I have never been a big sports fan. It’s just too emotional for me. Especially swimming.
Swimming is visceral and leaves nothing to the imagination. Every movement, every technique, every misstep, there are no ifs, only replays.
So when this latest row between Mack Horton and Sun Yang escalated, my anxiety levels shot through the ROOF.
It all started during a training session before the 400m fresstyle race. Depending on where you get your news from, Sun either splashed Horton as a friendly gesture to say “hello” or it was an aggressive playground “taunt“.
When asked about the incident, Horton fired the opening shot saying he ignored it because he has “no time or respect for drug cheats.” Not entirely untrue. And it was brave of Horton to call it out.
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i will not comment regarding the horton vs. sun issue, but seeing the people throw around the term racism like they know what they're talking about, so i digress...
as an immigrant from hong kong living in new york and in the setting of many race-related events happening across the united states, let me tell you what racism is.
racism is the systematic oppression of a specific race. white people has never experienced that, so there is no such thing as racism towards white people (yes I'm looking at those of you who said the racism is going the other way). at least not now. maybe in the future theoretically sure you could have systematic oppression of white people but that has never happened
therefore white people don't get to determine what is racist or not, period.
implicit or what you guys call "casual" racism is something only the victims of racism can perceive. racists behavior lie in the spectrum from microaggressions to explicit racism. most of you who have never been on the receiving end of racism will never understand anything other than explicit racism, in other words micro aggressions and more subtle forms of implicit/unconscious racism is beyond the scope of your perception/understanding
so those of you (and you may not even realize you are in this position) who directly and indirectly benefits from systematic racism, please don't go around saying whether you think something is racist or not (especially many commenters here claiming to "not see the racism"), because that is and will never be for you to decide.
now whether there was implicit racism in this case, i don't think anyone can judge except for those who were actually there to judge not only words but also rate, tone, demeanor, and body language to make that decision.
Did you notice in the photo how he bit the medal to test if it was real? He obviously has an issue with Brazilian corruption and crime.
Racist assumptions like this have to be halted and I'm gonna get on Facebook and prove it so he never works again.