Interview: Bria Felicien, Javier Wallace and Courtney Stith on the African Diaspora at the Olympic Games
Amira Rose Davis hosts a round table discussion with sports writers and scholars on the Black and African Diaspora at the 2020/21 Tokyo Olympics. She is joined by Bria Felicien, writer of the Black Sportswoman newsletter, Dr. Javier Wallace, the Race and Sport Postdoctoral Associate in the African and African American Studies Department at Duke University and Courtney Stith, co-host of the Diaspora United women's football/soccer podcast. They discuss the ways the Diaspora is on display at the Olympics, how athletes navigate multiple identities and finding joy amidst the Olympic chaos.
This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our social media and website specialist. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network.
Transcript
Amira: So, it's Amira here, of course, leading this roundtable with a few of the homies, and we want to come and talk to you about what it looks like to look at the African diaspora at the Olympic games, because it's right there. It's right on display. Today we are going to be joined by Bria Felicien, who the journalist and the founder of The Black Sportswoman website, newsletter – please, if you aren't subscribed to this newsletter, pause this, go do that. And then come back and listen to this and you'll see why global stories about Black women in sports, past and present…Please check it out. We're also joined by Dr. Javier Wallace, a recent grad from UT Austin, where he founded the Black Austin Tours, and obviously I'm leading with this because I'm very mad that he decided to leave Austin literally the week I got here. But that's because he's now big and bad race and sports post-doctoral associate in the African and African American studies department at Duke University. So, we switched coasts, and that is tremendous. He works on Black Panamanian hoopers, basketball trafficking, among many other things.
And we are also joined by Courtney Stith, one half of the Diaspora United podcast on Black women in global football. If you haven't listened to their latest episode, Any Nary A Lesson Was Learned, please go listen, because literally yes. And every time I watch soccer, global football, I think in my head, oh my gosh, X, Y, and Z…And Andre and Courtney already have it covered on the Diaspora United pod. So, obviously a very qualified roundtable today. I'll just kick it off and then everybody can just jump in from there with like their favorite person they want to shout out. So obviously my favorite was Jasmine, taking the 100 hurdles. And also, I don't know if anybody saw it, but the coquí print on the back of her uniform was so lit and it took me like probably my 10th time on replays watching it to see it. But Jasmine Camacho-Quinn just holding it down, securing that first ever gold for Puerto Rico in athletics and second ever overall was absolutely my sweet moment.
Courtney: I think for me even though I've been celebrating a lot of moments, I've just really enjoyed everything about Tara Davis, the long jump and the cowboy boots and the hat…I love all of it.
Bria: I have fallen in love with Clarisse Agbegnenou. So, she competes for France, but she has dual citizenship with Togo and France. But with her gold medal in the 63kg of judo, not only did she avenge her loss, if you call it that, in 2016, now she's won every title in her weight category. And we’re also born on the same day and same year. So… That's my new fav.
Amira: And when's your birthday now that you’ve said it's the same?
Bria: Oh, October 25th, ’92. So, we’re great scorpios. [laughter]
Javier: Wow. For me, I think the most notable athlete right now in this moment, I got to give it to Mijaín López, the Black Cuban wrestler, who has broken every record and has the potential to do it again – four consecutive gold medals. And the possibility of him coming again and doing it…It just blows me out the water. I think that that was just amazing to see.
Amira: So, those are some of our favorite moments of diaspora athletes holding it down at the Olympic games. They cross country, national lines, across multiple sports that you might not even think Black folks are in. Because every time the Olympics come around, I always get comments from people or see tweets where people are talking about like the random Black athlete on like the Italy volleyball team, right? Or they'll be like, oh, there's Black people in the Netherlands? Or like, everybody gets confused. The other thing that I see happens a lot is like the commenters, they like trip up because they're so afraid to say Black. They’ll be like “the first African-American” when they're talking about somebody who's definitely Brazilian, right? And so I think those moments that happen…If I had a bingo card, it would definitely be basically my free space of times when that happens.
You also then are kind of set up for these conversation of like, what does it mean to be Afro-Latinx? The Japanese 3x3 team had this brother ballin out, or Naomi lighting the torch. And I think that that sets up a conversation that really pushes the boundaries of these kinds of identity categories that we think we know, perhaps don't know at all. And lastly, it really opens up a conversation about Black athletic labor. Why is it that even in countries where you could barely find a Black person, you can find them at the Olympic games? And what does that mean about how we use, exploit, and symbolize Black athletic labor on a global scale?
And I want to start just by opening it up and to ask y’all, when I ask you about diaspora and when I asked you about the Olympics, what are your first thoughts? Obviously me and Jermaine Scott – shoutout to Jermaine Scott. We always say like hashtag #bigdiasporaenergy for like randomly watching fencing at 4:00am, and we put on for people, it's the Issa Rae gif, like, “I'm rooting for everybody Black.” But it's deeper than that, right?
Bria: So when I think about diaspora, the way I view it and the way I cover it at The Black Sportswoman, it really kind of depends on the region. Like in the Americas, I think of us being like united or like…I just feel this, especially with Black women, like this sisterhood almost, like the descendants of the transatlantic slave trade. Like, I think we have…Obviously it's different when you think about Afro-Latinx or African-American or West Indian, that's all different, but we still have those same roots of how we got here. I think that's kind of how I view that. But then other countries, like there's various different reasons. There's the export of US Black men through the military, there's like so many different ways that we got all over the place. And of course there's like the actual continent.
As Janine Anthony said on our YouTube channel, I mean, no matter where we are, the thing that bonds us is the continent because that's where we originate. So I kind of view that as like, the continent where we originated, but also the people in, no matter how we got there, like all of us around the world. There’s almost like a…When I'm watching different athletes at the Olympics, I feel related to them no matter what language, sport. We see Issa Rae talking about we root for everybody Black, like, it doesn't matter what sport it is. I watched…Was it Mijaín López? It was like 30 seconds, and I was like, I love you.
Amira: [laughs] I’m rooting for you.
Bria: Yes! Even like now I'm attached to Italian volleyball because of all of the–
Amira: Oh, they’re ballin, that team. Absolutely.
Bria: She's sponsored by Armani! And then the captain has this blue hair, which…I just took out my blue braids. But she has this blue hair, 24 or 25 year old Black woman. So like, I kind of view it as like, we're all the same, but just there's slight differences.
Amira: Yeah, no, I think that's really interesting too, to think about like the continent and then one of the things you're mapping even in that is these pathways, whether it's the transatlantic slave trade, or obviously the consequence of colonization…Think about migration and immigration patterns. But also I think it was really great that you brought up like militarization, right? And this is so much of a legacy there about Black GIs. One of the very helpful frameworks to think about diaspora, for those people who are just kind of coming to the term, is to think about what are these patterns of movements of Black people globally that has created this larger global family that's kind of yoked together and back to the continent? Yeah, Javier.
Javier: Yeah. I mean for me, I just love watching all Black athletes compete, regardless of what nation that they're representing. I just love to see them doing their thing. But me being who I am, [laughs] I mean, the thing that comes to my mind mostly when I watch any global sporting event is the amount of Black people representing nations that don't necessarily represent or care about them outside of what they're doing for the nation in these very public spaces. I wonder, do people have the same affinity for these people outside of the area of competition? Do we think about these people the same, you know?
And coming from Panama, Latin America, I have a very popular saying that has been popularized largely by my co-founder Dash, and friend, is, you know, Latin America, we love to hide Black people until it's time to win something. And then we’re just all ushered out. So for me, I always, when I tune in, I just pay attention to the nations that are being represented, and outside of sport do we see this same level of Black people, number of Black people representing the face of the nation outside? And I don't just only say that for what is Latin America. I mean that specifically…I think, you know, Qatar has really caught my attention. [laughs]
Amira: Yes, yes.
Javier: I mean, and this is a little bit before the the Olympics, but you know, Qatar's competing in CONCACAF, in the soccer for the gold cup, because Qatar is hosting the next world cup. And when they were down there playing Panama, I was like, what!? Where is this country at? Because this is not anything that I ever see represented on this space. So I love to be critical about that and really ask that deep question. Do people who cheer almost to the point of like looking like they're about to pass out for these people during these couple of weeks while they're participating in the Olympics, do they have that same energy when thinking about the lived realities of Black people in their countries that they are actually laboring for?
Amira: And in many ways that's the question that we talk about. And Courtney now, you know, as somebody who looks at football, we've been having this discussion of course in the weeks before the games, obviously especially as a Man U supporter, it was really hard, right? Watching Rashy and then Sancho miss those PKs, and how fast that conditional acceptance leaves, right? Is that you are British or X, Y, and Z fill out the blank at this moment, or you’re Black when you miss the PK, when you miss the shot, when you missed X, Y, and Z. And we can look at like West Indian folks in Panama, we can talk about what it looks like to look at this continuous marginalization. And exactly like you said, you can't find anybody unless you need it to go when to go win a gold medal in something or to lift a trophy. And so we definitely have this conversation at the Olympics. The other place I think that people have this conversation is at the world cup or in global leagues and things like that. Courtney, is that one of the things that brought you guys to make the pod in the first place?
Courtney: I think the reason for Diaspora United is, you know, women's soccer around the world for the most part is very, very white. Like, even in places where, for example, you look at the men's team and, yeah, there are white people, but they're not fully white, especially in places like, you know, England, for example. And so we created the podcast because we wanted to celebrate Black women in soccer and also Andre and I came together because we realized we both had a deep love for Crystal Dunn. [laughs]
Amira: Always a good reason to do anything!
Courtney: I mean, truly, that was the first iteration of the podcast. We were like, let's make it a little bit more broad. And I think for us, when we think about especially with global football, but even right now with the Olympics and the women's soccer tournament, it’s significantly smaller at the Olympics than it is in the world cup, and it's kind of the same thing we were talking about of countries that all of a sudden pop up out of nowhere and have Black Olympic athletes and it's like, hey, when did you get one? Like, I remember looking for example because we did like a huge list of basically all of the diaspora athletes on each team.
And I'm looking at Sweden and being like, oh wait, there's a Black Swedish player. I had genuinely had no idea. And I mean, part of that is because women's football in general doesn't get a lot of publicity or anything like that. But that's definitely something we think about, especially with, you know, a space that is so white and always wants to, for example, celebrate Black athletes at certain times, but you know, for us every month is Black history month, but for them it’s only very small parts of the year.
Amira: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that that kind of goes back to what you put, Javier, about athletic labor. And so you talk about this in terms of basketball, like as trafficking as well, and you talk about…I think it's so hard for some people to understand sports as labor, and obviously if you're a flamethrower and you're listening to Burn It All Down, this is not a new concept to y'all at all. But I think that there's a seduction about sports that makes it seem something as fun and games and we miss the labor aspect. I'm wondering if we could just take a second to kind of dive deeper on this idea of like Black athletic labor and the way that it's used in the global sense. And I think that also this games gives us a great time to dive into, like, obviously what I talk about in my work, which is symbolic labor as well. And we can even start from the jump off with Naomi lighting the torch, right? That there's a way that you are like highly, highly visible and symbolized, and you're doing this kind of work out there.
And so I wanted to know with y'all, especially like Bria, you've been doing such great work historically. I especially love the pieces recently…I think both of y'all combined two about volleyball, right? And the actual history. And I'm thinking about this, we're recording this just like a day before the United States is going to play the Dominican Republic in volleyball. And I'm thinking about this, like in beach volleyball teams that we're seeing, et cetera, as well. How are y'all thinking through this idea of athletic labor and of symbolism? And we've seen this conversation dominate in certain sports – what are the places where missing that really illuminates this topic as well?
Bria: So I think on one hand, this is my big conundrum as somebody who is, like, my main focus is Black women. On one hand, this is the only time I'm going to see them. This is my one chance to actually watch the Kenyan women's volleyball team play. And they may not have won a set, but I don't know when I'll be able to watch them on TV or online. And on the other hand, like I mentioned this in that Peruvian women's volleyball story, a lot of this is upward mobility. It's like their upward mobility chance, even though that shouldn't be the case that it is, but like, that's just the reality of the situation. Black women in a lot of countries…I don’t know enough to say all, but definitely a majority of countries really get rare opportunities to advance from the position that society has placed them in. But sports is one of them. And then the Olympics is like the biggest stage to do that on. On the other side, it's like watching them succeed and bring glory to a country that 1) they're only competing for just because that country may have more resources because they colonized their own country or something like that.
Like, it's so complicated, but my work, my vision for my work is something I tried to illuminate in the Peru story, is showing the lived experiences of Black women through sports stories or using sports to reflect that and say, they may have accomplished these things, but they accomplished these things despite how their lived experiences are in these countries. But yeah, judo, there were so many Black women judokas. Wrestling, there's been a lot of actually…I think the first to win a gold medal in wrestling, Tamyra Mensah-Stock. And then the Nigeria women won silver…Oh, and also boxing. That's something that's like, especially the lower weight categories, there’s a lot of young, up and coming women from Brazil. There was Ramla Ali for Somalia. So, there's a lot of different sports that may have been more mainstream than I knew, but like, I definitely wasn’t watching judo before, [Amira laughs] but I think my biggest conflict is just I struggle with how this is like a big moment for their upward mobility or opportunity to achieve more.
Because in the Peru example, like that 1988 that won that silver medal, that's how they got money. That's how they advance in society. Even with the first woman to win…Or no, she was the first person to win a gold medal for the country of Colombia [laughs] as a Black woman. And while she was working as a phone operator, María Isabel Urrutia. I'm like, that's their only option? But also I feel obligated to cover it, because this is their only option. Like, I do want to support them. So…
Amira: No, that tension is real. It's absolutely real. Especially, I think, we all cover people working in institutions we could do without, right? And working with a series and set of forced choices. Absolutely. And especially the gender element that I'm really glad you brought up and I'm going to circle back to, because there's a way that the Olympics, especially for Black women, is a place with infrastructure and visibility that is not going to exist outside of the confines of international competition. And we can circle back to that in a second. Javi, I wanted to get your thoughts too.
Javier: I think countries where there isn't a large Black population in the country, that don't even take racial statistics, part of their demographic measures like France, like Spain, I think sometimes we're surprised on one hand that many of these athletes come out and participate, especially during track and field, especially during the sprints. But I don't think we think of that as something completely foreign, because I think we still associate Black people with certain sports and are able to only do certain things. So, you know, I think we can have this racialized explanation of why France or why Italy really, right? Italy, the 100 meters? Why Italy is represented in the 100 meters finals and takes gold, right? We can racially explain that because the Black people, they can jump high, they can run fast, right? We can see it in basketball too. So I think about that part of how strategically Black people have been utilized in certain sports in the Olympics.
But as we also noted, Black people are not only represented in those athletic events and in basketball, but how they have the capabilities to participate in all of the sports, including the ones that are not as popular. And then it becomes very surprising to us – like the Bria’s example about judo, right? Because it’s like, we can work our way through the sprints. We are like, okay, I get that. [laughs] But judo!? [laughs] Black people in judo? All right. And I think the example that really jumps out to me is...And I watched the finals happen, I was just watching Ray Zapata…I wish I could say his whole name. I think it's like, Rayderley Zapata, the Black Spaniard of Dominican heritage. You know, I think he brings a lot of good tension there and, you know, that has to be spoken about in Spain, a place where they do not take race into their demographics, but we cannot separate the migration of Dominican from the island of Dominican Republic to Spain, the former colonizer.
And what does that look like for those individuals? And what does that mean for this person in this sport that hasn't been racialized as Black to take the gold and represent the nation in a very surprising way? Because I really don't think a lot of people will give him that. You know, I think that they're still going to back off and like, what is going on? So I think the Olympics presents a myriad of opportunities for us to be very critical and look, and not just look at the sports that we have racialized as “Black.” And we've explained that because we'll be surprised…And I'm repeating myself. I'm like, we will be surprised of Italy winning the 100 meters. But we won't be surprised at the same time because we're like, okay, there might be three Black people there. Which is a farce, and that's not true, because there's a history of migration, particularly a historic one and a contemporary one that's very anti-Black. And it's a lot of Black people from the continent of Africa migrating into that space that have to deal with these things. And those things are real issues.
And the last thing I'll say too, I also think about countries that will not put Black out there to represent, talking about migration. And the country that I love to talk about, I think Argentina is one of those countries that will not field a Black team because of what they want their image of the world to be. And we know we have plenty of historical examples of that. And I think that's truly the instance right now, especially in that country that has a large migration of Black people from the continent of Africa, Black people from Dominican Republic, from other places in the Caribbean migrating to Argentina, now generationally at this point that I'm pretty sure some of those young people have the abilities to represent the country. But will Argentina allow that many or any Black people to be on their basketball team? To be on their track team? And that's something that we don’t talk about.
Amira: That’s such a good question because obviously a lot of times when we talk about 1968, one of the things that we miss is one of the biggest mobilization pushes around boycotting the games was about the fact that South Africa and Rhodesia were going to bring segregated teams to the Olympics. They were just very loud about it, right? They were like, “We’re bringing a white team, what are you going to do?” And the IOC finally was like, “Don't come.” But what you're talking about is a lot more subtle, and I think that that’s definitely a really, really important point. Courtney, one of the things that I wanted to throw to you, as I want to put to everybody really, but I want to start with thinking about football, is two kind of tensions and discussions about Black athletic labor that I've seen during this games.
One, through people like Simone Biles – and Simone Manuel has been really vocal about this as well. Gwen Berry, shoutout to my homie, Gwen, and Anna, all of them. And I will just list everybody. [laughs] But they've been very vocal about especially the burden of like being the face of the games and having Black women pushed to the kind of front in that moment and feeling the weight of that. And so on one hand, we've been talking about that. On the other hand, we've been talking about what happens when symbolically you're doing all the work, you’re like the workhorse, and then you never get credit for it. And actually we've seen people left off teams, like Nneka Ogwumike, right? Like Midge – justice for Midge.
Courtney: Free Midge.
Amira: Exactly. And then additionally, you have people like Crystal Dunn saying like, I'm a vet out here, I'm doing all of this work, I am never the face of this team. And I was thinking about, especially because I saw an article in The Root today…Basically it was the argument that like the women's basketball team from the United States was being ignored. They were saying a Black team is being ignored while this white team, soccer, who only can win a bronze, is getting all the love. And the reason why I disagree with it is because I was like, first of all, the reasons historically why the US women's national soccer team gets much more publicity than the basketball team absolutely is grounded in anti-Blackness and anti-queerness. That's not a discussion. But the context of this in particular, in calling them a white team, to me, really erases people like Crystal.
So then that brings me to the tension because like, on one hand, we were talking about this leading into the actual Olympic cycle, the naming of the team. The camp was a lot more diverse. And then of course when the actual team came out, it was like, this is the whitest team that you could have put together from the compilation of people you had in camp. And so there was like all of these degrees to the conversation…And so part of what I wanted to ask you is how are you sifting through this tension of people being left off the team, of erasure, and just like actual utilization? Like, what is happening here?
Courtney: Yeah. And it's something I think about often, if I'm being honest. I know we had an episode, actually this was pre-Olympics, that were like…Are we secretly rooting for Canada? Because Canada had all of these Black players that the US just quite simply was not having. And maybe it was like 2015, world cup, but basically when Crystal Dunn was left off of this absolutely immaculate 2015 season…And I feel like we're even seeing the same thing now. Like we always talk about, you know, we say Midge is on a revenge tour, we say Sydney Leroux is on a revenge tour. We have all of these players that deserve to be called up and recognized that consistently aren’t. But even that, there's like a tension in between that, because like we're not happy with the players that are currently on this 22 person roster. And like, I'm not even going to delve into it who's actually on the field. It's a mess. [laughs] We have many a podcast episode about that.
But you also have this tension because it’s like, I don't want them to do well, so that way they change it? But also at the same time, I still really, really want to support the athletes that are there. Like, I want Crystal Dunn to be a gold medalist. I want Christen Press to be a gold medalist. I want Cat and Lynn because they took away the alternates and just made them full team members. We were so happy. But there's just like all this tension. And I feel like that's honestly just what it's like to be a Black person or even any person of color within soccer, because it's like, you want them to do well, but you also want the systems around them to change, but like you also know it's probably not going to happen.
I always have a lot of complicated feelings about it, especially with the Olympics, because I do want Crystal Dunn to be a gold medalist so that way I can put Crystal Dunn…Absolutely everyone would be like, yes, cannot forget her. You cannot forget her legacy. You need to know every single thing about her, all five chickens. [laughs] You need to know everything. But then at the same time it's like, we're working in these systems that make it really complicated for us as media people, for us as fans of the sport.
Amira: The other kind of question I had is of course Nneka Ogwumike was done super dirty in terms of not being appointed to the women's national team. Her younger sister, Erica, was already going to play for Nigeria. Chiney was in the process of trying to get that done as well. And so Nneka joined them. Nneka and Chiney were of course denied the opportunity, along with Elizabeth Williams, and it generated a discussion that I really would love your opinions on, about what it means for diasporic athletes to have multiple either dual citizenships or like trying to figure out where, who they compete for. I just had to get into it with somebody. I had to like pull out Naomi Osaka’s Americanness, right? Like, because there was a way that they were like, she's not Black. Like, how can she speak to that? And so I had to like pull that in. At the same time, you know, people had to point to all the work that the Ogwumikes have done in Nigeria around basketball. There's an anti-Black discussion that's trying to separate Jasmine from Puerto Rico. And then there's another discussion about what does it mean to have representation from athletes who don't have a home there, et cetera, et cetera.
So I would love to get you all to talk about, especially when it comes up in these international competitions, what flag people choose to compete under? Because I think it actually says a lot about resources and access to them. And of course, all I could think about in that Canada game was if Syd would have stayed in that system, if Canada looked like that when Syd was coming up, right? Because obviously this is also the xenophobic argument that's made in other ways, because we fetishize international soccer players. But I would love to put it to you in like an internal conversation where we don't have to like block out all of the people making bad faith arguments. But how do we reconcile and think through the idea about resources and representation and flags and who people have the opportunity and/or choose to compete with in the first place?
Courtney: Yeah. I honestly think it's really complicated. I mean, we were just talking about Cat, but Cat was born in Brazil and there was this whole huge narrative around her of that she was trying to get a passport to compete for the United States. And it's like, I understand it because she talks about really growing up here, like, she came over when she was 11 or 12 and, you know, like really feeling like quote-unquote “American” or from the United States. But I think especially in global football, it plays out all the time. And it's something that I think a lot of players are starting to reckon with. When you mentioned that, besides thinking about Cat, but I also thought about, for example, Sofia Huerta, who plays for OL Reign, and was capped a few times by the women's Mexican national team. But then, you know, like FIFA has a one-time thing where you can switch your national allegiances, and she switched to the US.
But also, that's kind of a problem, because I don't think she's been called up in a while and it's like, look at all of these opportunities that players are maybe choosing, thinking, oh, I'll have this opportunity and I'll get all of these resources, but you know, kind of not get what they're looking for in the end, which is like national team call-ups and being able to play in international tournaments. Because of this is what it could be, instead of maybe looking at the other option with programs that are not necessarily up and coming, but finally, especially with soccer, these federations are putting money behind their women's teams.
Amira: Yeah. I appreciate you brought up Cat because I kept thinking…I was down here in Texas when they were playing Portugal, and Jéssica, who’s this dope Portuguese player, posted a picture with Cat and was like on IG, “Oh, it's so great to have somebody to speak my language with.” And like, every other comment was like, oh, Cat speaks Portuguese now? Like trolling her, right? Because the narrative around her was like distancing her from Brazil. And I was thinking about that moment so much as well, that kind of narrative of like who you play for and why. Javi, do you have thoughts on that?
Javier: Oh, you better believe it. [Amira laughs] I'm trying to be nice and just–
Amira: You don’t have to be nice.
Javier: You know, like burn it all down. Burn down all nations! I mean, all the all concepts of nationalism and the nation, because for me they're trash. I'm prefacing everything that I say as who I am. I am a dual citizen of the United States and the Republic of Panama. I worked in sport in Panama. I lived in Panama for a good amount of time as well, but I'm born and raised in the United States. And, you know, if Panama had American football, I potentially would have been in the situation to have had to choose which country to represent if that was an Olympic sport. But my thoughts on it now is burn it down. I wouldn't compete for either one of them! [Amira laughs] Because the nation, this idea of nation and citizenship, in my opinion, is built on lies. On pure lies, and in many ways are super anti-Black. And the way I think about it is just like Trevor Noah, you know, his response to the French ambassador or whoever that came down to him. When he said Africa won the world cup, you know, Trevor Noah was saying we cannot separate a history of colonialism and migration post-colonialism and colonialism to France. And these people participate in competing on behalf of France.
You can't separate those things. You can't separate the reasons why people like myself and like Woodruff, the Black Panamanian woman who is participating on behalf of Panama, you can't separate our parents’ desperate need to leave the country because there was no opportunities for them as Black people in the country to have to migrate to the United States. You can't separate those things. The same thing with Rayderley Zapata. You can't separate what does it mean to be a colonial former colonial subject marginalized at the hands of Spanish, and then having to migrate at 8 years old to Spain and then represent it. You can't just…You can't disconnect those things, what makes people have to move to these different spaces.
Is it a hard decision? It might be. Is it a decision that people make just because they can get on Olympic sites? Probably. Let's be real about the situation. But then also, what I look at a lot, especially with basketball trafficking and with nationalism, and talking about the inequalities and the disparity in resources with these different nations, and which are real, but it's sometimes how these nations depend on the global north–
Amira: Oh, the exportation, of course. See: baseball, Dominican Republic.
Javier: They send the diaspora back to represent the country because we see that a lot in Panama, is the country depends on its diaspora – that its anti-Black policies pushed out – to come back since we've been in the United States, got developed in this system, horribly so, to then represent the nation again. But then that also says something about the young people in Panama who are completely missed over because of the nation's new dependence on the diaspora, because the lack of resources and the infrastructure in the country. And I've seen that firsthand, where young people do not have the opportunity because in the country now is depending on the diaspora to make the ways. And the same thing as with the sisters, the Ogwumike sisters. That’s the same thing we have to think about, in basketball trafficking, is the way that 1) the United States has a hegemonic hold over certain sports and the global north does, and that, what does that look like for the migration? But then in this instance it creates a system that becomes very violent and even more equitable for so many people. So, those are my quick thoughts. There becomes a dependence on the diaspora to represent these nations where in many ways where they could not survive.
Amira: Yeah. And then do the work of the failed state. I think about this all the time when I think post-Maria, the number of Puerto Rican athletes – and celebrities too, whatever – but like athletes who were bringing supplies back. And I talked about this too, with Black Americans from the Gulf coast, who were coming back and building back schools and stuff like that, and thinking about how Black athletic labor is not just like getting people money there, but they're also then doing the work of the failed state, going back to set up the infrastructure or to like literally build back roads, right? Like, especially in places like Puerto Rico where places were just completely forgotten. Completely forgotten. And thinking about, you know, you just preached a whole sermon too, about anti-Black policies that push out, and then the dependence on the diaspora that that creates. I mean, I think that you really nailed part of that tension that we're all talking about. Bria, do you want to wrap up this topic?
Bria: Yes. Because Javier, you actually talked about something that like…I don't believe in these countries. I see it a lot online, which is kind of…I don't know if this is happening offline, but there's like a trend to an act like…I don't know if it's a US specific thing to idealize or idolize or fetishize other countries and being from other countries or having parents that are from…And to me that's just weird. But also, I don't like to be in the position to have to defend the United States at all. But on the other hand, it's like, there's no country that’s not–
Amira: Right. Anti-Black as fuck. What are you talking about? [laughs]
Bria: Anti-Black, anti-woman, anti-queer. Like, I feel like if I'm thinking about a queer Black woman specifically, or disabled person, or like, you know, I feel like there's no perfect place. And yes, the United States is bad, but also that doesn't mean that this other place is perfect. That I think is something that feeds into this conversation of like, they should just go compete for Nigeria. And then there's also like an imperialist thing actually, a little bit, that's happening there. But on the other hand, it's like, Nigeria had this issue with the inadequate drug testing and at first got disqualified. So it's frustrating to see it all come down to like...The US basketball system screwed over this Nigerian-American so now she should go to this place. Like, there were some actual Nigerians that were excited, but to me it was just like I felt a little weird about that being possible because I'm not a “rules are rules” person because I don't know who's making up these rules, but she was competing for the US like six months ago. Like, to me, that's complex.
And I know even with Brigitha, I watched an interview. She was the first…In ’76, I think, she was the first woman to medal in individual swimming. And she said she's born in Curaçao, but she competed for the Netherlands for that reason, for resources, because if she could competed for her country she would have had to pay for everything. And like, she just wasn't going to be able to do that. So like, I understand. I would never be like, oh, you shouldn't be for this country. I mean, I don't even view myself as like a person that's American. I literally cringed as I said that word. I understand, like, just take the opportunity that you're given, you’re a Black woman. Like, just do what you gotta do. But on the other hand, it's like, it's much more complex than just showing up and going to the other country because it's better or cooler or like commodified in like pop culture.
Amira: And well, the interesting thing that I think about that, like, because I definitely hear and resonate with your points. And the interesting thing that Nneka said that made me kind of recalibrate a little, was for people, especially those with like dual citizenship or whatever that is, to say actually, it's not a choice. Like, I'm a person that's not a split a person. And what does it mean for me to say like, yeah, this to me is about redistribution, because I'm actually kind of chill with the idea of people going and…Look – if Wendie Renard goes to France and gets all of their resources and then builds the dopest facility in Martinique, you know what I mean? Like, I'm kind of down with thinking about go take all of these resources and then not just do the work of the state, but actually build something better. And what does it look like to think about athletes and people, not just athletes, but like finding this?
Because the other thing that I'm thinking through is the other pattern that we're seeing in these games that I just wanted to make sure we throw in here is the one of like forced migration. We've seen this a lot, many Sudanese competitors and team refugees who have found themselves newly in places, like recently – sometimes we were talking about historical migrations, and sometimes we're talking about something that's not even past. And I think that what this whole conversation encompasses is that when we say we're rooting for everybody Black, it's not just a cute gif, it's not just like a surface level type of thing, but it's deep and it’s grounded in these conversations that we're having, right? It’s grounded in considering the way Blackness has moved and has been pushed and has created space for itself around the globe, in linkages to each other, and how that shows up when forced into an idea of citizenship or nation state, et cetera, that doesn't always actually hold space or couldn’t even come close to containing all that who we are and how we present.
And so I really appreciate the three of y'all taking time out of what has been a very busy…Now, apparently it's August, it’s been very busy. But I definitely wanted to make space for this conversation. And let this be a foundational conversation. Now we know we're like the Black sports avengers to come back and to be able to tee up on this conversation. But I really appreciate y'all taking the time and dropping some knowledge and wrestling with some of these tensions with me.
So again, thank you from Burn It All Down. As we go, just tell me either a fun fact or somebody to watch for a song that you’re…Any thing that's like a piece of how you're seizing joy today. Another athlete that you want to shout out, anything like that, to end it on a good note. I will go first. The Black woman sports psychologist in Ted Lasso is giving me my entire life. In the first episode of the second season when they were like, “Are you good at your job?” And she was like, “Do you think you're good at your job? Don't bullshit me. Just give me an answer. You're good at your job?” And Ted was like, “Yes.” And she was like, “However good you are, I'm twice as good at mine.” And I was just like, listen! And I feel a type of way about sports psychologists, but Ms. Sharon is my what's good right now.
Courtney: Anytime someone asks me, are you good at your job? That is the first thing I'm going to say back to them. [laughs] “Are you could at your job?” For me, I mean, I don't know when this is coming up, but I am excited that Simone Biles got back on the beam, and also doing it on her own terms. There's something really powerful to me about that. Just, you know, talking about how so many people…She's like, I'm doing it on my terms, and also my life isn't just gymnastics. Which to me is really, really powerful. And I'm happy that for her this medal means more than all the other ones. So I will be celebrating that for a little bit.
Amira: Absolutely.
Bria: Oh, easily Yulimar Rojas, who is a gold medalist world record holder in the triple jump, but also just side note, her and Ana Peleteiro is like in a relationship. Like, they trained together and all this stuff…All three, actually, of the medalists in triple jump were Black women of the diaspora: Venezuela, Spain, and Portugal. But Yulimar, what I really like about her, I found out about her like a day before, and then of course I got invested, but I think what I love about her, it's not only she's a speaking for herself, but as a Black queer woman from Venezuela, but also speaking like for other people, standing up for other people. And I just really think her and Raven Saunders and like…Black queer women have been loud this Olympics, and I am very excited about that. I'm very proud, and I just want to see…I'm like, how can I support you in the future? Because I'm ready to throw my money at you. But yeah. [laughs]
Amira: Absolutely. Shoutout to Raven. Sending condolences to her; her mom passed away today at the time of recording, which is really horrible news. So, I know she's taking a step back. But to have that ‘X’ thrown up and to say, “at the place where all oppressed people meet,” and to have her be unapologetically Black and queer, and to talk about mental health, has been absolutely one of the biggest things I'll take away from these games. I'm absolutely right there with you. Javi, bring us home.
Javier: Yeah. Just because Bria mentioned two people I'm going to do the same, but the person who she mentioned second…And condolences to Raven Saunders, I'm here for everything Raven Saunders. I mean, I was just taken aback. I couldn't stop watching all of the commentaries, all of the follow-up interviews that she was featured on. I just was here for it all. But in addition to Raven Saunders, I'm really interested to see what Gianna Woodruff does for Panama. She's of the diaspora and in the 400 meter finals in hurdles, and I want her to win actually, or to get a medal, because I want to go in on Panamanians, my own. I want to go in on the people.
Amira: You gotta rep your set at some point. [laughs]
Javier: I wanna go in on them. I wanna go in–
Amira: Oh, you're like, I'm waiting, I'm waiting.
Javier: I want to show them how anti-Black they are, and how…I can't wait for this.
Amira: Listen, the 400 hurdles, which I think by the way, is the hardest fucking track event ever. Like, why are you doing this to yourself? But it's stacked now, because of course my mentee, Anna Cockrell, is holding it down in there. And of course you got Syd and Dalilah. But there's so many…I’m like, can they all medal so we can get all of this discourse out here? We have a lot, I feel you. Like, you're waiting, pen in hand. Like, all right, what? I thought I heard you say something? What? Anti-Black person says what? I'm ready. [laughter] No, I feel you.
Well, there's a lot of joy that we are kind of pulling from the otherwise chaos and mayhem of a general…Any day that ends on a “y,” but also right now is a bit of a mess. So again, thank you so much. This won’t be the last time we get together and light some matches. Obviously as we all pointed to, there's a lot of stuff to burn and as always, we will continue to find sparks of joy and torchbearers on our way out of that. So thank you again for joining me on this episode of Burn It All Down, and for flamethrowers, I hope you all stay safe, stay inspired, and enjoy the second half of the Olympic games.