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Newspaper reprints controversial cartoon of Serena Williams
MELBOURNE, Australia — A cartoon of Serena Williams that has been widely condemned as a racist depiction of the tennis great has been partially reprinted on the front page of the Melbourne-based newspaper that initially published it.
The Herald Sun newspaper printed an edited portion of the cartoon — featuring 23-time Grand Slam winner Williams jumping on a broken racket during her dispute with a chair umpire in the U.S. Open final — among caricatures of other famous people Wednesday under the headline “Welcome to the PC World.”
The newspaper, which has Australia’s largest circulation, has defended its cartoonist Mark Knight’s depiction of Williams and is asserting that the condemnation, which has come from all parts of the world, is driven by political correctness.
“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,” the paper said on its front page.
Williams has won the Australian Open singles title seven times at Melbourne Park, including in 2017 when she was pregnant. She is a crowd
In comments published by News Corp., Knight said that he created the cartoon after watching Williams’ “tantrum” during her U.S. Open final loss to Naomi Osaka on Saturday and that it was designed to illustrate “her poor
Knight reportedly has disabled his Twitter account after his post of the cartoon attracted tens of thousands of comments, mostly critical.
During the final against Osaka, Williams got a warning from the chair umpire for violating a rarely enforced rule against receiving coaching from the sidelines. An indignant Williams emphatically defended herself, denying she had cheated. A short time later, she smashed her racket in frustration and was docked a point. She protested and demanded an apology from the umpire, who penalized her a game.
Critics of Knight’s cartoon described it as a clear example of a stereotype facing black women, depicting Williams as an irate, hulking, big-mouthed black woman jumping up and down on a broken racket. The umpire was shown telling a blond, slender woman — meant to be Osaka, who is Japanese and Haitian — “Can you just let her win?”
“I was deeply offended. This is not a joke,” said Vanessa K. De Luca, former editor-in-chief of Essence magazine, who wrote a column about the U.S. Open furor.
The cartoonist “completely missed the point of why she was upset,” De Luca told The Associated Press. “It was about her integrity, and anybody who doesn’t get that is perpetuating the erasure that so many black women feel when they are trying to speak up for themselves. It’s like our opinions don’t matter.”
In a social media post, Peter Blunden, managing director of News Corp.’s operations in the state of Victoria, said: “Australia’s finest cartoonist Mark Knight has the strongest support of his colleagues for his depiction of Serena Williams’ petulance. It’s about bad
This isn’t the first time a cartoon in a News Corp. newspaper has drawn allegations of racism. In 2009, civil rights leaders and others criticized a New York Post cartoon that some interpreted as comparing President Barack Obama to a violent chimpanzee.
In Britain, where fiercely competitive tabloids often trade in sensationalism, Rupert Murdoch-owned newspapers have been accused of sexism, racism and xenophobia over the years. Last year a former editor of the Murdoch-owned Sun, Kelvin MacKenzie, quit as a contributor to the tabloid after writing a column comparing a soccer player with part-Nigerian heritage to a gorilla.
Many years of outrage over articles and cartoons did little to hurt Murdoch’s power over British politics and media, though his papers’ underhanded practices did. Murdoch was forced to shut down the 168-year-old tabloid News of the World in 2011 after the revelation that its employees had eavesdropped on the phone voice mails of celebrities, politicians and crime victims.
Australian indigenous playwright and actress Nakkiah Lui tweeted in response to the front page, saying the Herald Sun needed to “chill.”
“Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom above criticism,” she said.
“What we have is a bunch of people who get paid to publicly exercise their implied freedom to speech then whining when people disagree with what they have had the privilege of being paid to say,” she added.
Australian writer Maxine Beneba Clarke said she believed the front page demonstrated a “misunderstanding” of the criticism
“I think it’s really interesting that the Herald Sun has not included really any other caricatures or cartoons of black people — either Aboriginal people or African-American people, black people of any descent,” Clarke, who is of Afro-Caribbean descent, told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Cartoonist Paul Zanetti, a friend of Knight, said cartooning was under threat from political correctness, and the Herald Sun front page “spelt out exactly where we are at this point.”
“Political correctness is really all about censoring, it’s about being bullied into conforming to a view of the world,” he said.
Rod McGuirk, The Associated Press
Human trafficking suspect arrested in Red Deer, July 2024
From Alert, the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team
Three human traffickers arrested in Project Endgame
Three men have been arrested and stand accused of running a human trafficking operation that stretched across Canada; operating throughout Alberta, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Quebec.
Project Endgame was a year-long investigation led by ALERT’s Human Trafficking unit, and also relied on the assistance of the Edmonton Police Service, RCMP, and the Quebec joint forces Anti-Pimping team known as EILP.
Arrests and search warrants had taken place in Edmonton, Montreal, and Red Deer. A total of 23 charges related to human trafficking offences have been laid against Clyde Elien-Abbot, 31, Kevin Dorcelus-Cetoute, 31, and Jean Rodnil Dubois, 31. Elien-Abbot was arrested on January 31, 2025 in Edmonton, while the other two accused were arrested on July 23, 2024.
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From LifeSiteNews
The Liberals are choosing a new face, but all six contenders seem likely to continue forcing Canadians down the same path as the PM they’re out to replace
With the Liberal leadership election just over a month away on March 9, Canadians are examining the six final contenders and questioning if they will bring change to the Liberal Party or carry on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s radical legacy.
The six contenders for Liberal leader and consequently, the next prime minister, are: Mark Carney, Chrystia Freeland, Karina Gould, Jaime Battiste, Frank Baylis and Ruby Dhalla.
While all the above candidates are promising to turn the Liberal Party around, their policies, both past and proposed, suggest little difference from the radical, anti-life and globalist agenda embraced by the Trudeau government.
Former Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney
Carney appears to be the frontrunner for Liberal Party leader, with many mainstream outlets tacitly promoting him as a solution for Canadians, and numerous MPs having endorsed his campaign.
However, as LifeSiteNews has previously reported, Carney’s history suggests he would be an even more radical version of Trudeau.
While his impressive work experience certainly raises him in the estimation of Canadians, especially compared with Trudeau’s pre-political career as a drama teacher, the former Governor of the Bank of England, like Trudeau, openly supports abortion, the LGBT agenda and many of the tax and fiscal policies of the Trudeau government, such as the carbon tax.
Carney’s endorsement of energy regulations go even further than Trudeau’s, with the candidate having previously blasted the prime minister for exempting home heating oil from the carbon tax.
Carney has also been a longtime supporter of the globalist World Economic Forum, attending their infamous annual conference in Davos, Switzerland as recently as January 2023.
Carney routinely uses social media to advocate for achieving so-called “net-zero” energy goals, and even had his team bar multiple independent journalists from attending the press conference he held to announce his bid for Liberal leader.
Former Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland
Freeland’s bid for Liberal leader came as a surprise to many as it closely followed her resignation from Trudeau’s cabinet.
Freeland is perhaps best known internationally for her heavy-handed response to anti-mandate Freedom Convoy protesters, which saw the then-finance minister direct financial institutions to freeze the bank accounts of Canadians who participated in or donated to the protest.
Freeland, like Carney, also has extensive ties to the WEF, with her receiving a personal commendation from former WEF leader Klaus Schwab.
Interestingly, at the same time as Freeland announced her Liberal bid, the WEF’s profile on Freeland was taken down from their website. Additionally, the majority of Freeland’s Instagram posts have been removed from public view.
Many have speculated online as to the reason why these actions were taken, with some suggesting that Freeland desires to distance herself from the massively criticized group.
Critics often pointed to Freeland’s association with the group during her tenure as finance minister and deputy prime minister, as she was known for pushing policies endorsed by the globalist organization, such as the carbon tax and online censorship.
Former House Leader MP Karina Gould
Gould, an avid abortion activist, is perhaps best known for telling American women that they can have their abortions in Canada following the Supreme Court of the United States’ overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022.
Gould is also known for continually advocating in favor of state-funded media, which critics have warned causes supposedly unbiased news outlets into de facto propaganda arms for the state.
In one example from September, Gould directed mainstream media reporters to “scrutinize” Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, who has repeatedly accused government-funded media as being an arm of the Liberals.
Gould also claimed that Poilievre’s promise to defund outlets like the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation would deny Canadians access to important information, ignoring the fact that the Liberals’ own legislation, which she voted for, blocked all access to news content on Facebook and Instagram.
MP Jaime Battiste
Voting records show that in 2021 Battiste opposed a bill aiming to protect unborn children from sex-selective abortions. Later that same month, he voted to pass Bill C-6, which allows parents to be jailed for up to five years for refusing to deny the biological sex of their gender-confused children.
Furthermore, Battiste struck down a motion to condemn incidents of arson and vandalism of churches across Canada. In October 2023, a Conservative MP put forward a motion to denounce the arson and vandalism of 83 Canadian churches, especially those within Indigenous communities.
However, Battiste moved to adjourn the meeting rather than discuss the motion, saying, “I would like to call to adjourn debate on this if that’s what we can do, so we can hear the rest of the study, but if we have to, then I would rather discuss it in camera because it does have a way of triggering a lot of people who went through residential schools and the things they are going through.”
The Liberal government is known to be extremely lenient in their rhetoric when it comes to attacks on Catholic churches, with Trudeau even saying such behavior was “understandable” even if it is “unacceptable and wrong.”
Former MP Frank Baylis
Baylis served as a Liberal MP in 2015 but chose not to seek re-election in 2019. Now, he has thrown his hat in the ring as Liberal leader.
During his time as MP, Baylis was a staunch supporter of abortion. In 2016, he voted against a Conservative bill to provide protection to unborn children and pregnant mothers from violence.
Interestingly, Baylis is the former owner of the Baylis Medical Company of Montréal which was awarded a $282.5 million government contract for now “useless” ventilators during the COVID “pandemic.”
Former MP Ruby Dhalla
Dhalla served in the House of Commons from 2004 to 2011. Interestingly, Dhalla, born to Indian immigrant parents, has promised to deport illegal immigrants and “clamp down on human traffickers.” Dhalla’s stance sets her apart from the other Liberal candidates on the issue.
While Dhalla styles herself as an “outsider,” during her time as an MP, she worked to further abortion in Canada, voting against legislation to protect babies from violence in the womb.
In conclusion
It seems that no matter who is selected as the next leader of the Liberals, the party will remain one which prides itself on being pro-abortion, pro-LGBT, pro-euthanasia and globalist in vision.
While Trudeau may be taking the blame for the current state of the Liberal Party, with these 6 candidates it would appear that the party remains intent on pushing the same policies.
Although it is true that Trudeau’s political blunders, such as his repeated historical use of black-face or his inviting a Nazi-aligned World War II veteran into Parliament, have contributed to his popularity decline, it seems the policies behind the blunders are not his, but the Liberal Party’s itself.
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