Black Twitter let out a collective "You tried it" directed at Forbes magazine Tuesday night.
You would think that much of that evening's chatter about sports would have been about Venus and Serena Williams' tennis match that was taking place at the U.S. Open. And if a news organization was going to tweet about a tennis athlete during that time, it would have been about one of the Williams sisters.
But, oh no. Forbes magazine tweeted about Serena Williams' archrival, Maria Sharapova. Matter of fact, scratch that, not archrival, because Williams has whipped Sharapova's butt the last 17 times they've competed on the tennis court. Forbes wanted to remind everyone that Sharapova is one of the world's most marketable female athletes, and it got folks thinking that the timing was no coincidence.
https://twitter.com/Forbes/status/641412201727827969?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
For some, the tweet stung, because there's the idea that the media's (and advertisers') love obsession with Sharapova is because she's the perfect tennis athlete based on European standards of beauty: being a tall, slender blonde. Meanwhile, Serena Williams is far more talented and successful and a better tennis player all around. But Serena Williams' blackness doesn't allow her to have the mass appeal afforded to Sharapova. People on Forbes' editorial team had to have been privy to those conversations.
If they weren't, black Twitter reminded them, and proceeded to drag Forbes for the shade (however intentional or unintentional) thrown the Williams sisters' way.
https://twitter.com/professornegro/status/641428817526001665?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfwhttps://twitter.com/KamTheLeo/status/641422339989733376https://twitter.com/AVD911/status/641562050422902784https://twitter.com/KyraSheaMedleys/status/641423094536519680https://twitter.com/JohnNYC_718/status/641417502396928000https://twitter.com/kujocelyn/status/641416522213146624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Tensions are high, and black Twitter is not having anyone mess with its darling, Serena Williams, who's on a path toward making history, yet again.
Diana Ozemebhoya Eromosele is a staff writer at The Root and the founder and executive producer of Lectures to Beats, a Web series that features video interviews with scarily insightful people. Follow Lectures to Beats on Facebook and Twitter.
For more of black Twitter, check out The Chatterati on The Root and follow The Chatterati on Twitter.
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