Claiming that a prior sub from none other than Queen Elizabeth II (!) might’ve motivated a victory Crip Walk after taking her first Women’s Singles gold medal at the London Olympics Saturday (“I bet in a private moment Friday night or Saturday morning, Serena told her sister Venus, ‘I’m going to kick this $*%& ass and Crip Walk all over this crusty-ass place’”), Fox Sports’ Jason Whitlock calls Serena Williams’ celebration, “immature and classless”. Surely not as bad as Mark Madsen, though.
Over the weekend we were reminded that white former NBA player Brent Barry Crip Walked during the 2003 NBA All-Star 3-point contest without provoking controversy or criticism. Some clown at the Washington Post absolved Serena by pointing out the now-traditional, pre-Olympics torch relay was Hitler’s invention during the 1936 Berlin Games. And, of course, you had your usual number of white journalists who covered Serena’s gold-medal thumping of Maria Sharapova who simply pretended they had no clue what Serena’s celebratory jig was (presumably because they lost Internet access and missed the Twitter explosion caused by her dance).
Serena deserved to be criticized and she should’ve immediately apologized. Wimbledon isn’t the place to break out a dance popularized by California Crip gang members. She knows it. That’s why she got embarrassed when asked by reporters to reveal the name of the dance.
Crip Walking inside an NBA arena that is routinely filled with the sounds of edited versions of popular gangsta rap songs is different from Crip Walking at Wimbledon. That fact has nothing to do with race. It has to do with tradition and atmosphere. Wimbledon is a sports church, falsely prim, proper and respectful.