Consider This from NPR - Black Olympians Often Have 'The Weight Of The World' On Their Shoulders

Episode Date: July 29, 2021

When Simone Biles dropped out of her Olympic competitions this week, the whole world took notice. At 24 years old Biles is the most decorated gymnast ever, she's won 36 medals—27 of those are gold. And she said via Instagram that it can feel like she "has the weight of the world," on her shoulders at times. When an athlete performs on a stage as hallowed and renowned as the Olympics, it's not surprising to see that this can have a negative psychological effect. University of Denver professor Mark Aoyagi explains that in many ways, elite competitions are inherently unhealthy. The stress can be even more acute for Black athletes like Biles. Sociologist Harry Edwards wrote about this over 50 years ago and says these young Olympians are forced to deal with both the aspiration and fear of "Black excellence." In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community. Email us at [e-mail]. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR and the following message come from the Kauffman Foundation, providing access to opportunities that help people achieve financial stability, upward mobility, and economic prosperity, regardless of race, gender, or geography. Kauffman.org Simone Biles is the most decorated gymnast in the world. At 24 years old, she has won 36 medals. 27 of those are gold. But something was different for Biles at this year's Tokyo Games.

So I was trying a two and a half, and I ended up doing a one and a half. The advanced vault move Biles is talking about is called an aminar. It involves a back handspring with two and a half twists in the air before landing. For most gymnasts, that would be super complicated. Biles has done it many times before, perfectly. But on Tuesday? Just got a little bit lost in the air. At a press conference, she explained what happened.

Footage from the day's event shows Biles consulting with U.S. team doctor Marcy Faustin before walking off the field of play. A little later, she returned and made a decision that caught the world off guard. I was like, I think the girls need to do the rest of the competition without me. Biles took off her gear and hugged her teammates. You usually don't hear me say things like that because I'll usually persevere and push through things, but not to cost the team a medal.

Athletes often withdraw from competition over physical injuries like strains and fractures. But at the press conference, Simone Biles was candid that this was something different. I was just like shaking, could barely nap. I've just never felt like this going into a competition before. And I tried to go out here and have fun and warm up in the back went a little bit better. But then once I came out here, I was like, no, mental is not there. On Wednesday, Biles also withdrew from the individual all-around gymnastics

competition. She could still compete in next week's individual event competitions. It's okay sometimes to even sit out the big competitions to focus on yourself because it shows how strong of a competitor and person that you really are rather than just battle through it. Consider this, athletes have always been under intense pressure. And for Black athletes, the unique scrutiny they experience can make that pressure feel like what Simone Biles called the weight of the world. From NPR, I'm Ari Shapiro. It's Thursday, July 29th. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies.

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We've got stories of big bets, bubble spotting, and cute animals, too. Every Wednesday till Labor Day from NPR's Planet Money. It's Consider This from NPR. In the last few years, Olympians have spoken more openly about mental health as a hurdle they have to overcome. Shot putter Raven Saunders opened up about struggling with depression after returning from Rio in 2016. Sprinter Noah Lyles tweeted about making the decision to start taking antidepressant medication in 2020. And of course, tennis player Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open and Wimbledon this year, saying she wanted to focus

on her mental health. Mental health in an elite performance context is actually oftentimes about managing the ability to function in an elite performance setting, recognizing that it's inherently unhealthy. That's Mark Aoyagi. He is co-director of sport and performance psychology at the University of Denver. He told NPR's Elsa Chang that different sports require different kinds of psychological training. Take gymnastics. It's an endurance event. You'll see a lot more training of what we call preparatory or anticipatory, which is where you visualize or train with yourself in adverse circumstances. You're behind in the race. And you prepare by responding exactly how you'd like to respond to that set of adverse circumstances.

And Aoyagi says as athletes get older and their prefrontal cortex fully develops, they better understand the dangers of their sport. What's important about that is one of the major roles of the prefrontal cortex is to model the future and understand what consequences our actions now will have in the future. And so, you know, we've heard about Simone Biles, for example, talk about how the skills that she performs are scarier now than they used to be. And part of that is now at age 24, she has a better understanding due to this development of her prefrontal cortex.

She has a better understanding of what the consequences are of, you know, for example, crashing on a skill. For Black athletes, there's another layer of psychological pressure. Over nearly a century, the institution of the Olympics has been shaped by a history of racism. Just look at track and field athlete Jesse Owens, who competed in the Games in Nazi Germany in 1936 and smashed expectations for black athletes by winning four gold medals. Or when athletes John Carlos and Tommy Smith raised their fists on the podium in a black power salute after winning gold and silver medals at the 1968 Games in Mexico. Avery Brundage was then leader of America's Olympic Association and president of the International Olympic Committee. He had Carlos and Smith removed America's Olympic Association and president of the International Olympic Committee.

He had Carlos and Smith removed from the Olympic Village and then suspended from the U.S. Olympic team. Smith and Carlos were told to leave the Olympic Village and Mexico within 48 hours. They were both stunned at the decision but retained their composure. The sociologist Harry Edwards first wrote about these issues more than 50 years ago in his 1968 book,

The Revolt of the Black Athlete. There was never any intention of blacks being involved in the games. The 1904 Racial Olympics in St. Louis, where they brought in African tribesmen and put them on a track alongside trained white athletes to demonstrate black inferiority and why they should not be allowed to participate in the Olympic Games. He says when you combine the pressure to perform with the expectation that black people will just be silent and grateful to be included, it creates layers of pressure on black Olympians that can be almost impossible to bear. They became the focus of not just athletic performance and excellence, but also of all of the aspirations of black people in this country and as well as many of the fears of mainstream white society about black excellence. That's a lot of weight on the shoulders of people who in in many instances, are just barely young adults.

And somehow they have to navigate that white fear of Black performance, Black expectations of high Black performance, while at the same time focusing on their principal goal, which is athletic achievement. I spoke to Edwards about how the struggles of Black athletes at the Olympics tie into the larger arc of the Black experience in America. Well, the reality is that all of these efforts at protests and so forth involving athletes have always been framed up by the broader struggles in the society. The Double V effort, victory over racism abroad and victory over racism at home, which was carried into World War II, was framed up by abject segregation.

Segregation framed up the struggles of Jesse Owens and Joe Lewis and Jack Johnson and Paul Robeson and that the second wave of athlete activism with Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby in baseball and Kenny Washington and Woody Strode in football. and Arthur Ashe, who took it international in terms of his concerns over South African apartheid and its role in perpetuating racism at the international level. So there's a direct connection between perceived legitimacy of athlete activism and the extent to which they are interpreted through and embedded in the broader struggles for freedom and justice and equality in American society. That has always been the case. You've written about how essential it is for Black athletes specifically to have the right to protest at the Olympics. Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter has been relaxed a bit this year,

but the IOC still says no kind of demonstration or political, religious, or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, religious, or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues, or other areas. Explain why you think it is so important for Black athletes, especially, to be able to protest. Well, first of all, let me say that the IOC is hypocritical in that. The IOC allowed Nazi salutes on the podium behind Jesse Owens in 1936. They most certainly tolerated South Africa and Southern Rhodesia and the Olympic movement up until we threatened to boycott with the African nation, black African nations over their participation. They have gone for generations without a black

person in their organization. All of that is political. I think that if you are going to have politics in the games, then it has to be universal. And so I think they have a right to express themselves given the fact that the games have always been political. The IOC has never said anything about the United States and the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 60s, counting medals and turning athletes into frontline troops in a global, titanic, ideological struggle over whose system is greatest. IOC never said anything about that. They luxuriated in it because it brought money in.

It captured sponsors and attention. So I think athletes have a right to speak out and to speak up, especially if it's in a dignified fashion, such as Carlos and Smith, such as Winn-Perry, and some of these other athletes who have spoken up so valiantly. And so do you think the inconsistent way that this rule has been implemented over the decades underscores the idea, perpetuates the idea, that Black athletes should be grateful just to be included? Oh, absolutely. The Black athletes were never intended to be included in the Olympic Games. Descoubertin, point of fact, was a pro-colonist.

He instituted the modern Olympics in order to reinvigorate French youth to recapture empire for France. And, of course, he was an adamant and vociferous supporter of Nazi Germany, so much so that he negotiated with Hitler to make Germany the permanent home of the Olympic Games. And Hitler was intended to do that by creating a 400,000-seat stadium and a massive educational and museum complex, which de Coubertin was going to deposit all the historical papers and documents associated with the reestablishment of the modern Olympics. There's a long history of the IOC not only tolerating but promoting discrimination and disrespect for black athletes. And we have not moved beyond that phase.

The IOC is a 19th century organization that managed to survive the 20th century and is coming to the 21st century with many of those same perspectives, biases, and lack of understanding of the circumstances of diverse populations around the world. So we've seen this pattern for decades where countries like the U.S. put black athletes on a pedestal in venues like the Olympics, and then those athletes are treated as second-class citizens when they come home. What do you think needs to happen for that to change? It really comes down to the same old issue. The notion that athletic performance somehow generates legitimacy,

even for black athletes in sports, is a myth. While Jesse Owens was running, being cheered in Berlin behind his four gold medals, the German government was sterilizing Afro-German children who was born as a consequence of the French troops from colonial nations who were placed in Germany in the wake of World War I. And many of those troops stayed in Germany, married, had children. Those children were being sterilized in Nazi Germany during the Olympic Games when Jesse Orns was getting all this applause. So it's not an issue of performing your way into legitimacy. It's not an issue of showing that you're a great athlete, tennis player,

basketball player, track and field athlete, football player, and so forth, because that doesn't deal with the problem. All of these massive demonstrations over the years are cycled back again with the new and latest atrocity committed against Black people or against Brown people, because those demonstrations are in support of those communities. They are demonstrations of empathy in terms of the pain and the problem. I will be impressed when there are just as massive demonstrations, just as energetic, just as determinant and outspoken about the problems in the white community that create that pain, that create those issues in communities of color. So as long as we continue to organize massive

demonstrations and protests and propose legislation to deal with the pain, rather than focusing on the source of that pain in terms of the problems of white supremacy, white privilege, until we deal with those problems, we're going to have this continual recycling of movements and demonstrations and so forth. We're going to continue to have these massive movements. Sociologist Harry Edwards, he's a professor emeritus at UC Berkeley. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Ari Shapiro.