Naomi Osaka condemns hatred of Asian Americans

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Naomi Osaka was eliminated from the Miami Open 2021 in straight sets by Maria Sakkari, but the young Japanese tennis player, arguably, at the moment, the most popular sports woman in the world, is always at the center of the scene for her struggles against social discrimination and social equality.

Naomi, on Twitter, condemned the recent hate crimes against Asian Americans. She wrote: "If people loved Asian people as much as they love bubble tea, anime, mochi, sushi, matcha etc. Imagine profiting / enjoying things that come from a culture and then attacking / diminishing the ethnic group that created it." Episodes of racism against Asian Americans in the past year have been nearly 3,800 times in the US, according to a study conducted by the Stop AAPI Hate Reporting Center.

Naomi Osaka condemns hatred of Asian Americans

On Twitter we can read comments by users who said: "Think about how many people love hip hop culture, and gentrifying communities, Eating ethnic food and so on," or also: "Hate loves to take." Osaka was among the biggest supporters of Black Lives Matter, a movement born after the brutal assassination of George Floyd.

She, a week after a police officer killed George Floyd in Minneapolis, wrote: "When you tweet about the looting before you tweet about the death of an unarmed black man."

If people loved Asian people as much as they love bubble tea, anime, mochi, sushi, matcha etc...

Imagine profiting/enjoying things that come from a culture and then attacking/diminishing the ethnic group that created it. — NaomiOsaka大坂なおみ (@naomiosaka) March 27, 2021

Naomi and Ashleigh Barty are fighting for the WTA world no.1.

Barty has been world no.1 since September 2019, for 69 weeks, 62 of which are consecutive. Over the course of her career she has won seven WTA titles out of eleven finals played, four of which are Grand Slam tournaments: she boasts the victory of two US Open in 2018 and 2020 and two Australian Open in 2019 and 2021.

Following the first Australian success, on 28 January 2019 it also reached the first place in the world ranking for the first time. Naomi was the first ever Japanese athlete to win a Grand Slam title, the third in the Open Era to qualify for the WTA Finals in 2018 and the first Asian ever to reach the top of the WTA rankings.