Martina Navratilova was furious over an individual who termed the Disney character Pocahontas to be ‘savages’ on social media. This term has been used widely in history to refer to people who were thought to be uncivilized, but was actually just a pejorative term used to refer to the indigenous people.
Since the Powhantans are a native American tribe, a user on X (formerly Twitter) referred to them as ‘savages.’ The conversation first spurred when a user posted a historical account of the Disney film, Pocahontas.
“Though Pocahontas is portrayed as an 18-year-old in the movie, she was actually just 11 when she first met Captain John Smith in the 17th century,” they posted (an excerpt from the post).
Trending
To this, another user replied, trying to prove them wrong, but also called the Powhantans 'savage' while making their point.
"We have no evidence of her True age as the savages didn’t keep age but nice try," they replied.
This enraged the 18-time Grand Slam champion as she said:
"Savages??? Nice try"
The user backed it up by asking the tennis legend to 'learn Indian history' and said:
"Learn actual Indian history buddy, they wiped out weaker tribes completely and took slaves and didn’t just plant corn and do rain dances."
Navratilova clapped back by saying:
"Also - US had slaves till 1865, so again, who are the savages???"
Meanwhile, this is not the first time the former World No. 1 had engaged with the fans online. Earlier this year, she reacted to one X user's take on transgender athletes participating in women's sports.
Martina Navratilova argued that men shouldn't lecture her on women's rights
Martina Navratilova stated that men shouldn't be teaching her about women's rights, as she got involved in a gender debate on social media in February this year. This came after the 68-year-old tennis legend came across a book, Sex is a Spectrum: The Biological Limits of the Binary, by a Princeton professor.
A prominent advocate for women's and queer rights, Navratilova went back and forth with the author as she tried to explain that the book was contradictory, as the explanation of the use of the word 'binary' didn't align with her understanding of the topic. However, when the author labelled her to be 'bitter' and 'ignorant', she lost her cool and wrote:
"Yet another man explaining to me where I should get my information…. Hmm…"
Another user replied to this with a jarring comment, saying that she should accept the advice from the person, irrespective of gender. This made Navratilova furious, and she replied:
"Kind of like a white person explaining racism to a black person while telling them what they don’t know about racism…"
Martina Navratilova, however, is against the participation of transgender athletes in women's sports.
