In a cartoon he drew for Australia’s Herald Sun on Sept. 10, illustrator Mark Knight depicts Serena Williams during the finals match at the U.S. Open Tennis Championships. It’s a classic racist caricature: Williams appears as a hulk-like figure with unkempt hair and large lips reminiscent of the minstrel or the mammy.
Behind Williams is her competitor, Naomi Osaka. Her appearance has been distilled down to its lowest-common-denominator characteristics: light skin, slim frame, blonde hair. She might as well be Maria Sharapova.
Caricatures, by their nature, are meant to distort and exaggerate. But they’re also meant to be symbolic, representative; short-hand for a concept or idea.
Here, the narrative is clear: Williams has been cast as the big, ugly, angry black woman. Osaka, by contrast, has been cast as the innocent white girl, even though she’s not even white.