NAOMI OSAKA une jeune femme remarquable

Vous avez cette jeune femme dont les JAPONAIS veulent s'approprier pour eux memes mais qui insiste sur sur son heritage HAITIEN.
NAOMI OSAKA insiste qu'on eclaircit sa peau dans des photos de magazine.
Elle se dit fiere de son HERITAGE HAITIEN.
Meme un JOURNAL comme le NEW YORK TIMES se dit intriguer par NAOMI OSAKA .Le NEW YORK TIMES a publie 3 ARTICLES sur NAOMI OSAKA ,pour le mois de DECEMBRE.
Voici l'un d'eux:

http://nytimes.com/2020/12/16/sports/tennis/naomi-osaka-protests.html

By Elena Bergeron
Dec. 16, 2020
Leer en español
As usual, Naomi Osaka’s postmatch interview struck an emotional chord.

It was two years after she had burst to the fore with a moving win over Serena Williams in the 2018 United States Open women’s singles final, where she had stood small and unguarded, crying in front of an audience that had been rooting for her opponent.

Now, in September, after winning the U.S. Open for a second time, Osaka was asked by the ESPN analyst Tom Rinaldi to explain why she had entered each of her seven matches wearing a face mask bearing the name of a Black victim of racist violence.

“What was the message you wanted to send?” Rinaldi asked Osaka.

“Well, what was the message that you got?” she replied. “I feel like the point is to make people start talking.”

Her answer, volleyed back at him reflexively, precise and a bit arch, revealed a sharply different woman from the one who had withered under excruciating boos at Arthur Ashe Stadium after her first U.S. Open title.

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As her star has grown, Osaka has described herself to interviewers as shy and quiet, though her older sister, Mari, likens her to the character Stewie Griffin, from the animated TV show “The Family Guy,” whose malevolent genius is subverted by the constraints of being a baby. That demeanor was sufficient as Osaka navigated the world as an effervescent upstart.

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When it came to opening up about nearly any deeply felt topic, Osaka used to let the words kink up inside her like an unspooled garden hose. But in 2020, Osaka found her voice and the self-possession to speak up when and how she saw fit, a massive leap for a global superstar who once felt too self-conscious to exhort herself even on the court. With time to engage with civil rights protests because of the pandemic’s pause of tennis, Osaka found the space to unravel her thoughts to convey an urgent and unequivocal demand for change.

In doing so, she came to be as precise and efficient in her protest as she has been in her tennis, offering up her version of soft power: deploying bold activism shaped by her unique understanding of the world and her place in it.

Osaka eschewed the playbook of other tennis stars.
There’s a faction in tennis that has long wanted to hear a more polished version of Osaka.

“Forever, whether it was the WTA Tour or other interested parties, everyone was always putting pressure on me to get Naomi media-trained,” Stuart Duguid, her agent, said. “I always thought that would be a mistake for her. That’s the last thing we want to contrive.”

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After Osaka haltingly riffed through what she called “the worst acceptance speech of all time,” at Indian Wells in March 2018, that push ramped up with executives letting Duguid know they had not been charmed.


ImageOsaka posed with the championship trophy at Indian Wells in 2018.
Osaka posed with the championship trophy at Indian Wells in 2018.Credit...Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images
Still, he argued that Osaka’s candor made her a star whom fans could connect with. Displaying the mischief and joy of anybody’s teenage sister in her interviews, Osaka racked up deals that proved Duguid right. She rejected prestige for prestige’s sake, bucking the standard luxury watch and car endorsements that mark “making it” in tennis.

She instead aligned with brands that made sense for a Gen Z global citizen: She added deals with Sony PlayStation and Airbnb. She took on equity partnerships with performance brands and companies like BodyArmor SportWater and Hyperice, and started fashion collaborations with Comme des Garçons and Adeam, labels coveted not at country clubs but on street style roundups.

The haul beefed up her 2019 earnings to $37 million, a figure Forbes estimated was the most any woman had earned as an athlete in one year.

In what she termed “a U-shaped” 2019, though, Osaka’s rawness and honesty conveyed the depths of her frustration over how much she struggled after her rapid-fire Grand Slam wins. After a 16-match win streak at Grand Slam events, she was upset at the 2019 French Open in her third match and lost in a first-round stunner at Wimbledon. After Wimbledon, she faced reporters who presented her with variations of the same question — what’s wrong with you?

“There’s answers to questions that you guys ask that I still haven’t figured out yet,” she curtly replied to one, during a news conference she left by telling a moderator, “I feel like I’m about to cry.”


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It was a troublesome showing — her postmatch interviews felt like eavesdropping on a doctor’s stethoscope. She offered only sadness and frustration, with no spin.

The year mercifully ended with Osaka’s hiring a new coach, Wim Fissette, an analytics-minded Belgian who had worked with other No. 1s, Simona Halep, Kim Clijsters and, most recently, Victoria Azarenka.

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When she was ousted in the round of 32 at the Australian Open, Fissette and Osaka pried open a vein of communication. To that point, they had developed a polite repartee about the technical parts of her game, but stopped short of talking about her mind-set entering matches.

“She’s not a person that you get to know and she tells you everything you need to know,” Fissette said.

Osaka revealed in a come-to-Jesus conversation weeks after the loss that she had told him things were just fine when they weren’t. She had assumed an extreme amount of pressure to win in Australia and wasn’t mentally ready to deal with a match that didn’t go her way. Osaka agreed to open up, realizing that sharing her feelings did not challenge her normal confidence in her game and in her physicality.

“I don’t necessarily need that much in terms of strategy, and I feel like my game is always good enough to win,” she said in an email interview in November. “But of course you can’t play your A game every day, so it’s nice to know that I have some information on my opponent in case I need it. That definitely helps to relax me going into matches.”

‘I was able to take more personal time.’
Of course, her tennis wasn’t tested much in the months that followed because the pandemic shut down the WTA Tour in mid-March along with the rest of major sports leagues. Osaka used the downtime to consider the world from her vantage point. “I was able to focus on things outside of tennis and live my life outside of tennis in a way I never have and likely never will again,” she said. “I was able to take more personal time, more time for self-reflection, more time to understand and witness the world around me.”

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Tendrils of info on how she spent those months and how they changed her have seeped into her social media accounts where, between family dance-offs, she posted images of Frantz Fanon’s book “The Wretched of the Earth” and appeared with her boyfriend, the rapper Cordae Dunston, on workout bikes in a picture snapped by Colin Kaepernick. Amid Netflix binges and at-home workouts, and learning to cook her favorite of her mother Tamaki’s recipes, Osaka spent time reading about how Haiti became the first Black-led republic in the world. That was a suggestion from Leonard Francois, her father, to learn about her ancestors.


Without the tunnel vision of a tennis schedule, Osaka showed the effects of the psyche-scarring onslaught of violence against Black Americans. In the days after George Floyd was killed by the Minneapolis police in May, she flew with Dunston to protests there and later wrote an opinion piece for Esquire challenging that society “take on systemic racism head-on, that the police protect us and don’t kill us.”

Though Osaka’s assertion of each part of her identity — Japanese, Haitian, raised for a time in the United States — has given her profitable endorsement lanes, she has often highlighted her Blackness when commentators minimize it. That erasure has happened in small ways, as when a TV interviewer after a 2019 Australian Open match gave a shout-out to her Japanese supporters there. She thanked them, then gave “big ups” to Haiti.

Her Blackness has been overlooked in more troubling circumstances, too.

After the 2018 Open win, an Australian newspaper cartoon depicted the final scene with Williams in racist caricature — mammy-esque facial features frozen in twisted rage — which the artist defended against backlash by saying, “I drew her as an African-American woman.” Nearly lost in the controversy was his rendering of Osaka: pale, with blond, straight hair and nearly unrecognizable. In 2019, her sponsor Nissin pulled an ad in which a cartoon of Osaka had skin and hair many shades lighter than she had in real life.


Image
Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka after the 2018 U.S. Open final.
Serena Williams and Naomi Osaka after the 2018 U.S. Open final.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
That same year, a Japanese comedy duo said Osaka needed “some bleach” and was “too sunburned,” remarks for which they later apologized without naming Osaka specifically.

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With Osaka cut off from IRL social touchstones and without access to her day job, her TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and other platforms provided the most candid way for her to speak up as she had pledged. When she tweeted her support for the Black Lives Matter movement in June and encouraged participation in a B.L.M. protest in Osaka, Japan, she faced social media trolls who called her a terrorist and a widespread backlash from Japanese people who viewed the issue as an outsider’s cause.

“I think for people in America, the B.L.M. movement is something we have all started to talk about and talk about openly,” Osaka said, “yet globally, it’s not as common, and I hope that changed.”

The cultural anthropologist John G. Russell sees Osaka’s emergence in Japan as a significant stride given the country’s long history of touting its monoculture, but one that has opened her and her sponsors up to racist vitriol from some people who view mixed-race Japanese figures as a threat to the national identity.

The notoriously savage Twitter user Yu Darvish, a Major League Baseball pitcher who is Japanese and Iranian, and the N.B.A. star Rui Hachimura (Japanese and Beninese) have also used their platforms to clap back and to promote social justice.

“They are stepping up to address issues that the Japanese media would prefer not to confront,” Russell said in an email interview, cautioning that though their efforts have increased visibility in Japan, their message “may serve to reinforce the view that hafu are themselves outsiders and not full members of Japanese society.” (“Hafu” is a term used for Japanese people of mixed-race backgrounds.)

When tennis returned, Osaka put her protest front and center.
The day before Osaka played her first match at the Western & Southern Open in August, Jacob Blake was shot in the back by the police in Kenosha, Wis.

By her quarterfinal match, renewed protests had reached American pro sports, with teams in the N.B.A., the W.N.B.A. and M.L.B. opting to stop competing on Aug. 26.

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Osaka came off the court that day planning to withdraw from the tournament. No call with a players’ union, no team meeting. Duguid, her agent, asked her to hold off announcing for 10 minutes or so while he scrambled to give her sponsors and the tournament a heads-up. That done, she dropped a meticulously framed statement to her various social feeds that explained her stance.

“Before I am an athlete, I am a black woman,” she wrote. “And as a black woman I feel as though there are much more important matters at hand that need immediate attention, rather than watching me play tennis.”


Image
Officials paused the Western & Southern Open rather than have Osaka withdraw from it to protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake. She finished as runner-up, after an injury caused her to pull out of the final.
Officials paused the Western & Southern Open rather than have Osaka withdraw from it to protest the police shooting of Jacob Blake. She finished as runner-up, after an injury caused her to pull out of the final.Credit...Jason Szenes/EPA, via Shutterstock
Within minutes, the WTA’s chief executive, Steve Simon, called Duguid to salvage her participation. Simon, along with other tennis and tournament officials, eventually agreed to pause the tournament.

“I have never, ever experienced the quickness and the united front for these leaders to come together on what was a very, very critical moment,” Stacey Allaster, the tournament director for the U.S. Open, said.

It was an unmistakable display of Osaka’s power within the sport, an authority that is still heavily predicated upon winning.

As she entered the U.S. Open, so much had changed for her personally and in the world. Fissette said no player he had coached carried Osaka’s glee and determination entering a Grand Slam event. With a strong showing at the Western & Southern (she advanced to the final, but then withdrew with an injury), a more open relationship with her team and a new expectation that her matches might get tough, she came into the U.S. Open confident enough to have seven face masks made — one for each round needed to win a championship.

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“I wouldn’t travel to a tournament without expecting to play seven matches, and initially, when I thought about the best way to raise awareness and honor voices that had been silenced, it was more something I had to do on a personal level, for myself,” Osaka said. “I didn’t feel that with all that I was seeing in the world around me I could just show up and play as if nothing had happened, as if lives were not unjustly taken.”

As she bounded into Ashe Stadium on Sept. 1 for her opening match, a plume of hair and a bulky headphone tiara framed her mask bearing the name Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old medical worker who was killed in March during a raid of her apartment in Louisville, Ky.

Cheryl Cooky, a sociology professor at Purdue who studies gender and sexuality, saw the quiet but impossible-to-ignore protest as contributing powerfully to the iconography of athlete activism.

Collectively, she said, we tend to remember the visual shorthand of John Carlos and Tommie Smith’s gloved black fists at the 1968 Olympics, or Kaepernick’s kneeling, rather than women who have been at the vanguard of protest movements. Women like Ariyana Smith, the Knox College basketball player who in 2014 foreshadowed future demonstrations in college and pro sports by protesting the killing of Michael Brown by the police in Ferguson, Mo.

“The protests that are happening in the sports space are by Black women athletes, but it’s the men who become these iconic figures,” said Cooky, co-author of “No Slam Dunk: Gender, Sport and the Unevenness of Social Change.” Osaka’s protest, she said, was visible enough to stand alongside the most memorable acts.

Un article paru sur "la plume" de NAOMI OSAKA dans le NEW YORK TIMES.
En contexte,NAOMI OSAKA a deja gagne plus de 37 MILLIONS DE DOLLARS pour l'annee 2020:

http://nytimes.com/2020/12/21/opinion/naomi-osaka-lebron-james-racism.html

Naomi Osaka: Athletes, Speak Up
We’re affected by bias and racism, just like everyone else. Why shouldn’t we say so?

By Naomi Osaka
Ms. Osaka is an athlete.

Dec. 21, 2020


Naomi Osaka at the 2020 U.S. Open women’s singles final.
Naomi Osaka at the 2020 U.S. Open women’s singles final.Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
This is an article from Turning Points, a special section that explores what critical moments from this year might mean for the year ahead.

Turning Point: Under pressure from both their fans and their players, teams from the United States’ four major sports leagues canceled games and practices to protest racism and police brutality.

“Shut up and dribble.”

That’s what a news anchor suggested LeBron James do after he discussed racism, politics and the difficulties of being a Black public figure in America during an ESPN interview in 2018.

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Needless to say, he didn’t take her advice.

LeBron, the activist, first caught my eye in 2012. He and his Miami Heat teammates posted photos of themselves in hoodies to protest the murder of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed Black teenager in Florida who was wearing a hoodie when he was fatally shot by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer. In 2014, Eric Garner, a Black man, died in Staten Island after police officers held him in a chokehold, a move banned by the police at the time and one that has since become illegal in New York State. Soon after, LeBron wore a T-shirt with the words “I can’t breathe” — Garner’s last words, which were captured on video as the officers strangled him — during a pregame warm-up. The rest of the league followed, but James was the focal point.


ImageLeBron James wears a T-shirt with the dying words of Eric Garner, “I can't breathe,” to a pregame warm-up in Brooklyn in 2014.
LeBron James wears a T-shirt with the dying words of Eric Garner, “I can't breathe,” to a pregame warm-up in Brooklyn in 2014.Credit...Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
Fast forward to this year and he is still in the cultural spotlight. LeBron has the loudest voice and the biggest platform, and he used them to protest systemic racism, inequality and police brutality, all while his game continued to flourish in the face of unprecedented protests, a world-changing pandemic and deeply personal hurts, including the tragic death of our mutual friend Kobe Bryant.

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LeBron is ferociously brave in his steadfast support of the Black community. He is unwavering, upfront and passionate. On the court or at the mic, he is simply unstoppable and an inspiration. He is dedicated to his craft, but equally dedicated to his community, even as he continues to fight against an established history of silencing athletes who speak out.

Musicians sing and write about social movements, activism and equality all the time. Actors voice their opinions and often personally endorse political candidates, hosting fund-raisers and throwing parties. Business executives, authors and artists are almost expected both to have opinions about the latest news and to publicly defend their views. Yet when it comes to athletes, we are often met with criticism for expressing our opinions.

Do people see us as no more than bodies — individuals who can achieve what’s physically impossible for nearly everyone else, and who entertain fans by pushing ourselves past our limits? Do they wonder if a collection of muscles, bones, blood and sweat might also be able to voice an opinion? Should sports just be sports, and politics just be politics?

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That’s often the message. Hit the ball. Sink the shot. Shut up and dribble.

But whatever the argument is, it always ignores a critical fact: When we are not performing, we live in the same country as everyone else. And as plenty of athletes today can attest, that means we are subject to the same injustices and inequalities that have led to the murder of people who look just like us but who don’t enjoy the same protections afforded by our fame, access and support systems. Just ask the N.B.A. player Sterling Brown, whom police officers shot with a stun gun, or my tennis colleague James Blake, who was slammed to the ground and handcuffed for 15 minutes by police officers while he stood outside a New York City hotel (the officers said it was a case of “mistaken identity”). Just because we are athletes doesn’t mean we are unaffected by what happens around the country, nor does it obligate us to keep our mouths shut.

Sports have never been apolitical, and as long as they continue to be played by human beings, they won’t be.


Image
A protester, wearing a face mask featuring Colin Kaepernick kneeling, joins a demonstration in Washington, D.C., against racism and police brutality, on June 6.
A protester, wearing a face mask featuring Colin Kaepernick kneeling, joins a demonstration in Washington, D.C., against racism and police brutality, on June 6.Credit...Roberto Schmidt/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Muhammad Ali spent decades as a voice for justice, even after he was sentenced to five years in prison for refusing to be drafted because of his religious beliefs. At the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, Tommie Smith and John Carlos were booed when they raised their black-gloved fists on the podium, and afterward faced waves of criticism from the public and the media alike when they returned home to the United States.

Colin Kaepernick risked his career when he knelt during the national anthem before an N.F.L. game, and may never play another down in the league because of it. Megan Rapinoe has been a stalwart of the L.G.B.T.Q. movement and equal pay, even when it meant standing up to the president of the United States and refusing to visit the White House. Venus Williams has done more than most people know to continue the legacy of Billie Jean King in fighting for equality in women’s tennis. Coco Gauff, at such a young age, is fiercely active online and has spoken publicly and passionately in support of Black Lives Matter.

Yet even with all this progress, I still feel like we as athletes have a long way to go.

Today, given the television coverage we receive and our prominence on social media, athletes have platforms that are larger and more visible than ever before. The way I see it, that also means that we have a greater responsibility to speak up. I will not shut up and dribble.

Naomi Osaka, a top-ranked professional tennis player, won her second United States Open singles title in 2020.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

Et puis

http://haitiliberte.com/naomi-osaka-en-haiti