"Black Girl Magic" is heading to the Tokyo Olympics
The Tuesday Talking Points!
With a nod to Peter Abelard's "Sic et Non," if it's Tuesday, then it's time for the Hobbservation Point's "Yes" or "No" analysis of the hottest headlines.
1. Is Sha'Carri Richardson the future of USA women's track and field?
Yes!
Sha'Carri Richardson, 21, blew her competition away this past weekend in Eugene, Oregon at the USA qualifying track meet and did so with a style fully reminiscent of the late, great Florence Griffith-Joyner, the star of the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul, South Korea.
If you didn't smile or get choked up when Richardson hugged her grandmother after winning a race barely a week after her mother died, then perhaps you need to be off to see the "Wizard of Oz" and beg for a heart like the Tin Man.
Looking ahead, I cannot wait to see the sprint challenges between the U.S. and Jamaica so to that end, I wish Richardson and her teammates well as they head to Japan to pursue Olympic gold!
2. Are the vocal minority of Black men dissing Richardson on social media about everything from her hair to her physique providing constructive criticism?
No!
After reading a despicable post on Facebook last night written by some gump Black man roasting Sha'Carri Richardson's appearance so badly that decorum prevents me from re-posting his words, I wrote the following response that, as of this morning, is still receiving responses:
Now, think back to the mid-2000s when the late radio host Don Imus, who was white, called the Rutgers women's basketball team a bunch of "nappy headed Hoes." Had I been within striking distance of Imus on the set that day, he would have been sipping broth through a straw for months after I punched him in the jaw.
The disrespect that Imus showed was not singular as from slavery to today, Black women have been criticized about their looks not just from white folks, but also from Black folks who have been conditioned to view beauty standards through the lenses of the former slave masters who placed lesser values on Black women who did not have European features due to centuries of miscegenation.
It is for these reasons that I have always sharply condemned anyone who critiques the hair or physique of Black women athletes! But I have a special beef for Black "men" who chime in like a bunch of middle school mean girls while judging the physiques and femininity of these young Black women.
So whether it is Simone Biles pulling her natural hair back to display even more gymnastics brilliance, CoCo Gauff displaying her natural hair or rocking braids while holding serve on the tennis court, Simone Manuel stuffing her natural hair in her cap to swim fast and free, or young Sha'Carri Richardson switching up her hair colors and wearing long nails and lashes while sprinting down the track to glory, we, as Black men, should support these beautiful young Black women and be prepared to defend their honor in a world in which their Blackness—and femininity—will be questioned, critiqued, and condemned by society writ large.
3. With the continuing struggles for equal rights and social justice, should Blacks even get excited to support Team USA at the Olympics!
Yes!
From Jesse Owens in Berlin '36, to Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) and Wilma Rudolph in Rome '60, to FAMU Rattler "Bullet" Bob Hayes in Tokyo '64 during the Jim Crow era, chants of "USA, USA" in the States during the Olympics were reduced to "us" in the U.S. for dominant Black athletes who returned to second class citizen status once they came home bearing Olympic gold.
As you may recall, Jim Crow laws formally died around 1968 after the President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act into law, but when Black athletes John Carlos and Tommie Smith raised the clenched "Black Power" salute at the Olympics in Mexico City that summer, the backlash that they received from angry whites who were pissed that two Olympic athletes would raise a symbol of Black defiance during a "national" moment, one where "all" Americans should have been "proud to be Americans," was pronounced, acerbic, and dogged those two men for the rest of their careers.
As a lover of past facts and analyst of current events, I see history and current politics in almost every aspect of life—including the Olympics. In both 2012 and 2016, I watched the brilliance of young Black women like Gabby Douglas, Simone Biles, Simone Manuel and countless other Black American athletes get celebrated one minute, while watching the same, including LeBron James, get pilloried for their appearance, opinions about Black lives mattering, or refusal to place their hands over their hearts during the Star Spangled Banner the next minute. These athletes upset the descendants of Jim Crow the same as their Klan hood wearing parents and grandparents were upset by the athletic dominance and defiance of Black Olympians of yore.
The simple truth is that many of "our" celebrated Black Olympic athletes share the same color and hair texture of the men, women, boys and girls who are discriminated against in every facet of American society from education, to health, to jobs, to the justice system, every day of the week. Those Black Olympic athletes, if pulled over by the wrong cop, are a mere "officer safety" excuse from being the next dead Black commemorated through a hashtag, thus my unfettered support for these brilliant athletes who I view as Black first, and Americans second!
Lest we forget that Dr. W.E.B. DuBois wrote well over a century ago that, "One ever feels his twoness - an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder."
We still war with these ideals on a daily basis, and this war for equality surely will not wane into a cease-fire even during the 2021 Olympic games.
The Hobbservation Point Newsletter is published Chuck Hobbs, an award winning journalist who “calls it like he sees it” on political and social hot topics M-F each week. Subscribe today so that you can "Get the Point" delivered hot off of the Android press to your e-mail address!
These Black women are gorgeous. Shame on those guys, shame on everyone, who disses others while leaving themselves unexamined. If they examined themselves, they would find less time to criticize others. And maybe do themselves some good too.
Laser sharp assessment 👊🏾