I mean this with love: y’all are misreading the Sha’Carri Richardson situation
Structural racism absolutely exists, but that’s not why Sha’Carri was banned
On June 19th 2021, Sha’Carri Richardson ran into our hearts as she emphatically crossed the line to qualify for the Olympic games. What drew us to her was her bravado, her unabashed confidence, and the way she reveled and exalted in HER Blackness — a Blackness that was not shrouded in the kind of respectability that assuages white comfort, but a Blackness that stood to challenge it. As she bounced down the track, we saw a person who was brash but also self-assured and undeniably confident. We saw something endearing and familiar with her ability to be unapologetically her. Her hair, her nails, her attitude, her mere existence, it all felt like beautiful defiance — the kind of defiance that’s all too often implicitly required in order to exist in this world while Black.
So it is understandable when we found out that on July 1st, 2021 that she had been banned for weed consumption, that so many viewed it as yet another example of a Black body being unfairly targeted and punished. The injury, a minor drug offense, felt triflingly small: an affront to her athletic brilliance. It felt like yet another way of the world holding a Black person to an impossibly high…
