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I used to think the phrase Black Girl Magic was dangerous. \u00a0As a grad student at an elite, predominantly white university, I\u2019ve had firsthand experience with how words, even your own, become distorted and used against you. \u00a0I feared that white folks would grab hold of Black Girl Magic and use it as another form of weaponized whiteness. I worried Black Girl Magic flirted too closely with tropes and stereotypes of black people’s superhuman nature. \u00a0I was concerned that it served as a reinscription of the concept that black women are stronger than other women. That we could withstand the physical and emotional trauma that would break the other, more precious, more \u201cfeminine,\u201d female. \u00a0I feared it cosigned doctors’ choices to ignore the pain of black women as they heal, or that it influenced nurses’ decisions to dismiss a birthing mother\u2019s knowledge of her own body, her own needs. That it cosigned unequal pay at the workplace, unequal treatment at the courthouse. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I saw Black Girl Magic as an extension of the magical Negro, the otherworldly being who is both nonhuman and beyond the human, but to be feared and cut down all the same. \u00a0After all, we have seen too often how white fear translates into black death. I was afraid that in an attempt to uplift ourselves, we would feed into our own misinterpretation and forfeit our right to express our emotions – to cry, to laugh, to anger, to dream, to make mistakes, to want for more – to essentially be <\/i>human.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n But the events of the last few weeks (the debacle in the tennis world that paradoxically made us smile and snarl, and BET\u2019s Black Girls Rock) have made me reconsider my position.\u00a0<\/strong>After a near-death birthing experience, Serena Williams has once again poured her all into the game she loves, pushing hard to find balance in her roles as mother, wife, and<\/i> tennis player. \u00a0Serena has and continues to endure painstaking racism, sexism, and body shaming. \u00a0Her passion is labeled as unwarranted aggression. Her appreciation of her body and her unashamed self-love is marked as hypersexuality. \u00a0Her confidence is considered arrogant and unsportsmanlike.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n These condemnations and criticisms are all in response to Venus and Serena\u2019s blackening of tennis through their complete domination of the sport, one whose rules, practices, and behaviors are founded and policed by lily whiteness. \u00a0But after more than 20 years on the court, the tennis world, realizing it cannot rid itself of the eminence of Serena, has resigned itself to policing, taking little bits out of the star and then labeling her unladylike when she painfully and rightfully cries foul. (In her book Citizen: An American Lyric<\/i>, Claudia Rankine, details the numerous ways in which the tennis player has been cast as the angry black woman after <\/i>enduring rampant racism and sexism.)<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Each year presents its own racist and sexist struggles for the star athlete. \u00a0This year includes an incident in May where she was banned from wearing a black one-piece. \u00a0The French Tennis Federation President, Bernard Giudicelli, declared that the fashionable and <\/i>functional Black Panther-esque suit that helped protect her from life-threatening blood clots had gone “too far,” accusing her of disrespecting the game. Serena accepted the revision to the dress code, despite it being directed at her, and essentially kept it moving. \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Then fast forward to this year\u2019s U.S. Open, where Serena was unrightfully fined for calling out the tennis official who accused her of cheating. \u00a0He claimed that a thumbs-up from the stands equated to her receiving assistance from her coach. She called the official by name – Thief<\/i>. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Despite her understandably growing disdain and overall lack of tolerance for the demands, restrictions, and limitations put on her person and her body, Williams, while angry, is not bitter. \u00a0So, to watch her call out the official, one of the many representatives and enforcers of tennis’s whiteness, a \u201cthief,\u201d is to witness Black Girl Magic in movement. She stands up for herself as a player and a mother and demands an apology. \u00a0The fact that she is unlikely to receive one does not deter her from demanding what is rightfully hers.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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