Ultimately, Gabby Douglas and the U.S. women's gymnastics team will go down as one of the two or three most memorable figures of the 2012 London Olympics. That group of girls will be tough to forget; Douglas's individual performance will be nearly impossible to forget. The sad part is, so many extenuating aspects are changing the way we enjoy these performances (don't get me started on NBC's coverage) both in the moment and the days following.
Days after Douglas's iconic performance in the individual all-around, stories about her hair and an untimely commercial were equally as prolific as the accomplishment itself. And, once again, the slippery slope of racial ideals permeated cyberspace.
I want to preface by stating that I'm a white male from a small hick town comprised of 7,000 people at most. If anybody's going to admit that racism exists, it's me. I came across less than five African-Americans at my high school the entire four years I went there. Kids were in their own bubbles and cackled at racist jokes for a living, it seemed. They still do.
Racism is a thing, but until we stop talking about it, it forever will be.
It's sad that such an intelligent, talented writer like Anna Holmes feels compelled to dissect Bob Costas's — although admittedly naive and politicianesque — words of breaking down an "imaginary barrier." It's sad that someone as identifiable as Costas is on TV talking about "barriers" that don't exist, but yet, he's talking about them anyways and making us think they exist. It's sad that we don't realize there's just as many idiots on twitter as there are ones with intelligent perspective (aren't the best ideas supposed to rise to the top in the marketplace of ideas?). It's sad that we look at innocuous tweets about someone's hair and immediately bring race into the equation, like there's a proven correlation. It's sad that such a widely respected and highly opinionated writer like Jason Whitlock piggybacks on that, and also sees an innocuous commercial featuring a monkey and both immediately and subconsciously brings race into the equation, like there's a proven correlation.
Racism exists, and there are several people to blame. Maybe it's all of us. We continue to talk about it.
The closest thing we can compare racism to in American societal history is women's suffrage. But when a woman does something for the first time, is it ever so polarizing? Viewpoints of women are at this stage: "You throw like a girl" is funny only because it's dumb. "It's because you're a girl" is slightly offensive and funny for a couple seconds because it's so primitive. Any snarky comment about a woman these days is viewed as a primitive one, so we don't go out of our way to dissect women socially. It's a thing of the past.
Racism should be a thing of the past, but it's not. People with tendencies of making steadfast, fallacious racial correlations still exist. Unimportant twitter banter will always exist and apparently people care right now. Hick town kids with no grasp of the modern world still exist. But it's not at all primitive to us. Instead, it sparks reactions and discussions. It takes away from real accomplishments and real moments with real meaning.
It's time to stop talking about it.