Where Color Never Mattered
By Albert B. Kelly
It goes without saying that in a lot of ways, we’re in a
strange place when it comes to the national mood these days- like we’re just
waiting for the other shoe to drop- really in the weeds.
Everywhere you turn, whether its candidates and campaigns,
athletics, the economy, what bathroom to use, or police and community
relations- we’re in the tall grass.
On the campaign trail, it’s been mostly insults, division,
and playing on people’s fears. In sports, it’s all about who is using
performance enhancing drugs or who has been suspended.
The news on the economic front is no better with income
equality and stagnant wages. In terms of bathrooms, who knows?
And when it comes to police and community relations,
especially with people of color, it feels like some wounds will be very hard to
heal, especially with new ones coming almost weekly.
The Olympics have become something that’s easy to be cynical
about, whether Russian athletes doping, the Zika virus, or four swimmers acting
like frat boys on a drunken binge who then played on stereotypes about crime in
Rio to divert attention away from their own conduct- a stereotype of the “ugly
American”.
But if that was your take-away, you would have missed
something that was as uplifting as it was simple. I say that because in the
midst of all this negative mojo, this “waiting-for-the-other-shoe-to-drop”
mindset, I saw a little glimpse of our potential greatness.
It wasn’t really about the medals we’ve won, though we’ve
won quite a few, and it wasn’t about our dominance for this 31st Olympiad,
which was considerable.
The glimpse of greatness I’m referring to came courtesy of
two young American girls named Simone Biles and Aly Raisman during that first
week in Rio.
These girls were part of the U.S. women’s gymnastics team
and while there were the team competitions against other nations, both of these
young ladies competed against one another for the title of best individual
all-around gymnast and for who would win the most medals.
I don’t know much about gymnastics except to say that what
these young women can do- on the uneven bars, in floor routines, on the balance
beam, and vaulting- would leave the rest of us hospitalized and in traction for
weeks at a time.
In the all-around competition, it was each athlete alone
doing routines on each different piece of equipment. If you’re not familiar
with the process, competitors are judged and awarded points based on how well
they execute each of their routines.
The gymnast with the highest cumulative score wins the gold
medal. The second highest score gets a silver medal and the third highest gets
a bronze medal.
By way of context, Aly Raisman was edged out of a bronze
medal by a few points in the 2012 games in London for best individual
all-around gymnast, and while she won other medals that year, she was hoping to
win a gold medal in the all-around competition in Rio- a little redemption.
This time around in Rio, Raisman was the captain of the team
and the most experienced, but she was competing against teammate and
first-timer Simone Biles, who was the favorite for the title of best all-around
gymnast.
For the all-around finals, Biles racked up a huge score to
win the gold- Raisman came in second winning the silver. Biles emerged as the
most dominant gymnast in a generation- Raisman might have seen her last
Olympics.
The glimpse of our potential greatness I’m referring to had
nothing to do with their performances in competition, it was what followed;
their embrace, the support, and the genuine good will these competitors
expressed toward each other- it was
great precisely because Raisman is white and Biles black.
That might not sound like a big deal but with a backdrop of
Ferguson, Baltimore, Louisiana, St. Paul, and Dallas; with talk of building
walls, deportation squads, and every other type of ethnic and racial ugliness
in this season of seasons- it really is.
Maybe it’s an outgrowth of laboring side-by-side, of sharing
the same hopes and frustrations that made race irrelevant and of no consequence
for them.
Who knows if these athletes’ perspectives will change with
the passage of time? All I know is that on this night, if only on this night,
color didn’t matter and if it did, it was about red, white, and blue. And in
this season of seasons, that’s no small thing.