[Gabby] Douglas genuinely doesn’t see color — it’s not her first thought. Yet she was drilled incessantly with questions about being a woman of color in gymnastics. How can she get more African American children to pay attention to gymnastics, she was asked? “I can’t control that,” she said tonelessly.
Perhaps her most baffled moment came when she was asked what she saw when she walked into a gymnastics class for the first time. She replied evenly that she saw a lot of talented athletes. That answer wasn’t good enough. Did she ever think because she was African American and didn’t see many other black gymnasts that she couldn’t succeed at it?
“You know I didn’t,” she answered. “Because everyone told me I had such a beautiful talent. I was a fast learner, quick learner. I picked up stuff very good. I don’t know, I was just a fast learner.”
August 8, 2012
"The pat story line of black gymnast breaks the color mold was not only old and too neat, it was especially untruthful."
"'The last seven [American] gymnastics teams had women of color on them,' pointed out Dominque Dawes, the 1996 gold medalist."
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To take her victories and just shit all over them...reporters are such scum.
This is funny because we were watching when Gabby won her first medal and Bob Costas could not resist the urge to wonder how many little, black girls would be inspired that night by Gabby's victory. We, on the other hand, just recoiled at Costas' predictable, MSM 1970ish worldview.
Man, I don't even care about sports or the Olympics, but that's just sickening. That's child abuse, like dropping a hamster into a spinning dryer.
Good for Gabby! Sounds like a great girl.
And agree the reporters trying so hard to impose their chosen narrative (as opposed to eliciting and telling Gabby's narrative-- as an individual and not a token) should be embarrassed.
Althouse,
I would insert the para before those you used:
Douglas is black, her coach is Chinese. She’s living with a white family in Iowa, and her captain on the USA gymnastics team is Jewish and danced to a gold medal in the floor exercise to Hava Nagila.
Dominque Dawes penalized for interference with narrative, gold medal forfeited for the greater good.
"Didn't whitey keep you down!?"
The media are so desperate to recreate that at every turn. You must be a victim! Come on, reveal to the US media elites your sob story. Our pathetic media can't possibly believe people of color are color blind and propelled by talent and hard work. And perhaps the people around Gabby don't care about skin color either.
The US gymnastics team must be mired in racial hatred and intolerance. There must be some racialist motivation going on here somewhere.
Gross.
The media, like most leftists, only see in black v white and from the tired assumption that if you too don't see and compartmentalize everything according to black v white skin color and victimization, you are a racist.
It's old.
Our media sucks.
Aaron Sorkin's fake world exists inside the heads of these idiots.
It never would have even occurred to me that she was an "unusual" color for the sport. She's just a sweet girl who is good at gymnastics.
Why do we have to see color in everything?
NBC has decided to abandon news in order to "push the Narrative" of the liberals and progressive Jews of the media in many spheres - sports, politics, culture, financial news, miltary..and so on.
The canned "Narrative" for blacks succeeding in a sport dominated by those in other races has been around a long, long time. The 1st Negro to Triumph over Racism and thus Serve as an Inspiring Example For Little Black Children!!
My heart just fucking warms!
But lets admit the liberals and progressive jews writing the media "Narratives" don't honestly give two shits about the "inspiring 1st Negro" du jour. They are just being used as a vessel to advance the politics and culture the media puppetmasters want the dumb yokels in America to embrace.
They hardly would DARE to celebrate a white athlete like Sally Pearson of Australia winning gold in 100M hurdles and showing "what an inspiration she is to all young white athletes that think blacks alone can succeed in sprint sports".
Or stop to note an Asian in a "non-traditional Asian sport" unless you are Jeremy Lin and playing in the bowels of the NYC media establishment.
Dawes is quite right in her advice to Douglas...."don't let the media write your Narrative".
(Or it will be not Gabby Douglas the friendly little gymnast...but Gabby the Token Negro who succeeded in racist Amerikkka.)
We must purge the Olympics of these little girls who refuse to bend to agitprop. Besides, they are underdeveloped and don't look as good nude as the beach volleyball players and most of the water polo players.
"Did she ever think because she was African American and didn’t see many other black gymnasts that she couldn’t succeed at it?"
Meaning: are you going to tell me you, a black kid, is good enough to succeed without Affirmative Action? Are you a little uppity?
An Obama reporter vs Martin Luther King's Gabby.
She was asked those questions by a member of a predominantly white broadcast team.
If you read the story you learn that a bunch of hags went on Twitter and made negative comments about her hair. Yes, a 16 year old's hair-do is grist for the mill. For The Children.
“I can’t control that,” she said tonelessly.
Heh.
Poor Gabby. She can't just get her due and move on, she has to be some sort of symbol. That must be really annoying.
Yep, the media don't like it when you go of script!
wv: fartyW
Why do we have to see color in everything?
Ha. Because otherwise, how would we know who to vote for?
Completely agree with AJ about Costas. When he was done with his ridiculous, predictable diatribe about what her win meant to little black girls I was beside myself.
Instead of basking in her win, her ability, her energy or her smile, Costas makes the whole thing about race. Unreal.
NBC almost made it through an Olympics without invoking the narrative. Then Costas did it!
I hated him then.
I hope Gabby thinks he's stupid.
The national broadcast media knows the races should not mix. That white people hate black people. It perplexes them that a black girl could thrive in a hick state like Iowa.
But the truth is out there, and some media report it. The story is actually a good one, like The Micheal Oher/ Blind Side story. An exerpt from Yahoo Sports last Friday about Gabby's host family in Iowa:
The Partons have been integral in making Douglas feel at home in Iowa, a place physically and culturally as far from her Virginia Beach hometown as possible. When Douglas was uneasy about the lack of other African-Americans in Des Moines, the Partons made jokes about it. Douglas laughed, then became comfortable and, eventually, transitioned into a role of older sister to 10-year-old Hailey, 7-year-old twins Leah and Lexi and 6-year-old Elisa.
While Douglas' time in Iowa got off to a rough start -- the gymnast told the Des Moines Register that her first impressions were of empty corn fields and that she suffered from homesickness -- the Partons refused to allow her to not be part of the family. She sits in the middle of the table at family brunches. She sits with her new sisters in church on Sunday. She went with the Partons to the state fair, and ate every new type of fried food on a stick.
Silly little girl, why can't you just be a good victim?
Because African Americans are under-represented in sports generally?
Here’s the fourth graf of a NY Times article written the day after Douglas won the gold:
"Douglas, a 4-foot-11, 94-pound package of rocket-fueled energy, on Thursday became the first black gymnast to win the individual all-around Olympic gold medal. She also became the first American to win both the all-around and team events at the same Olympics, and only the fourth American woman to win the all-around title."
The reporter, Juliet Macur, is obviously race obsessed. If she weren't, that paragraph would have been written this way:
"Douglas, a 4-foot-11, 94-pound package of rocket-fueled energy, on Thursday became the first American to win both the all-around and team events at the same Olympics, and only the fourth American woman to win the all-around title. (She also became the first black gymnast to win the individual all-around gold medal.)"
No editor at the Times stopped to consider the inversion of importance. I'm keeping that in mind the next time the august New York Times calls someone a racist.
This all started with the Jamaican bob sled team. The year that I quit watching the Olympics.
Am I missing something here? From the excerpted quote and the comments, I thought this was another case of the MSM forcibly injecting race into the story. But the actual story itself is about Douglas rising above that. And the writer was cheering that part of the narrative.
"Did she ever think because she was African American and didn’t see many other black gymnasts that she couldn’t succeed at it?
“You know I didn’t,” she answered. “Because everyone told me I had such a beautiful talent. I was a fast learner, quick learner. I picked up stuff very good. I don’t know, I was just a fast learner.”
Again, well done."
Color me crazy, but I think this is something we need more of: The regular press rejecting the race-angle of a story in favor of it's natural, inherent narrative. I just wish it happened more often than this.
I seem to recall the gaff some years back when a Black athlete from Japan (?) was continually refered to as the first "African-American" on the Japanese olympic team. Nobody used 'Black' as a description anymore and remained PC, so the Japanese native who happened to be Black was therefore African-American.
Here we have a girl who can think for herself.
And in doing so makes a lot of supposedly smart people look very stupid.
And she wasn't even trying to do that.
The real fact is that she is a child of privilege. The first element of her privilege is a God given talent. The second element is all the people, starting with her parents, who helped her to develop the talent.
The rest of it (and a crucial part) comes from her own sustained effort in practice and fearless performances.
If she had broken her leg, would Costas have asked her how it feels to have the first broken black leg in the Olympics?
Puts a different spin on who the racists really are.
She sounds like a great woman. Maybe the first black woman President.
Maybe the first real African-American President.
Shanna said...
“I can’t control that,” she said tonelessly.
Heh.
Poor Gabby. She can't just get her due and move on, she has to be some sort of symbol. That must be really annoying.
This exact complaint is used to "prove" America racist in venues like higher education. The fact that the role model status and implicit presumption individuals speak for the group are logical and necessary results of the diversity philosophy pushed by the left is ignored.
Costas had better watch out. The media loves finding a PC approved target within its own ranks it can sacrifice to the god of diversity. As a heterosexual white male sportscaster he's got all the required tickets punched.
Mark said...
I seem to recall the gaff some years back when a Black athlete from Japan (?) was continually refered to as the first "African-American" on the Japanese olympic team. Nobody used 'Black' as a description anymore and remained PC, so the Japanese native who happened to be Black was therefore African-American.
I remember Nelson Mandela descibed thusly. If all you're doing is sloganeering why bother to learn the meaning?
Good for her.
I am not watching the Olympics ... what I want to see apparently is not on when I am ready to sit down ... but I did catch all the giddy hoopla on the internet over this girl.
And from the first picture of her doing an incredible split thing in the air off the balance beam I did not notice she was "black."
Who cares?
When a white kid walks onto the basketball floor who asks him if the first thing he thinks of is "Geez, where are the white guys?" I noticed one of our victorious track teams or whatever the other day ... the colors of the runners registered. They were black women. Do we ask white runners how it feels to be surrounded by black runners?
The media make themselves into such childish jerks. Really.
Thank God people like Gabby come along and make it clear that being black isn't what living is all about. More like being a terrifically talented human enjoying her talents and sharing it with us all.
(And I did recall we have had abother black girl in gynbastics ... I see her name above -- Dominique.)
"I can't control that" -- tonelessly?
Which is absolutely true (jerk interviewer). Is she toneless because she is sad she can't control it? Not hardly, based on other things she has said.
Or she is toneless becasue she can't control the stupid questions?
Sally Jenkins is a good sportswriter and one of the first to enter the hostile men's locker rooms. I thought women in men locker rooms was wrong back in the 70's, but I have evolved. Mea culpa.
Nice video with Gabby's mom.
Raising an Olympian - GABBY DOUGLAS
The liberal press's 60 year story line on racial discrimination in everything is totally dead and silly now.
People see people now. We don't see skin color except as a plus as we see from clothes come in different shades.
Gabby is beautiful: Perfect innocence, perfect body, perfect mind, perfect work habits, and lots of fun.
She lets her light shine and that makes her worth whatever advertiser loot she will get.
Lazy journalists tap into pat storyline.
Apparently we need to add her to the list of victims that didn't get the memo.
It is impossible for Liberals to look past race.
It just is.
Which raises the obvious question: Who are the real racists?
In their hearts, Liberals know the answer faces them in their mirrors.
progressive Jews
C4 just can't help it - he needs to get his daily Jew-hate in.
edutcher said...
Puts a different spin on who the racists really are.
She sounds like a great woman. Maybe the first black woman President.
Maybe the first real African-American President.
==============
Don't you have other black athletes on your President list that are even more deserving of being President by virtue of winning more gold medals...or having great football basketball or baseball stats???
Any favorite movie celebs that just pull your hearstrings enough that they should be President??
WV - "Hotramp"
This would be the same Sally Jenkins who has been highly critical of Tiger Woods for not weighing in on socio/political issues, right?
Evolved or hypocritical?
JAL: "The media make themselves into such childish jerks."
Children don't do that. Proof: Gabby, a 16 years old child. Yes, 16 years old is a child.
The media don't make themselves into jerks, they are jerks.
You know, Gabby was never abandoned by her black father, her grandfather was never not punished by the white Brits in Kenya, and she was not raised by a "racist" white grandmother. Gabby's family was loving and not dysfunctional, Gabby is not "real" black. Just like Palin, who did not abort her baby, is not a "real" woman.
I seem to recall the gaff some years back when a Black athlete from Japan (?) was continually refered to as the first "African-American" on the Japanese olympic team. Nobody used 'Black' as a description anymore and remained PC, so the Japanese native who happened to be Black was therefore African-American.
Perhaps they thought Afro-Nip would lead people astray?
If not a lot of black girls are in gymnastics, perhaps it's simply due to the fact that they arent'drawn to it as a sport the way they are to other sports. it's also kind of a niche sport anyway and I'd imagine there aren't that many gymnastics teams at inner city schools.
But that doesn't mean that the Man is trying to keep the black girls down.
I'm sure that a lot of sports aren't well represented by blacks. But this works both ways. Until recently, how many Asians were on basketball teams? How many black bowlers are there? or ping pong players?
Just becuase there is a discrepency based on their percentage in a the population makeup, does not mean there is a meme there.
Come on people! Forget about the excellence. Celebrate the diversity.
This would be the same Sally Jenkins who has been highly critical of Tiger Woods for not weighing in on socio/political issues, right?
Evolved or hypocritical?
Virginia beach is not far from Washington. I thought she may be feeling being protective of the local girl. (or not, who knows)
“The last seven [American] gymnastics teams had women of color on them,” pointed out Dominque Dawes, the 1996 gold medalist.
Liberals must believe there was no world before they, personally, were born.
I remember all the gushing about Halle Berry being "first" this and "first" that.
All the while I'm thinking, "What about Hattie McDaniel in 1939?"
A tad unusual but not a fish out of water story. Is there any rascist in the word so benighted that he doesn't think a black can't compete in gymnastics?....I recommend that a fourth medal, the platinum, be awarded in woman gymnastics. This medal should be award to be best looking competitor. There was this blonde Rumanian who competed last in the floor exercises. Unfortunately she fell on her ass and didn't win anything. However, she was really good looking. She didn't have a thick neck like so many of the other gymnasts. Some reognition should be given to such women....I suppose in post Olympic events she'll be the one to marry the Russian billionaire, but, still, attention must be paid.
Iowa, a place physically and culturally as far from her Virginia Beach hometown as possible
She first ran into trouble when she made eye contact with the family patriarch, a grave insult in the culture of the Midwest. Compounding the trouble, Douglas misinterpreted the toothy smile the Plains people use to communicate hostility. It would be weeks before the incident was smoothed over by the arrival of a Peace Corpse worker who spoke English and Iowan.
That's child abuse, like dropping a hamster into a spinning dryer.
Eh... dropping a hamster into a spinning dryer is a horrible thing to do, but it's not child abuse.
We must purge the Olympics of these little girls who refuse to bend to agitprop. Besides, they are underdeveloped and don't look as good nude as the beach volleyball players and most of the water polo players.
Actually, in her third Olympics Dominque Dawes was absolutely gorgeous. She'd become a woman, so she didn't have a good chance at the gold, but she was still very competitive.
She is not going anywhere with her Tiger Woodsy answers on race. Does she not realize she did not build that.
You need a "diversity bullshit" tag
Great start to my morning, bgates!
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive." C. S. Lewis, "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment"
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