听力音频点击下载.mp3　

　　She is a beautiful, graceful, tennis champion, aworld class athlete, and role model for millions ofwomen around the world. And yesterday in America,tennis ace, Serena Williams, was pronouncedSportsperson of the year by the Sports magazine,Sports Illustrated. It is the first time an AfricanAmerican woman has been awarded this honour and only the third time that it has gone to awoman in the magazine’s history. But, being a powerful, black sportswoman in tennis, a sportoften viewed as a bastion of white advantage, comes with constant challenges to her genderand ethnicity.

　　Not long after the announcement of the award was made, social media was abuzz with anumber of complaints from a section of the magazines readers. These disgruntled sports fanspointed to an online poll, by Sports Illustrated fans, which gave a landslide victory, not toSerena Williams, but to the racehorse, ‘American Pharaoh’.

　　I think that the Sports Illustrated fans who voted for American Pharaoh missed an importantpoint. The purpose of the award is to acknowledge the accomplishments of a human being;the award has never gone to an animal. But I have to wonder, why is it that an animal, howevergraceful and powerful, gets recognized above the humanity of an accomplished blackwoman?

　　It is a truism to say that some bodies count more than other bodies, but I'd like to flesh outthis statement, pun intended.

　　The message of the advent, the coming of Christ into the world, is that we can identify Godprecisely by coming into contact with a human body. The church, for centuries, particularly theGnostics, who denied God could be so closely aligned with physicality -- that if Jesus were Godhe couldn't be born as a baby, has struggled with this core element of the gospel.

　　Ranking American Pharaoh above Serena Williams suggests that we in the Western world, evenhere in Britain, still struggle with bodies--especially the bodies of women, and particularly thebodies of black women.

　　Throughout her career, the very body of Serena Williams, rather than her sportsmanship, hasbeen attacked: too muscular, too physical, too aggressive--too unlike other bodiestraditionally associated with greatness in tennis. Have our own commentators given her thecredit she deserves?

　　I believe the online discussion of Serena’s body is an illustration of a larger question. Aquestion about personhood; recognizing and respecting people for who they are, and what theyhave done. And how we should live out the meaning of Advent, the idea that God lives in allflesh, and that all flesh is good.

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