Over the past few months Canada has been rocked in scandal over multiple mass graves found at the sites of so-called residential schools run by the Catholic Church throughout the 20th century. These schools operated to erase indigenous culture and languages from Canada by kidnapping indigenous children, separating them from family and community, and forcing them to abandon their cultural practices.
Moving on to the Olympics, we have a few stories to unpack. A swim cap designed to accommodate natural black hairstyles was deemed unnecessary and unfit for the international competition. We also have two Nigerian women barred from competition because their testosterone levels, while natural, are too high. And for years now Simone Biles, arguably the greatest gymnast of all time, has been punished and diminished for literally being too skilled and therefore, somehow, unfair to her competitors. What can we learn about white supremacy and bias here? Whiteness operates as such an unquestioned “norm” that when athletes demand equipment that fit their bodies, we see it as superfluous or a special accommodation rather than a basic and legitimate need. In the USA many are arguing that testosterone is too high in men transitioning to women and therefore unfair for them to enter women’s competitions at the same time world athletic governing bodies disqualify two black women for their own naturally occurring levels. They are effectively banned for being to fit for competition. Similarly Simone Biles’ natural abilities have long been punished. Yet if we take the case of Michael Phelps, a white man, we learn quickly that there’s nothing wrong with natural talent or abnormal bodies. The conclusion is that the dominance of black athletes must be checked, measured and analyzed against an unrealistic, insatiable, constantly moving standard.
There is history and tradition in these biases. The same that whiteness has always applied to other people’s bodies. We have a long tradition of using the bodies of black and other racialized people to justify all sorts of horrors. Through phrenology we justified the innate stupidity of black people. Eugenics was similarly used to justify why racialized groups we fit for anything from extermination to slave labor.
