The Australian newspaper behind a universally admonished, racist cartoon of Serena Williams stubbornly doubled down on its defense of it on Wednesday and even reprinted it on its front page despite a wave of global outrage.
The Herald Sun, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, ran the image again along with a handful of other illustrations of world leaders and the country’s own politicians.
Mark Knight’s racist cartoon of Serena Williams at the US Open final was put in the bottom right corner, beneath a headline which read: ‘Welcome to PC World.’
On Serena’s cartoon, it wrote satirically: ‘Vetoed: Large hair and lips, too angry.’
Beneath it, the newspaper offered this commentary: ‘If the self-appointed censors of Mark Knight get their way on his Serena Williams cartoon, our new politically correct life will be very dull indeed.’
This is The Herald Sun’s shocking front page on Wednesday which complains about the global outrage over its Serena Williams cartoon. It included depictions of Kim Jong-Un and complained that ‘Asian stereotypes’ weren’t allowed in the ‘PC World’ of anyone who deemed the Williams’ cartoon racist
The newspaper’s editor Damon Johnston proudly shared a photograph of it on Twitter.
Cartoonist Mark Knight said he drew Williams ‘as she is’; a ‘powerfully built’, ‘African American woman’
Knight, who deleted his own account after being inundated with complaints from around the world, has not commented on it.
The newspaper claimed on Tuesday that the illustration, which depicts Williams as an overgrown baby having a tantrum with exaggerated lips, nose and muscles, had ‘nothing to do with race’.
It said its only commentary was on her behavior on the court and Knight, before deleting his social media presence, went on a local radio show to say he had drawn the 36-year-old ‘as she is’, a ‘powerfully built’, ‘African American woman’.
The image also depicts Naomi Osaka, the Haitian-Japanese 20-year-old who defeated Williams, as slender, white and blonde.
Both Knight and the newspaper were slammed by the international community.
Knight faced a tsunami of criticism on Twitter where users likened his cartoon to Jim Crow-era illustrations of black women
Among their celebrity critics is Nicki Minaj, J.K. Rowling, Kathy Griffin.
The Washington DC-based National Association of Black Journalists denounced it as ‘repugnant’.
‘There is nothing about the cartoon that is agreeable. I think the entire cartoon is just over the top, but the racism aspect of it is really what makes it repugnant.
‘To deny Osaka color, is really shocking.
The Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper tweeted this on Tuesday in defense of the image. It also ran three articles which claimed Knight’s image had ‘nothing to do with race’ and was instead only taking aim at Williams’ behavior on the court. News Corp has said nothing
‘There’s intent there. To depict Serena not looking like herself, and her features to be overdrawn and over-exaggerated in such a way that evokes some of the historical negative images of black people over the last century.
‘It speaks volumes. It sends a message,’ the association’s president told ABC Radio Melbourne.
News Corp has offered no comment on it.
Among the complaints were that the cartoon was reminiscent of Jim Crow-era representations of black women.