Serena Williams Clapped Back in the Classiest Way at Interracial Relationship Haters

Serena Williams is not new to scrutiny from the public and media. Whether it’s her “attitude,” her body, or her hair, the tennis legend is constantly being criticized.

Last December, Williams announced her engagement to Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit. And while many people were thrilled of the news, there were some who expressed displeasure because Ohanian is white.

Ilie Nastase, the Romania Fed Cup captain and former world No. 1 tennis player, made a racist comment in April about Williams, who is pregnant with her first child with Ohanian: “Let’s see what color it has. Chocolate with milk?”

Williams took to Instagram and made sure to give him a piece of her mind, writing: “It disappoints me to know we live in a society where people like Ilie Nastase can make such racist comments towards myself and unborn child, and sexist comments against my peers.”

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A post shared by Serena Williams (@serenawilliams) on Apr 24, 2017 at 12:58pm PDT

Despite personal opinions and prejudices, Williams remains positive. “This or anything else will not stop me from pouring love, light and positivity into everything that I do,” she wrote.

We continue to see many other celebrity interracial relationships flourish — John Legend and Chrissy Teigan, Tina Turner and Erwin Bach, Tamera Mowry and Adam Housley, Robert De Niro and Grace Hightower, and Matthew McConaughey and Camila Alves, just to name a few.

In fact, the rate of interracial marriages is now the highest it’s ever been in the United States— up 14 percent compared to what it was in 1967, when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Richard and Mildred Loving, the Virginia couple who fought to overturn the state’s law against miscegenation. But according to the Pew Research Center, the rate of black-white marriages is still pretty low — making up less than two percent of all marriages.

Often dealing with bias and bigotry throughout her prominent tennis career, Williams continues to ignore the haters and claps back with class. She tells Yahoo that when it comes to her relationship with Ohanian, “Everyone is allowed to have an opinion … and at the end of the day, you live for you and no one else.”

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