's different, the first
Speaker 1: thing that comes up is race. And it shouldn't be
Speaker 1: that way because other players who are doing the same
Speaker 1: thing and behavior is the same way or even more
Speaker 1: outrageous or whatever it is. But yet our women of
Speaker 1: color are getting blamed for different things differently. When I
Speaker 1: spoke to her, she says that she created a kind
Speaker 1: of safe space, a bubble around her, separate, you know,
Speaker 1: in all black space within the white world of tennis,
Speaker 1: this world of not having black women. Because I immediately
Speaker 1: went out there and was training and playing doubles with
Speaker 1: Zena Garrison and Laura mcnill. I moved to Houston because
Speaker 1: I was training with them, and when you are on
Speaker 1: the tour, you are kind of isolated in your own space,
Speaker 1: your own world, and so that was my world, in
Speaker 1: my space. So I competed during the day, I did
Speaker 1: what I needed to do with them. In the evening,
Speaker 1: that was my space. Yeah, I mean, it's such a
Speaker 1: powerful reminder of the loneliness of a sport that is
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly white, and how important it was to be part
Speaker 1: of a community, even if a small community. I think
Speaker 1: what's also fascinating is that Zena Garrison and Laurie McNeill,
Speaker 1: two black women players at that time. Yeah, yeah, two
Speaker 1: black women players who also played in a development league
Speaker 1: for the American Tennis Association, which was a professional society
Speaker 1: for black players that started in nineteen sixteen. I mean
Speaker 1: like literally over a hundred years ago, and it was
Speaker 1: out of that world people like Arthur Ashebo even earlier,
Speaker 1: Althea Gibson, who was the first black woman to play
Speaker 1: at Forest Hills in the National Tennis Championship. She won
Speaker 1: Wimbledon in nineteen fifty seven. She'd won the French Open
Speaker 1: the year before, in nineteen fifty six. And so they,
Speaker 1: Zina Garrison, Laurie McNeill are coming of age at a
Speaker 1: moment when we get to see them, but they also
Speaker 1: represent this incredible tradition that is also about integration itself,
Speaker 1: because the ATA birth this black talent that then enters
Speaker 1: into this larger white world. And you said, I mean
Speaker 1: it's also about segregation. It's about complete separation that the
Speaker 1: American Tennis Association forms in many ways because black people
Speaker 1: were not allowed to play in the US Tennis Lawn
Speaker 1: Association tournaments. Yeah, I mean, if it was an actual
Speaker 1: policy that they were forbidden from playing. Yeah, all the
Speaker 1: way into the late nineteen forties. Yep. I mean. So
Speaker 1: we know about baseball, of course, and Jackie Robinson and
Speaker 1: all of this, but it just, you know, people don't
Speaker 1: necessarily think about tennis having this parallel story. So if
Speaker 1: you think about what that means, it was huge deal
Speaker 1: when Katrina Adams and Zena Garrison anothers rose through the
Speaker 1: tennis ranks beginning in nineteen eighties, and then, of course
Speaker 1: we we jump ahead just a few years to the
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, to the end of the nineteen nineties, Serena
Speaker 1: and Venus Williams enter the scene. She's a phenomenon and icon,
Speaker 1: a legend, ladies and gentlemen, Serena Williams, they enter like
Speaker 1: a hurricane French Open finals. Venus and Serena Williams have
Speaker 1: made tennis history. They're the first sisters and the first
Speaker 1: African Americans ever to claim the top two spots in
Speaker 1: the world rankings. Tsunami would be better like like an
Speaker 1: entire ocean of blackness descends upon the women's tennis game.
Speaker 1: I've been working so hard. I like to be here,
Speaker 1: and I was determined to get this. And it's not
Speaker 1: just that they you know, beads and they look different.
Speaker 1: They hit different than any other women. Venuses are a
Speaker 1: little more wild and making more noise. They hit harder,
Speaker 1: they serve harder, They go for their shots in a
Speaker 1: way that women had not gone for their shots. You know,
Speaker 1: they're returning serves and going for winners off the returns
Speaker 1: to serves, and you know today that's basically how almost
Speaker 1: all of the top women play. They literally redefined the game.
Speaker 1: They redefine the game. I mean, and so Katrina Adams
Speaker 1: even talks about, you know, like before the william sisters
Speaker 1: and after the william sisters and this kind of transformative moment.
Speaker 1: Their record of accomplishment is just incredible. Serena is my
Speaker 1: favorite all time athlete, not favorite tennis player, not favorite
Speaker 1: female athlete. She is my favorite, my favorite all time athlete.
Speaker 1: And that's not even something you choose. It's like something
Speaker 1: when I'm watching her, like the emotional connection. Yeah, Serena
Speaker 1: Williams and Venus, they are ready have thirty Grand Slam
Speaker 1: single titles between them, I mean, just unbelievable, and for
Speaker 1: what it's worth, three Olympic gold medals for doubles and
Speaker 1: the winning women's doubles team of all time. So it's
Speaker 1: just it's just unparalleled. And the women, the girls who
Speaker 1: were inspired by them over the next twenty years to
Speaker 1: enter tennis will sort of get into that more and more.
Speaker 1: But tennis doesn't, this white sport does not embrace them immediately.
Speaker 1: You know that it's it's actually, you know, there's actually
Speaker 1: a kind of backlash. So that gets us to the
Speaker 1: Indian Wells Tournament in two thousand and one. So Venus
Speaker 1: and Serena are twenty and nineteen at this time, and
Speaker 1: they're supposed to play each other in the semifinals, and
Speaker 1: Venus pulls out with an injury, and the fans don't
Speaker 1: believe that she's really injured. They think that this is
Speaker 1: like the setup because their dad, who doesn't want them
Speaker 1: to play one another. So then Serena enters the finals
Speaker 1: the next day, this nineteen year old girl, teen years old,
Speaker 1: a girl, yep, you're billions walk down and here's the
Speaker 1: crowd again, sixteen thousand white people the vast majority of
Speaker 1: them booing her. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean she ends
Speaker 1: up winning in three sets, but afterwards crying for hours. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean she's nineteen years old. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: not for nothing. The scene reminds me of that Ruby
Speaker 1: Bridges moment where a six year old is integrating a
Speaker 1: New Orleans schools, you know, surrounded by an angry mob
Speaker 1: of white people escorted by US marshals. So this reminds
Speaker 1: me of a piece that Claudia Rankin wrote about Serena Williams.
Speaker 1: I recommend this book to everyone's citizens. It's a book
Speaker 1: that's sort of both like poetry and lyric prose. And
Speaker 1: one of the chapters is about Serena and it's about well,
Speaker 1: let me just read Claudia Rankin's words, because they're better
Speaker 1: than mine. She says, what does a victorious or defeated
Speaker 1: black woman's body and a historically white space looked like?
Speaker 1: Serena and her big sister Venus Williams brought to mind
Speaker 1: Zora Neil Hurston's I feel most colored when I am
Speaker 1: thrown against a sharp white background. Yeah, and what's so
Speaker 1: powerful in thinking about Serena Williams is she basically is
Speaker 1: like her body contains the weight of history, and so
Speaker 1: when she shows up in multiple tournaments where she just
Speaker 1: gets cheated call after call, like the two thousand and
Speaker 1: four Years Open against Jennifer Capriati, her body contains the
Speaker 1: multitudes of the racism that has been thrown at black people. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned the match that Serena had in two
Speaker 1: thousand and four at the US Open against Jennifer Caprioti,
Speaker 1: who is another American, white white girl. She was also
Speaker 1: a girl at that time. And it's actually, if if
Speaker 1: you can, anyone should YouTube this. It's crazy to watch. Uh,
Speaker 1: Serena is hitting shot after shot that are clearly in
Speaker 1: and they're being called out. Now why are they being
Speaker 1: called out? Is it just a bad lines judge? Is
Speaker 1: the line judge unconsciously racist? Since yeah, you know this here,
Speaker 1: you know unconscious bias? Is she actually like racist Serena?
Speaker 1: That means not unconscious bias, that's like some form of
Speaker 1: visual impairment. Yeah, so you don't you don't know what's
Speaker 1: going on, and it's it's crazy to watch. Okay, that
Speaker 1: ball was out. What what Serena is gonna come right
Speaker 1: over to talk to the chair that was way in
Speaker 1: John way In I always defer to you, No, it
Speaker 1: was not. This is crazy, not even I mean, that's
Speaker 1: not even close. Khalil. Even hearing that again, my blood
Speaker 1: starts to boil. I mean, Serena ends up losing this match,
Speaker 1: and in a way, the match is taken from her stolen,
Speaker 1: straight straight stolen, and not just winning the match. It's
Speaker 1: actually the thing that makes them put in electronic line calling.
Speaker 1: It's like they have to it has to solve for
Speaker 1: maybe racism. You don't have to solve for bias. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like having the court system, you know, like we
Speaker 1: can't trust human beings because they have implicit bias. That's right.
Speaker 1: And I know this is a little this is a
Speaker 1: little far afield, But in the case of the criminal
Speaker 1: justice system so consistently railroading black people in the early
Speaker 1: twentieth century, we got such things as indigent defense because
Speaker 1: poor black people didn't have legal representation. So this, just
Speaker 1: to me is yet another instance where racism has it's
Speaker 1: such a potent force on society, even in sports, where
Speaker 1: structural changes have had to be made to accommodate or
Speaker 1: to deal with it. The USAA later apologized for the
Speaker 1: line calling in this match and as well they should have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they should have, and they pulled the umpire from the tournament.
Speaker 1: But you know the damage is done, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: think about the psychological toll on Serena Williams and really
Speaker 1: on any black woman who's watching the match. You know,
Speaker 1: it's that idea of not being sure of what's going on.
Speaker 1: It's like it is actually makes you a little bit crazy.
Speaker 1: It makes you insane. Yeah, and psychologically what that is
Speaker 1: like to be As as Katrina Adams said, the only
Speaker 1: one like to sort of think at every moment is
Speaker 1: this racism? Or is that me just thinking it's racism
Speaker 1: and and not being sure? And and then when you
Speaker 1: respond to it, when you finally explode with with frustration
Speaker 1: or rage that you're labeled even more outside it. Oh,
Speaker 1: look at that. Look at that black woman's rage. You
Speaker 1: know that this sort of like stereotype that you're fulfilling.
Speaker 1: Me in two thousand and nine, when there's a foot fall,
Speaker 1: call that everybody watching this is like what you just
Speaker 1: called a football who calls footballs at a crucial moment,
Speaker 1: Hey clear, let me just quickly define what a football is.
Speaker 1: A football is when you're serving and you step into
Speaker 1: the court across the baseline, so that white line on
Speaker 1: the on the baseline you can't step on it when
Speaker 1: you serve. And John McEnroe is watching and he says
Speaker 1: there was no footfall, that's right. And she literally turns
Speaker 1: to the line judge who makes a call and says
Speaker 1: something like, I'm going to take this ball and stuff
Speaker 1: it down your fucking throat. Yep, ye like that. That
Speaker 1: of course right. If you hate Serena Williams, or you've
Speaker 1: got some issues with black black people in their performance
Speaker 1: of whether they're respectable or not, this is another strike
Speaker 1: against her, but it's also a powerful moment where her
Speaker 1: where she reclaims her voice and that matters. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is the hypocrisy of racism. Like you have to overcome
Speaker 1: all the barriers to participate in the first place. You
Speaker 1: then have to prove that you can compete at the
Speaker 1: highest level despite the fact that you've been handicapped with
Speaker 1: all kinds of disadvantages that we've already talked about. And
Speaker 1: then when you are subject to micro and macro aggressions
Speaker 1: wherever they're coming from, and often in the case of
Speaker 1: Serena Williams's career, both people in the stands and line judges.
Speaker 1: Then you have to somehow muster some source of respectability,
Speaker 1: like some kind of cryptonite that you apply to yourself
Speaker 1: so that you can't explode with rage. But again, what
Speaker 1: that means is you can't actually fully be human. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because any human being facing those circumstances not only would explode,
Speaker 1: but should explode, because to internalize that is a form
Speaker 1: of self death. When we come back, we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about Naomi Osaka, this amazing tennis player. She is
Speaker 1: part of the future of tennis. Are things going to
Speaker 1: be different for her than they were for all the
Speaker 1: women who came before her? We've been talking about the
Speaker 1: Williams sisters, but let's talk about a woman that's been
Speaker 1: on the other side of the net from them. Naomi Osaka. Okay,
Speaker 1: she wins her first Grand Slam at the US Open
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen, beating her hero, Serena Williams. You know,
Speaker 1: Serena is one of the reasons that she started playing
Speaker 1: tennis in the first place. Naomi Osaka, um, She's Haitian.
Speaker 1: She has a Haitian father and a Japanese mother. She
Speaker 1: grew up in America, but officially she plays for Japan, right,
Speaker 1: and she was born in Japan, but they moved to
Speaker 1: Long Island near Jamaica Queen and that's where she grew
Speaker 1: up playing at a young age. Naomi Asaka is just
Speaker 1: like an amazing player. She's incredible. You know, her steely nerves,
Speaker 1: you know this sort of like quietness, but like this
Speaker 1: this power and force on the court. She's the first
Speaker 1: Asian player or ever man or woman to be number
Speaker 1: one in the world in tennis. She's won four Grand
Speaker 1: Slam tournaments at a really young age. But one of
Speaker 1: the things that I think is really important about Naomi
Speaker 1: Yasaka at this moment is she's doing something different. She's
Speaker 1: finding a way to find the balance between being this
Speaker 1: outstanding player and recognizing that this historically white space is
Speaker 1: still challenging and it is suffocating in a way. And
Speaker 1: just this past August, in a warm up of the
Speaker 1: US Open, she's in a press conference. Yeah, so this
Speaker 1: is this is a tournament in the United States in
Speaker 1: August and a lead up to this year's US Open.
Speaker 1: And after this Matt she says she needs to take
Speaker 1: a break from tennis. I'm not really sure why, Like
Speaker 1: I felt like I was pretty I was telling myself
Speaker 1: to be calm, but I feel like maybe there was
Speaker 1: a boiling point. Like normally I feel like I like challenges,
Speaker 1: but recently I feel very anxious. One things don't go
Speaker 1: my way, And she's asked about her tennis, but she's
Speaker 1: also asked about an earthquake in Haiti, where her father's from.
Speaker 1: And the second one is just related to your tweet
Speaker 1: over the weekend, related to what's going on in Haiti. Um, sorry, no,
Speaker 1: you're super good. And you know it follows. It follows
Speaker 1: the Olympics with Simone Biles, the gymnast also stepping away,
Speaker 1: and you feel, you feel the unique pressures on young athletes,
Speaker 1: young women, and young women of color that she talks
Speaker 1: about it there of you know, being representative of and
Speaker 1: for her it's like it's not just her that she's
Speaker 1: black and Asian, it's also dealing with tennis, which is like,
Speaker 1: has these unique challenges on you psychologically. It is a rigorous,
Speaker 1: rigorous mental and physical sport. Yeah yeah, no, it's uh.
Speaker 1: I think so powerfully illustrates the limitations of being the
Speaker 1: only one in these environments where people for all sorts
Speaker 1: of reasons can't see your full humanity and bring to
Speaker 1: bear issues onto you, project their own shit onto you
Speaker 1: in ways that only illustrate how much more needs to
Speaker 1: change in professional sports, and to just to put things
Speaker 1: in context. In the summer of George Floyd in twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: Osaka went to Minneapolis to bear witness to the protests there.
Speaker 1: She decided that, as she posted on Twitter, She's like
Speaker 1: before I'm an athlete, I'm a black woman, and as
Speaker 1: a black woman, I feel as though these these things
Speaker 1: matter and they they are more important and require my
Speaker 1: attention than tennis. She actually contributes to disrupting a tournament,
Speaker 1: the Western and Southern Open, in the wake of another
Speaker 1: shooting of Jacob Blake. Um in that tournament was he
Speaker 1: had been shot in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and she says she
Speaker 1: won't play, and then the tournament says, you know you're right,
Speaker 1: will actually take a pause, Yeah, which is like, think
Speaker 1: of how radically that you know, the tennis responding to
Speaker 1: her differently than they were, say, the william sisters. You know,
Speaker 1: in a way, I mean to put this in a
Speaker 1: kind of frame that I think is really powerful. Um,
Speaker 1: you know this is totally ironic because we started talking
Speaker 1: about people like THEA Gibson and Arthur Ashe I mean,
Speaker 1: who were literally fighting against Jim Crow America, like formal segregation.
Speaker 1: And yet if there's a if there's a strange kind
Speaker 1: of period of our childhood, which we get to the
Speaker 1: william sisters, here we are again, and Osaka's like, hold up,
Speaker 1: wait a minute. And for her, she's like, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no. I can't play in a sport and pretend
Speaker 1: as if black people aren't dying at the hands of
Speaker 1: the state. And so she starts wearing masks after she's
Speaker 1: in Minneapolis, and she's literally presenting herself in tournaments with
Speaker 1: COVID masks with the names of people Brianna Taylor, Sandra Bland,
Speaker 1: Jacob Blake, George Floyd and for her and how powerful
Speaker 1: for a tennis audience to see that, right, So then
Speaker 1: send the announcers and the fans have to all respond
Speaker 1: to that they are literally saying those names. That's right.
Speaker 1: She forces folks to say their names, either because they
Speaker 1: read it in their minds or because it becomes part
Speaker 1: of a conversation in the midst of the interviews. And
Speaker 1: I think her stepping away from the sport and saying
Speaker 1: I need to deal with my mental health is also
Speaker 1: a form of empowerment. Yeah, you know, here she is
Speaker 1: in this press conference saying, I'm trying to figure out
Speaker 1: this balance of being a representative figure and having all
Speaker 1: that weight and trying to play tennis at the same time,
Speaker 1: and I haven't figured it out. And the kind of
Speaker 1: way that we talked about a driving Serena mad crazy
Speaker 1: at times She's like, man, you know, I gotta I
Speaker 1: gotta like take a break and try to figure it out.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about this year's US Open. I mean,
Speaker 1: really incredible for so many reasons. Yes, yes, it's time.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the finals match. So so, Mma Radakanu
Speaker 1: is a British eighteen year old. Her parents and Romanian
Speaker 1: and Chinese. She ultimately wins this this US Open, this
Speaker 1: year's US Open final. She is this year's Grand Slam winner.
Speaker 1: Her opponent is Leila Annie Fernandez, a Canadian nineteen year
Speaker 1: old whose parents are Filipino and Ecuadorian, and she was
Speaker 1: seated seventy fifth in the tournament. Just, I mean, just
Speaker 1: wow in every possible sense, including the sense of like
Speaker 1: seeing them, these two women of color. It feels like,
Speaker 1: you know, this is the genesis of all the things
Speaker 1: we've been talking about, you know, to see these teenagers
Speaker 1: on the center stage, here's what diversity has has wrought.
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, Katrina Adams actually talked about all the
Speaker 1: women of color who played the game and how they
Speaker 1: created this moment in a way for Fernandez and Radakanu. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. I mean that makes me think of my
Speaker 1: own studies on how do you achieve racial equity, whether
Speaker 1: it's sports or companies or any organization. Yeah, so what
Speaker 1: does the USTA still need to do for women's tennis
Speaker 1: to be even more diverse and inclusive? Oh? Man, that
Speaker 1: that is such a such the right question to ask. Yes,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Because because I've
Speaker 1: been thinking about this for a long time, I've been
Speaker 1: writing about this, I've been doing this work. I run
Speaker 1: this this UH research project at Harvard that is all
Speaker 1: about how do we build infrastructure, how do we move
Speaker 1: from black first and seconds and Latinos first and seconds
Speaker 1: and in this case Asian American and multiracial first and
Speaker 1: seconds to having a sustainable culture and institutional policies and
Speaker 1: practices that don't lead to repeating the same histories that
Speaker 1: we've just talked about, the histories of segregation, racist umpiring,
Speaker 1: and increased media scrutiny around black women athletes. And in fact,
Speaker 1: that's what you've been reporting on. You've been writing about this,
Speaker 1: You've been up close and personal with people building tennis
Speaker 1: infrastructure and in Chicago in particular. Yeah, one of the
Speaker 1: things that the USDA has been doing is they don't
Speaker 1: just work from the top down with amazing athletes like
Speaker 1: Serena and Venus and Naomi Osaka, these representative figures. They
Speaker 1: also work from the ground up. They have this program
Speaker 1: called the National Junior Tennis and Learning Program, which has
Speaker 1: this mode of getting more rackets in people's hands. They're
Speaker 1: they're extending who gets to play tennis, right, kind of
Speaker 1: like my mama put a racket in my hand at
Speaker 1: the young age. Yeah, a new tennis facility has opened
Speaker 1: up in our old neighborhood. So the forty seven Street
Speaker 1: Club is now closed down and a guy named Kamal
Speaker 1: Murray has opened up the Excess Tennis and Education Foundation
Speaker 1: and it is this like giant facility on the old
Speaker 1: grounds of the Robert Taylor Homes, which is twenty seven
Speaker 1: courts right, which ye, twenty seven courts. Robert Taylor was
Speaker 1: the largest public housing complex in the world, and so
Speaker 1: it was torn down and here in its place on
Speaker 1: the south side of Chicago is this tennis village. And
Speaker 1: with the with the purpose of you know, there's more accessibility. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's local and not just not just in a recreational sense.
Speaker 1: Also that there are high level tournaments there. So rather
Speaker 1: rather than having to travel far away to see whether
Speaker 1: you're any good or the suburbs, that you can actually
Speaker 1: find out early whether you know, this is a which
Speaker 1: you might not just enjoy, but you might you know,
Speaker 1: maybe play in college and get a scholarship and maybe
Speaker 1: even if you're good enough, be a professional player. That's right,
Speaker 1: The institutions are now facing the change that is required
Speaker 1: to sustain this momentum. And what does that change mean
Speaker 1: for what does the purposes? Yeah, what that means is
Speaker 1: that I envision for XS on the grounds of the
Speaker 1: former Robert Taylor Holmes White elite and European players coming
Speaker 1: there as part of the tour that establishes the best
Speaker 1: of the best. And why so that that's interesting because
Speaker 1: I did see a tournament there this summer. And why
Speaker 1: do you think, why do you think that would make
Speaker 1: a difference. That makes a difference because it fundamentally challenges
Speaker 1: assumptions and it redistributes power. It literally gives those players
Speaker 1: from the South and West sides of Chicago, or even
Speaker 1: if they're black, coming from the suburbs, or even if
Speaker 1: they're Latino agent coming to play at excess from around
Speaker 1: the city, that's their home court, that's their community and
Speaker 1: everything we've talked about where you had to leave your
Speaker 1: community in order to prove yourself. Now, non black players,
Speaker 1: white players, international players may one day be coming to
Speaker 1: the former grounds of Robert Taylor home. They will be
Speaker 1: coming to South Chicago home of the Blues. Brother like that.
Speaker 1: That is really powerful because because that is Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: worked up, because that is what redistributing power means. Wow, Khalil,
Speaker 1: you really uh, you really got revved up on here.
Speaker 1: I love this. This is this is how tennis affects you.
Speaker 1: This is why I was hitting overhead back to back
Speaker 1: to back, overhead, Sam Rowling rowling cross court. And why
Speaker 1: this is so powerful for me as a model for change,
Speaker 1: because you know, if we could think of the Williams
Speaker 1: Sisters as the kind of culmination of a of an
Speaker 1: entire epic of the last fifty years. Naomi is already
Speaker 1: a bellweather of change. Yeah. Yeah, I like that. I'm riding.
Speaker 1: I'm riding with you. Yeah, And I'm riding with you always,
Speaker 1: all right, all right right? Love you, man, I love
Speaker 1: you too. Some of My Best Friends Are is a
Speaker 1: production of Pushkin Industries. The show is written and hosted
Speaker 1: by me Khalil, Gibron Mohammed and my best tennis buddy
Speaker 1: Ben Austin. It's produced by Sheriff Vincent ken Wood and
Speaker 1: edited by Karen Shakerji. Our engineer is Martin Gonzalez. Our
Speaker 1: associate editor is Keishell Williams, and our showrunner is Sasha Matthias.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Lee Tall Mulad and Neil LaBelle.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Katrina Adams and Khalil's mom Shorty Russ
Speaker 1: Right Boy Levin Don't take no stuff at Pushkin thanks
Speaker 1: to Heather Famee, Carly Migliori, John Schnars, and Jacob Weisberg.
Speaker 1: Our theme song, Little Lily, is by fellow chicagoan Avery R.
Speaker 1: Young from his amazing album Tubman. You Will definitely want
Speaker 1: to check out more of his music at his website,
Speaker 1: Avery Ryung dot com. You can find Pushkin on all
Speaker 1: social platforms at Pushkin pods, and you can sign up
Speaker 1: for our newsletter at pushkin dot fm. To find more
Speaker 1: Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you like to listen. If you love this show
Speaker 1: and we hope you do and others from Pushkin Industries,
Speaker 1: consider becoming a Pushnick. Pushnick is a podcast subscription that
Speaker 1: offers bonus content and uninterrupted listening for four dollars and
Speaker 1: ninety nine cents a month. Look for Pushnik exclusively on
Speaker 1: Apple podcast subscriptions only. When's the first time you ever
Speaker 1: saw someone play lacrosse? I still haven't watched anyone play lacrosse.
Speaker 1: You've never seen it before. You've never seen I. I
Speaker 1: see I see in the neaters with these nets in
Speaker 1: their yards, but you've never actually, I've never gone to
Speaker 1: a lacrosse game.