About this episode
The past few weeks have felt like a watershed moment in confronting anti-black racism across the US & the world. Tennis is not impervious to this. Players like Naomi Osaka, Coco Gauff, and Sloane Stephens have stepped forward as key leaders and activists in a moment when this sport truly needs them. Beyond tennis, we talk about the larger movement for transformative justice and the destruction of systemic racism in the U.S. The non-tennis stuff begins around the 1-hour mark. 2:40 A timeline: how did we get to the present moment? 6:45 How has tennis responded? Naomi & Coco assert themselves 15:50 Venus, Serena, and faith; Frances Tiafoe, Sloane Stephens, Sachia Vickery, Taylor Townsend 27:00 We expect a lot of black players - but what about non-black players? What say the Big 4? 36:45 Look over there! The Art of Distraction by Lisa Raymond and her side Kiick; Chanda Rubin sets her Twitter fingers to stun 44:30 An example of how to move toward allyship: is Chris Evert becoming the Jane Fonda of tennis? 48:55 What to make of Alexis Ohanian relinquishing his seat on the Reddit Board? 54:45 Our comment on Courtney Nguyen's apology for past use of transphobic language 63:50 The non-tennis section of the episode - how the current anti-racist movement is a reaction to centuries of structural & state-enforced racism in the US 70:35 What does "defund the police" mean? Well, a few different things