First off I’d like to say congratulations to Team USA for a great showing in the London Olympics all across the board.  Your sacrifice, determination and will to win embody the indomitable spirit of the American people.  Secondly you have the right to celebrate your achievements however you so choose as long as no-one gets hurt in the process I believe. This is especially true when the rest of us, the coach potatoes and Monday morning coaches that we are, simply are watching history being made from the outside looking in.  In the sporting world in the US we’ve become accustomed to the braggadocios nature of those on-court, on-field celebrations by the victorious.  We’ve even seen spirituality invoked in some of these celebrations as evidenced by the “Tebowing” phenomenon sweeping the NFL brought about by the former Denver Bronco now New York Jets quarterback Tim Tebow.  Tebow has popularized the particular stance where he gets down on one knee with his elbow resting on his knee with his head bowed as though he’s in prayer.  Nothing seems inappropriate with it unless you are offended by it being religious seeming.  There are those who say he’d taken it a step too far when he posed for GQ Magazine.  In the mag add his posture would leave some to believe it was Christ like.  What about when Joe Horn in 2008 while playing for the New Orleans Saints after catching a touchdown pass from Aaron Brooks ran to the goal post, lifted up the protective padding to pull his cell phone from underneath then proceeded to make a call in celebration of his touchdown.  As a longtime fan of the NFL, I thought that what Joe did was actually funny, refreshing and creative though the in-game announcers were in agreement in their opinion that what Joe had done was inappropriate.  Key word there ~ opinion.   Fast forward to London Olympics 2012 Serena Williams upon winning the gold medal for singles competition chose to celebrate in a way that seemed offensive to some people.  She performed a dance routine eerily similar to what’s known in certain circles in California as the “Crip Walk” made famous by the infamous US gang the Crips.  In fairness, it must be stated that when “Crip Walking” a purported gang member would throw up his set or show hand gestures that would reveal the neighborhood that he represents.  In the video we don’t see Ms. Williams do anything of such so in all fairness those who condemn her celebration for promoting gang violence may have had a knee jerk reaction to it. Ms. Williams got a little testy with a reporter questioning her intentions behind the dance. What I think, is that in light of the controversy that it has caused she would do well to speak out against gang violence and use her platform to open up dialogue to combat the systemic societal ills that plague our communities.  Growing up and learning to play tennis in some of the roughest neighborhoods in California didn’t detour her ambitious goals of dominating the sport of Tennis, securing her legacy and from making a wonderful living from her skill.  She had to been exposed to the culture of gangs so it’s not hard to image Serena already speaking out about these ills in the hood but the frequency of those conversations and the seriousness of those conversations most likely has just been ramped up a bit.  Now if she records a song with Snoop Dogg in the next few days so will the questions of her intentions.  We welcome Ms. Williams and would love for her to appear on the Playa T Show @ http://www.playatshow.com to set the record straight and do that little dance number again.
By. Playa T