Race/Racism
The Costs of Being Young, Gifted, and Black: When Being Exceptional Makes You a Target
This week, English soccer’s best players face racist threats while Black female athletes’ mental health issues are met with little sympathy
Several of this week’s selections got me thinking about the price Black people are sometimes forced to pay when they excel. There are always folks who seek to minimize or explain away our successes and maximize our failures or missteps. Black players on England’s national soccer team are facing harassment and threats after reaching the finals of the European championship. Athletes like Sha’Carri Richardson are penalized for taking measures to protect their mental health. Black families whose ancestors scraped and saved to buy land after emancipation are finding themselves cut off from disaster aid because their forebears didn’t have access to legal documents used to prove ownership. But we’ve also got a couple of tales of Black achievers finally getting recognition — including the army battalion of Black women who made sure soldiers got their mail during World War II and a Black speller who paved the way for Zaila Avant-garde’s historic win.
