The Cut - Black Olympians Are Set Up to Fail

With her fiery orange hair, nose rings, long eyelashes, acrylic nails, and out-of-this-world confidence, track star Sha’Carri Richardson is a force to be reckoned with. Seeing her onscreen after her Olympic-qualifying performance in the 100-meter race made me hopeful that the world had turned a corner in its embrace of Black women, including those who reject white standards of beauty and Black respectability politics, loving and cheering on young women from around the world without them having to change a single thing. Richardson is indeed that girl.

Not two weeks after her win made her the fastest woman in the country, the world awakened to the news that Richardson had tested positive for THC — a chemical found in cannabis — resulting in a 30-day suspension and making her ineligible to compete in her event at the Olympics. In an interview with the Today show, Richardson apologized and said she consumed the drug after learning of her biological mother’s death from a reporter while in Oregon, where weed is legal, for the Olympic Trials. While many rallied behind her in support, Richardson’s suspension and removal from the U.S. team is a swift fall for the Olympic hopeful, and just one example of the way the outdated, rigid rules rooted in racism are setting Black Olympians up to fail.

Check out June’s best science images and the 2021 Audubon Photography Award winners. The best way to succeed as a woman artist is to be old. TikTok reportedly blocked users from being able to use the phrase “Black Lives Matter” in their bios, flagging the words as “inappropriate content.” A police chase of a woman in a stolen truck ended at a McDonald’s drive-through after she stopped to order food during the pursuit. Love Lizzo in a T-shirt dress featuring an airbrushed portrait of herself! And this weekend, allow yourself seven kinds of rest.

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