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Serena Williams is asking if cotton is the only option for resort decor.
Some individuals on the web are getting riled up.
And so they’re venting their anger on the world-class athlete.
Serena has made controversial selections. Is critiquing a resort’s adorning selections one in every of them? What is that this actually about?
Tennis legend Serena Williams attends the 2025 TIME100 gala at The Jazz at Lincoln Heart in New York, April 24, 2025. (Photograph Credit score: ANGELA WEISS/AFP through Getty Photos)
Serena Williams has some ideas on ornamental cotton
This week noticed the launch of Nike’s SKIMS collaboration.
Serena Williams has lengthy been in affiliation with Nike as a model.
It seems that the corporate put her up in a resort for the launch occasion in New York.
Taking to social media, the celebrity athlete critiqued the resort decor — particularly, a white vase containing cotton branches.
Serena Williams questions cotton branches as decor pic.twitter.com/TcNCT6TJx7
— Kaiser@Celebitchy (@KaiseratCB) September 26, 2025
“Alright, everyone,” Serena addressed her followers. “How do we feel about cotton as decoration?”
She admitted: “Personally for me, it doesn’t feel great.”
A follow-up previous noticed Serena telling her followers that the cotton “feels like nail polish remover cotton.” It’s not a praise.
World-class athlete Serena Williams introduces Maria Sharapova in the course of the 2025 Induction Celebration weekend on the Worldwide Tennis Corridor of Fame in Newport, R.I. on Saturday, August 23, 2025. (Photograph Credit score: Joe Buglewicz/Getty Photos for Worldwide Tennis Corridor of Fame)
Cue the raging trolls fuming at her
To be clear, Serena Williams actually gave the impression of she was critiquing the selection in decor.
There are various lovely white flowers and off-white crops {that a} resort may use to brighten. From a purely design standpoint, cotton may be an off-putting selection.
It’s not fairly Hildi Santo-Tomas stapling precise straw to a wall in somebody’s home on Buying and selling Areas.
However that decor crime does come to thoughts once we consider cotton stalks simply chilling in corridors.
Serena Williams attends the Nike SKIMS “Bodies At Work” launch celebration at Nike Home of Innovation on September 24, 2025. (Photograph Credit score: Manny Carabel/Getty Photos)
Sadly, that didn’t cease a sure component of the web from having what seems to be a racist meltdown.
“Serena Williams has reached peak Karen,” insisted one social media denizen.
“Hard to imagine…. but black fragility has spilled onto the tennis court,” tweeted one other.
This misused time period makes an attempt to deflect from the documented situations of white fragility within the face of our nation’s historical past of racism. , just like the mere query of cotton as decor.
Is cotton racist? No — however the corrosive stain of racism touches many issues, together with agriculture
Cotton has a protracted and ugly historical past in america, as a result of it was a staple crop for textile manufacturing throughout generations of slavery.
The cotton plant and references to “cotton-picking” too usually play a task in anti-Black racist statements, jokes, and extra.
Nonetheless, and we’ve to emphasise this … Serena Williams didn’t really point out any of that.
The trendy Serena Williams attends the 2025 Met Gala Celebrating “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” at Metropolitan Museum of Artwork on Could 05, 2025. (Photograph Credit score: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Photos)
There are individuals in our nation who famously insist that there are individuals who sit round simply ready to “be offended.”
Nonetheless, these making this declare look like projecting.
Serena stated that she didn’t just like the decor. Possibly it’s as a result of cotton is a permanent image of America’s racist historical past — a historical past that some would slightly obscure than confront.
Or perhaps as a result of it’s simply not a lovely plant. Or perhaps each.
The individuals so desperate to assault her don’t want an actual reply — they only wish to be offended that anybody may need emotions about racism. It’s a illness.
