© July 28, 2021, the Griot Poet
Sha’Carri Richardson,
Lost her mother,
After qualifying with one of the world’s fastest times on the
track,
In her grief, she reached for a blunt,
Probably from a close friend,
Some would [just] get drunk,
Alcohol does not enhance performance,
But THC is that “loco weed,”
We’ve all learned to fear since the 1950s,
The proto “war on drugs,”
Then, and now targeting people of color,
The mostly-male IOC mistakes weed for Popeye’s spinach,
Naomi Osaka,
[Pulled] herself out of competition,
To protect her mental health,
In the French Open,
Out of self-preservation and her [own] initiative,
Losing without an Olympic medal in Tokyo,
To Marketa Vondrousova,
The haters’ parrot Laura Ingrate on Fox Propaganda:
“Shut up and dribble,”
Applied to tennis,
She has something more precious than gold:
The wholeness of her soul.
Simone Biles,
Olympic Gymnastics’ greatest of all time,
GOAT on the shoulder of her leotard,
“Still I rise” from poet Maya Angelou
tattooed on her collarbone,
Abandoned by her mother, who struggled with addiction,
Raised by her grandparents outside of Houston,
One of the many abuse survivors of sexual predator Larry Nasser,
Her brother was arrested for a triple homicide in Ohio,
awaiting arraignment in the state of Georgia,
And you’re wondering why she’s off her game?
She pulled out because of “the twisties,”
A phenomenon where an athlete loses control of their timing,
Split seconds can make the difference between the quality of
life, death, or paralysis,
Ask her predecessor, Elena Mukhina, about this,
Forced by the Soviets in 1980 to compete after not fully
healed from a bone break,
She landed on her head, broke her neck,
Quadriplegic at twenty years old from then,
To her death twenty six years later, at forty-six,
The International Swimming Federation rejected the “soul cap.”
Quote: “it does not fit the natural form of the head,”
Black hair in Olympic pools causing a flap,
Prejudice ruling out afros, braids, and dreads,
Add to all this,
The Norwegian Handball Team
Penalized $1,500 for NOT wearing bikini bottoms,
As the lusty, mostly-male IOC executives would have wanted
them,
The musician Pink promised to pay it,
That’s not the point,
The chief affront:
Most in the front office are not athletes, four out of fifteen
women,
Ninety percent of athletics is mental,
You see the goal before you attain it,
You rehearse the act before you [actually] do it,
In martial arts, it’s called Mushin: no mind,
Action in real-time conditioned to instinct,
Your vision can’t be clouded by sexism,
Worries about family members,
Or, whether or not athletes are wearing thong bottoms,
Not one male athlete has to go through this!
Not one of you has any daughters or kids?
What about sportsmanship and fairness,
Health and wellness,
Participation in athletics is supposed to give?
Southern plantation oligarchs,
For their amusement, and a lark,
Made the slaves participate in games,
During the holidays,
It kept down rebellions,
And escape on the Underground Railroad,
Is this just the global equivalent of the previous model from the antebellum?
Were your high school annual photos in the special,
“Chester, the Molester” section?
The entry: “destined to be charged with sexual harassment?”
You can’t tell people how to grieve,
You can’t tell athletes to push their pain away and dribble,
You can’t act like you have agency over their bodies,
Like your plantation oligarch ancestors,
You can’t tell athletes they’re not wearing pants that aren’t
skimpy enough,
For your [mostly] lecherous male lust,
I’ll tell you what:
The IOC can say and do all those heinous things,
If the mostly-male executive board
Instead of business suits,
You all wear thongs to the closing ceremonies,
Revealing the ruin of your pathetic bodies,
Then ALL of you quit!
It can only be an improvement,
What’s that I hear?
You don’t LIKE being objectified?
Et Tu, hashtag me too? Aww.
Ahmed Ali said:
“Bullying successful women is a coping mechanism for mediocre men,”
“Turnabout is fair play” has a karmic chagrin,
It’s probably the reason why on Star Trek, most of the high-ranking flag officers are women!
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