Serena Williams and Alexis Ohanian

Serena is thirty seven years old. She is one of the greatest women’s tennis players. She has won a record 23 Grand Slam tennis titles. She met thirty six year old Alexis Ohanian in May of 2015 at the Rome Cavalieri Hotel in Italy. He had never watched her play. Alexis is co founder of the social new website Reddit. His father is Armenian and his mother is from West Germany. Serena had never heard of Ohanian. She invited him to Paris to watch her play in the French Open and they walked around for hours before the tournament began. He soon began showing up at all of her matches to watch her play. Ohanian proposed to Williams in December of 2016 at the same place they met. Williams announced their engagement on Reddit. Serena found out that she was pregnant in January 2017 while she was playing in the Australian Open. She ended up winning the Australian Open while she was eight weeks pregnant. Alexia Olympia Ohanian Jr. was born on September 1, 2017. Serena opened up about their interracial marriage in an interview with the New York Times. She stated “Literally all I tell Alexis is, ‘well, you know, there’s such a difference between white people and black people.’ He always gets to hear about the injustices that happen; that wouldn’t happen if I were white. It’s interesting. I never thought I would have married a white guy, either, so it just goes to show you that love truly has no color, and it just really goes to show me the importance of what love is. And my dad absolutely loves Alexis.”  The birth of Alexis made her father even more aware of the need for paternity lead. Mr. Ohanian is currently in the spot light for fighting for paid paternity leave. He has met with others who have fought for federal policy. One out of four dads has access to paid leave and even fewer have leave available to them through their employers. The US is the last country in the developed world without a policy for family leave.

 

Makensie Shay McDaniel

Project RACE Teens President Emeritus

 

Photo Credit: instyle.com