I’m a tennis fan, so I’ve been watching the Davis Cup matches for the sport this week.
Today, I caught a match between Serbia and France on the Tennis Channel and couldn’t help but notice the curious pose cameras caught of one of France’s top black players, Gael Monfils. As the match resumed from a commercial break, here’s what I saw:
I realize that stills are random and sometimes catch spectators in compromising positions, but when this stereotypical, “Buckwheat-esque” image of a black man with wide eyes and unkempt hair was left on the screen for over 15 seconds, I had to conclude that a little humor was possibly involved on the part of those manning the production.
Granted, Monfils isn’t exactly discouraging the image by wearing his hair the way he does (and there’s nothing wrong with that), but when you couple that with the bucked eyes … well, it’s a little hard to swallow. It harkens back to a not-so-celebrated era when such images of blacks on screen were commonplace and used to support damaging stereotypes that black males were wild and ignorant.
I can’t say whether the unflattering depiction was intentional, despite the fact that it stayed on screen so long, but it certainly made me scratch my head and wonder. –painfully aware
