{"id":18478,"date":"2019-02-25T14:16:01","date_gmt":"2019-02-25T22:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/controversial-serena-williams-cartoon-ruled-non-racist-by-australias-press-council\/"},"modified":"2019-02-25T14:16:01","modified_gmt":"2019-02-25T22:16:01","slug":"controversial-serena-williams-cartoon-ruled-non-racist-by-australias-press-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/controversial-serena-williams-cartoon-ruled-non-racist-by-australias-press-council\/","title":{"rendered":"Controversial Serena Williams Cartoon Ruled 'Non-Racist' By Australia's Press Council"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Amy Held<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

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\n Serena Williams (left) and Naomi Osaka during the trophy ceremony after Osaka defeated Williams in the U.S. Open final on Sept. 8, 2018, that inspired a controversial cartoon mocking Williams.<\/p>\n

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Greg Allen\/Invision\/AP<\/p>\n

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Nearly six months after a cartoon mocking Serena Williams unleashed immediate international rebuke, with critics calling it<\/a> a racist Jim-Crow-era-like rendering of the sports star, the Australian Press Council weighed in<\/a> on Monday, defending the image.<\/p>\n

The cartoon, published last September in Australia’s The Herald Sun<\/em> following Serena Williams’ stinging U.S. Open loss to Naomi Osaka of Japan, shows Williams in mid-tantrum and stamping on her tennis racket. The umpire is shown asking Osaka, “Can you just let her win?”<\/p>\n

The Council said<\/a> the cartoon “uses exaggeration and absurdity to make its point but accepts the publisher’s claim that it does not depict Ms Williams as an ape, rather showing her as ‘spitting the dummy’, a non-racist caricature familiar to most Australian readers.” (A “dummy” is an Australian term for a pacifier, which was drawn lying alongside Williams’ racket on the ground.)<\/p>\n

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@Knightcartoons cartoon is not racist or sexist …. it rightly mocks poor behavior by a tennis legend … Mark has the full support of everyone @theheraldsun<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/KWMT3QahJh<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 damon johnston (@damonheraldsun) September 11, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n

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The Council, a watchdog group responsible for promoting good media practice standards in Australia, said it “accepts that the cartoon was illustrated in response to the events that occurred at the US Open final.”<\/p>\n

On Sept. 8, 2018, Williams was playing<\/a> the Grand Slam final against an opponent 16 years her junior, when in the second set, the chair umpire determined Williams’ coach was directing her from the sidelines and called a code violation.<\/p>\n