With the Olympics starting next Friday, July 23, I’m getting more excited by the day to see all of the members compete for medals. While I’m excited to get this thing kicked off there are a ton of my folks screaming that they are going to boycott the games because Sha’Carri Richardson isn’t able to compete because of her suspension for testing positive for marijuana.
All I can say is, good luck with that playa!! There’s an entire team of men and women that did what they were supposed to do to qualify for the Olympic games and I’m all in to support their efforts.
I pray that Sha’Carri learns a hard lesson from this experience and bounces back to be even better than before. We’ve all had deal with consequences from making decisions that weren’t the best. However, the rules are the rules regardless of how we feel about them.
What blows my mind about my people is that we act like we can only support the person that looks like they’ve been in the struggle or that grew up in the hood. There is a team full of young black women and men from all types of backgrounds that will be representing us in Tokyo.
Gabby Thomas, for example, is boss in the 200 meters with a degree in Neurobiology from Harvard in her pocket. She’s currently working on a Master’s Degree in Epidemiology while preparing for the Olympics but folks are slow to celebrate that.
As a community we’re quick to celebrate the dun coming home from doing a four year bid in prison but will completely ignore the kid that spent the same four years on someone’s college or university campus getting a degree. Then we’ll shun that person saying that he or she thinks that they are better than us.
We’ve got to do better. We’ve got to be willing to support every bit of our vast black experience. Not just those that grew up in the hood because we don’t all live in the hood or we didn’t all grow up in the hood.
The reality is, there is a lot of us that grew up in the trenches that no longer live in the trenches and have raised kids in very comfortable surroundings. So are you trying to tell me that because a kid grew up in the suburbs that they don’t deserve the same support from our people as the kids that are growing up in the trenches? That sounds crazy!!
Everyone wants to grow up in a nice safe neighborhood, with their own new car and have allowance but that isn’t everyone’s experience. However, if we say we’re down with supporting black folks doing big things then we can’t just support those that grew up in the trenches or those that are coming up out of the trenches.
I can’t wait to see all of the men and women go for the gold especially those that look like me. Stop me when I start lyin’!