America Keeps Gaslighting Serena But Fake Love Ain’t What Got Her This Far

I’m in upstate New York because I want to write free from distraction. Since it’s a town far outside the city, I reserve some caution talking to strangers or walking too fast behind anyone. I’ve traveled enough to know there’s nothing scarier than being Black and alone in a place. Other than being a Black woman alone. That has to be the scariest feeling ever. Imagine all the predators posing as allies. Imagine how the threat of silence encloses your courage. Serena Williams eludes the obsessive gaze that would reduce her to catsuits and A-listers. Our rumor culture ricochets like roadkill off her zooming fenders. She’s driven. She’s alone at the top and in her Blackness.

Serena Williams dominates. That’s a scary prospect for a country built on dominating her. But in the era of Beyoncé, Oprah Winfrey, and Rihanna, the Black woman icon isn’t impossible, it’s here. Gayle King interviewed her last night after a first-round win and made that clear, dropping a Bey reference to start, calling us in to a Black girl conversation that’s happening separate from the tennis conversation. She made sure that there, in the spotlight, Serena wasn’t alone.

I remember when a funky white poet published a dumb verse about the Williams sisters. In his mind, he was paying tribute to their power. He thought he was…