REVIEW: King Richard (2021) #YetundePrice

“As we got closer to Venus’s birth, it seemed like every three or four days Oracene would go to the hospital. Finally, they said she was ready to deliver, and I took her to have Venus. As I was putting on the gown and slippers to go to the labor room, I started thinking about all the things I wanted Venus to do—to play tennis, to be educated, to be a certain kind of person. Then I thought about what that little baby was going to experience if she was going to do all that. She was going to go through all of the prejudice I had been through. She was going to be called names. She was going to be called “nigger.” I could visualize it all, and I didn’t want that for my child. Suddenly, I couldn’t bear for Venus to come into this world. Not that I didn’t love her. Of course I did. I didn’t love what she would have to go through—and if there was any way I could have stopped it, I would have. I started to yell. Pain tightened my chest and sweat poured off me like I was having a massive heart attack. My life rose up to haunt me and I couldn’t bear my child having to go through what I experienced. The nurses wanted to know what was wrong, but I couldn’t share with them what was happening inside me.” - Richard Williams 

I generally avoid Hollywood’s “holiday” blockbusters (see: Django Unchained - Christmas 2012; American Sniper - Christmas 2014; SHAFT - July 4th, 1971) and films with predominantly black casts. The System of White Supremacy demands that black people be depicted as criminal, sexually sinister buffoons who must be governed by Whites. I was uncharacteristically excited for the “Thanksgiving” release of King Richard, a biopic detailing the origins of two of the world’s greatest tennis players and most well known Victims of White Supremacy, Venus and Serena Williams. And then, I was uncharacteristically impressed and appreciative. It’s a rare thing to sit through 2 hours of of black affection and self-respect. 

They’re no spoiler alerts here because we all know how the Williamses’ story concludes: Two gorgeous black females revolutionize and dominate women’s tennis and professional sports globally. Despite their unparalleled accomplishments, Venus and Serena continue to be brutalized by the System of White Supremacy. In fact, during a 2012 visit to Nigeria, Serena told an audience, “the greatest obstacle we had faced were those who at this stage caused racial uproar.” 

And with so much Williams domination, Racists have roared. 

King Richard is restricted to the pre-champion, adolescent days when Richard Williams, depicted by “Fresh Prince” Will Smith, and then-wife Oracene Price, portrayed by the lovely Aunjanue Ellis, invested maximum time and energy to develop their two tennis prodigies. A 10-part series may be insufficient to cover the ceaseless and trifling attacks targeting the entire Williams family from the White aristocracy of tennis. An abbreviated list of malice includes: 

• Relentless, unfounded allegations that Richard Williams pre-determined the winner when his daughters faced each other. The two ran roughshod over the White girls of the WTA for better part of two decades and faced each other 9 times in a Grand Slam finals or the WTA Championship. Whites were certain the uncouth black dad instructed one daughter to lose on purpose. 
• Indian Wells, March 2001. 19-year-old Serena took the crown, trouncing Kim Clijsters and a boorish crowd of thousands of unruly Whites. Spectators believed Mr. Williams “selected” Serena as the winner and made 20-year-old Venus withdraw with a sham ailment. Serena boycotted the event for over a decade, while Venus never returned. 
• Being twice as good, paid half as much. Maria Sharapova is White, and that’s about all she has on Serena. Apparently, that’s enough. The two played 22 times. Serena won 20. Sharapova’s nabbed 36 WTA singles championships. 73 for Serena. Winning be damned, Sharapova consistently made $10 million more from endorsements per year than Serena.
• Regularly referenced as males (or worse). In 2014, Russian Tennis Federation President Shamil Tarpischev branded the tennis icons “the Williams brothers.” Tarpishcev is a part of a White Supremacist chorus that dehumanizes black males and females. In 2001, Sid Rosenburg called the sisters “animals who should be banned from playing on the women's tennis tour.” 

White Supremacy and championships abound in the Williamses’ biographies. Although King Richard couldn’t make time for all of this, the dramatization poignantly captures the fears, horrors, vulnerability, and labor of attempting to parent black children in a System of Racism. 

The film delivers numerous bloody conflicts between Mr. Williams and a cadre of young black male criminals. They make lewd comments towards his daughters and terrorize and assault Mr. Williams. The father and coach wrote an autobiography (Black and White The Way I See It), which confirms this violence. Mr. Williams adds that he deliberately relocated Serena and Venus to a sleazy, vicious region of Compton because the “ghetto makes you tough and strong—unless it doesn’t do anything for you at all but get you killed.” 

Between episodes of black hooliganism, there’s one moment where the vulnerability of black parents is exposed at the hands of White people. Mr. Williams and his soon-to-be-famous daughters return from practice to find a White female social worker flanked by armed White enforcement officers. The film suggests a snooping black neighbor instigated this intrusion. The White officials “needed to look” at the household, and, presumably, the nefarious activities of the black inhabitants. For decades, White Women - under the guise of “child welfare,” have flexed state authority to deposit untold numbers of Serenas, Venuses and Minister Malcolm X's (and his siblings) into ghastly depositories for black children. 

Smith gives a remarkable performance, and this scene is magnificent. Mr. Williams rules his household even in the presence of a blond White Woman and badge wielding White lawmen. He and Ms. Price invite inspection of their young savants and parenting techniques. Mr. Williams brags about being “hard” on his daughters before challenging the officers to arrest the [White] “parents at them tennis matches.” See Indian Wells. 

The film offers several sly glimpses of White parents berating their tweeners for poor backhands and wide serves, or simply telling a child to lie to escape defeat. Beyond sportsmanship, audiences see Mr. Williams’ vigilant observations of tennis star Jennifer Cappriatti, who debuted in professional tennis at the age of 13. Watching the White teen sensation’s narcotics arrest swayed Williams’ approach to shaping the genesis of his daughters’ unprecedented careers. Black girls aren't allowed a “second serve” for mistakes of youth.

This 2+ hour epic provides a heap of supremely captivating moments. As Venus and Serena begin amassing one of the greatest trophy halls in history, they read the first newspaper reports of Venus’s accolades while the 1991 video of the late Rodney King being bludgeoned by Los Angeles Police Department officers distracts their parents. This scene is beautifully executed with the children facing away from the television, their jubilee undisturbed. Meanwhile, Ms. Price musters the feeble hopes of a black parent in a System of White Supremacy when she tells her husband: “At least they got them on tape this time.” 

Again, no spoilers. We know having video of King being mauled meant nothing in Semi Valley. Los Angeles was left smoldering a year later, following the April 1992 acquittal of all White officers charged for bludgeoning Mr. King. When black lives are daily, globally pulverized, it is audacious and, seemingly, foolhardy to plan for and dream of magnificent accomplishments for black girls or boys. 

The Williams parents dared to plot their children’s path to tennis royalty in the face of unchecked police terrorism escalated by the 90’s War on Drugs. The film masterfully pivots from CNN’s Bernard Shaw reporting on the piñata-bashing of King’s skull to young Venus and Serena flanking former First Lady Nancy Reagan. The White tennis crowd and Williams crew are admonished to “Just Say No” to narcotics, or they too could end up beaten and jailed like Mr. King (Dr. Martin Luther or Rodney). The scene concludes with Mr. Williams jokingly branding the Whites in attendance KKK members before releasing a round a flatulence to answer the would-be-klansmen’s offer to take control of Venus’s career. 

The former First Lady and President Ronald Reagan did take selfies with the future tennis titans. Those pics paired with the photos of Mr. Reagan authorizing the federal observation of Dr. King’s holiday could be an impressive collage. Call it the: “Proof we’re not Racist” album. 

Venus and Serena hobnobbing with White powerbrokers signaled their burgeoning star power and generational tennis acumen. And it was just as Mr. Williams planned. In spite of White Supremacy and all lesser obstacles, he and Ms. Price believed their black babies would be extraordinary. 

One thing I appreciate most about this project is being immersed in an affectionate black family. To borrow from Ta-Nehisi Coates, audiences witness “all the love poured into [Venus and Serena]. The gasoline expended, the treads worn carting [them] to [tennis matches]. The embraces, all the private jokes, customs, greetings, names, dreams, all the shared knowledge and capacity of a black family injected into” the beautiful tennis conquerors we now exalt. 

But King Richard is not Pollyanna. Ms. Price and Mr. Williams have bitter disagreements about raising their girls and life in general. The two divorced years after the events depicted in the film. However, the two attempted black parents remain flirtatious and share tender moments in front of their offspring. 

And, poignantly, the film includes all 5 girls of Mr. Williams and Ms. Price’s attempted family. Mikayla Bartholomew resurrects older sister Yetunde Price, who was "accidentally" shot to death by gang members in 2003. While discussing the film, Serena revealed, “I think I cried the whole time. Whenever she came on film, I just — personally, I just started, like — I mean, even still.” The film triumphs showing the intimacy and love that molded two legends, and Yetunde’s presence is a powerful component of this origin tale. 

Although Yetunde was 31 at the time she was killed, her death illustrates the fears and vulnerability of Ms. Price, Mr. Williams, and every attempted black parent who cannot protect their child from the omnipresent violence of White Supremacy. Mr. Williams courageously, candidly shared the fears and frailties of a black father in the section of his autobiography that details Venus’s birth. 

King Richard climaxes - there’s still 35 minutes of movie after this scene, but this is the big finish - with Mr. Williams confessing his fears as a black dad to his daughter, “Junior.” Smith gives a master performance, tearfully telling Venus she’ll be “representing every little black girl on Earth.” She and Serena will be called niggers and worse. There will be days when it seems the entire tennis stadium is brimming with White Supremacists, thirsty for the Williamses destruction… and her black father will be helpless. 

Call it a pitiful truth, but this brilliant bit of cinema and parental honesty should be replicated between non-white parents and their offspring. Lying about or minimizing the System of Racism and the power individuals classified as White wield over black lives is dangerous and a hallmark of defective parenting. Venus and Serena were prepared to dominate the WTA. Mr. Williams and Ms. Price were equally vested in readying their two prodigies for the System of White Supremacy. The morning before Venus’s first big match, her mother provides a big dose of tactile love, braiding her daughter's hair and breaking out the beads, which were a fashion staple of the adolescent Williams sisters. While pampering, Ms. Price reminds her girls that they’re just like slave-turned-abolitionist Sojourner Truth: beautiful, strong, trailblazers. 

Smith and his exceptional co-stars didn’t just win over Gus. King Richard bagged six Academy Award nominations, including one for Best Picture. In spite of this, there’s been a staunch, vocal White chorus determined to malign this project. 

In late November, Dr. Jessica Taylor whined about Mr. Williams being the source of the film’s eponymous title - as though this was yet another example of “black male privilege” and Venus and Serena getting shafted in their own biopic. I’m certain the film’s executive producers, who happened to be Serena and Venus, thoroughly enjoyed this critique of their dad.  

Just maybe.. two black daughters wanted to give their attempted black father some love? 

To put a bow on “black history month 2022,” Kim Masters of Southern California’s KCRW’s interviewed the film’s director, Reinaldo Marcus Green. For the better part of twenty minutes, Masters consistently found her way back to asking Green how much material had to be sanitized to hide from audiences the philandering, flawed, black-male-brutishness of Richard Williams.

Apparently, it’s difficult for White Women and White Men to appreciate and commend an attempted black father who not only worked to make sure his offspring were not “running with hoodlums and doing drugs,” as the Williams patriarch told the White social worker, but also believed his black girls would conquer the über White world of professional tennis, become international black powerbrokers, and bankroll Oscar-nominated Hollywood flicks showcasing their affectionate, flirtatious, constructive attempted black family.

Mr. Williams’s autobiography, which was published years before this film, gives the highest praise to Ms. Price and her essential and complimentary role in coaching their daughters. In fact, during the book promotional tour, the beastly, black Mr. Williams told BBC Radio: “Through my girls and through a lot of women that was around me, I learned that womens (sic) have some of the greatest ideas in the world. The mens (sic) just need to learn to listen to them.”

Thanks to superb black parents, Venus and Serena have our ear.

Christopher Dorner, Counter-Racism Code

Neely Fuller, Jr. once shared with me about the 1960’s riots. He recalled a black male who expressed his frustrations with being terrorized by Whites by incinerating White owned property. He shouted triumphantly, the block ablaze. Characteristically, Whites fabricated stories of black people shooting at firefighters; they refused to extinguish the fires. What started as a revolutionary spark against YT, resulted in an elderly black male being burned to death. The black male who ignited the blaze was left houseless after his grandmother’s residence was scorched; he was fortunate to rescue her from the flames. Fuller remarked:

"Even when we call ourselves getting at White folks,
we do a job on black people."

This wasn’t the only concept of Neely Fuller, Jr. that came to mind when I began reading about murder suspect and Victim of White Supremacy, Christopher Dorner. Whites have narrated that Mr. Dorner is a former enforcement officer for the Los Angeles Police Department and a decorated former Navy Lieutenant with ten years of service. He’s the primary suspect for the murder of Monica Quan (Non-white female) and her fiancé, Keith Lawrence (black male). He’s also described as the suspect in the shooting of two Riverside, California police officers – one of the officers was terminated.

What’s been reported as of February 8, 2013 does not provide all necessary details and may not be true. Mr. Dorner may not have committed any of these crimes. Whites falsely accuse black people for kicks – I’m surprised Pres. Obama hasn’t been implicated as a Dorner accomplice (may be coming).

Unfortunately, I was reminded of Mr. Fuller when I realized that some non-white people seemed excited or pleased with Mr. Dorner's alleged bloodletting It’s also been reported that Mr. Dorner wrote a manifesto detailing his experiences as a Victim of Racism. He described White coworkers/enforcement officers – other then Stacey Koon – calling black people Niggers. Dorner spoke with pride about physically assaulting Whites who said Nigger in his presence throughout his life. Part of his vendetta with the LAPD surrounds allegations that a White police officer kicked a prone civilian in the face without cause. To non-white people less confused about Racism, this sounds like routine operating procedure for White police officers around the world. See Stuart Lawrence, Sean Bell, Tyisha Miller, Tawana Brawley, Aiyana Jones, Rekia Boyd, Ramarley Graham, Mark Duggan, Oscar Grant, Abner Louima…

For some non-white people, Mr. Dorner’s military training, and willingness to openly wage war against a Racist White Police System, might engender comparisons to a 21st century Nat Turner, or the reincarnation of Mark Essex. As we just concluded our study session on George Orwell’s 1984, Gus T. Renegade is highly skeptical. The context of these events demands a fine-toothed inspection.

• A seamless stream of public shootings over the past eight months.
• White-knuckle hysteria that the Nigger in the White House will confiscate the manhood assault rifles of White Men.
• Monica Quan and Keith Lawrence were slain in Orange County, where in December 2012 a White man opened fire at a mall - unloading more then 40 shots and injuring one. The county also had a recent string of publicized acts of White Terrorism – including the suspicious death of Khalid Flimban {black male}.
• A $160,000,000+ box office smash depicting a gun-toting, Django Unchained killing Whites.
• And less then seven days earlier, one of the most celebrated killers of recent years was publicly executed at a gun range - former Navy Seal, Sniper, New York Times bestseller, and Racist Suspect, Chris Kyle (American Sniper).

But beyond these concurrent events, nothing about this story supports Justice. Nothing about this incident helps to eliminate Racism. Nothing about what’s been reported will improve the lives of black people. To the contrary, this could possibly make things worse – already has for a few. I’ll outline a few key aspects of what has been reported thus far that violate major counter-racist objectives and bare the fingerprints and worldview of Racists/White people.

Whites derive an abundance of pleasure insulting black people. It boosts their morale to see us “chimpout,” become irrational, raging lunatics on their cue. Like Pavlov’s obedient pups, Whites provide us with auditory stimulus: NIGGER; we respond according to our training. Allen Iverson and countless others have had life changing altercations responding to the grade school insults of Racists. It never benefits black people to allow Whites to provoke us to substitute rage (even when justified) for reason. Mr. Dorner’s alleged manifesto describes him choking a White police officer for saying Nigger. Only Racists would appreciate this response. It eternally benefits Whites when we fail to remain codified, professional soldiers who understand and expect trifling, Racist behavior from any and all White people. Codified, professional warriors do not respond to name calling from their adversary. Successful combatants consistently respond to their enemies in the best manner possible. White people consciously and or subconsciously think of all black people as Niggers. Dr. Eddie Moore, Jr. – founder of the White Privilege Conference – has produced children with more then one White Woman, and even he publicly acknowledges this fact. Our enemies openly identifying themselves as such should never offend us.

Under the System of Racism (White Supremacy), all non-white people are being violently harmed. Any Victim of Racism can respond with counter-violence to White individuals they suspect of being Racist. But under no circumstances should ANY other non-white person be harmed during the use of counter-violence. Non-white people are terrorised; it makes no sense and is intolerable to add additional injury to an already battered people. The initial two victims Mr. Dorner is suspected of killing were non-white. The photographs of the slain engaged couple illustrate the extraordinary incorrectness of this act. It is total insanity for a non-white person to respond to Whites practicing Racism by murdering innocent non-white people. It’s as sensible as a slave of Thomas Jefferson attacking his Racist owner by decapitating Sally Hemings. Any act that is supposed to be against Racism cannot produce the same result as Racism. The essence of any counter-racist act should be affirming, saving and improving the lives of melanated people. Any act that violates this essential counter-racist code, should be forcefully rejected.

Mr. Fuller began construction of a meticulous counter-racist code. If the reports are true, Mr. Dorner has violated a key aspect of codification. Stand By Your Work. Mr. Dorner is alleged to have declared “asymmetrical warfare” on the LAPD. But he’s on the run. White people have launched a colossal hunt for this black male, and they’ve endangered and shot innocent non-white people in the process. White people enjoy fox hunts, nigger tracking. Black Boston residents, who recall Charles Stuart and the orchestrated response to tales of murdering black males, can bare witness. Whites have no compunction about harming innocent black people in pursuit of a perceived - fabricated – threat of a rogue darkie.

White people have purchased historic amounts of firearms since the 2008 election of Barack Obama. The given narrative on Mr. Dorner offers them a chance to try out their new toys.

I strongly encourage non-white people to research this incident with a high level of cynicism. Mr. Dorner has extensive military training – including awards for his efforts in the “War on Terrorism” and skilled marksmanship. It’s been reported that he left the Navy less then a week before the murder of Quan and Lawrence. It is possible that Dorner remains a dutiful soldier in the White Supremacist armed services.

Either way, these acts should not be celebrated, condoned or supported. They are disgraceful. Nonconstructive. Innocent Victims of Racism have been harmed and even killed. This is not the handy work of a courageous, counter-racist soldier. When you strike out against the plantation, you do not target the slaves.  

A Suspected Racist reporter compared these events to a Hollywood flick. Only the psychopathic Racist is entertained by the prospect of a brawny, black cop-killer on the loose. Two non-whites killed. And a call for more blood. 

"White People Kill For Fun." - Mr. Nero

Bonus Audio

**Neely Fuller, Jr. on Christopher Dorner**