|
The
Olympics begin Friday in Japan. There is a lot on the International
Olympic Committee’s docket to be concern about in this
pandemic: 83 percent of the Japanese citizenry oppose holding it; its
population is roughly 10 percent vaccinated as of May; athletes are
not required to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, though they
are encouraged; the virus’ Delta variant poses a new challenge
to public safety; and The New England Journal of Medicine flat-out
condemns the IOC’s safety protocols.
The
least of the Olympics’ concerns should be that of swim caps for
Black hair. But the International Swimming Federation of the IOC said
the design of the swim caps does not fit “the natural form of
the head,” a statement eerily reminiscent of the eugenics
movement’s propaganda to substantiate Black anatomical and
intellectual inferiority.
In
wanting to encourage swimming throughout the global Black diaspora –
an underrepresented demographic in aquatic sports – Michael
Chapman and Toks Ahmed founded Soul Cap, a British specialist brand
of swim caps for textured and Black hair. They submitted their
application to FINA for the caps to be worn at the Olympics to
accommodate Black hair texture, especially Black hairstyles such as
braids, locks, extensions or Senegalese twists that are uncommon on
white competitors in the sport. The water sports world governing body
straight-out denied Soul Cap, stating no athletes need “caps of
such size and configuration.”
FINA’s
rejection of the caps cast a pall on its purported welcoming of
diversity. It sends, regrettably, a global message of rejection to
Black and brown and textured-hair athletes wanting to compete at an
Olympic level.
Growing
up, I was bombarded with stereotypes as to why Black Americans can’t
swim, such as “dense body mass”; “urban cities
don’t have municipal pools”; “swimming is a white
sport”; and “Black girls do not like to get their
processed, straightened hair nappy.”
Fifty-eight
percent of African American children cannot swim. According to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Black children from 10 to
14 years old drown at rates 7.6 times higher than white children.
After a deeper dive below the surface, answers are revealed why.
Slave
masters prohibit blacks from learning to swim. They saw swimming as a
way to escape slavery. During the Jim Crow era, municipal pools were
racially segregated. Pools that became the target of desegregation
protests were frequently drained or doused with acid. For example,
civil rights activist Mimi Jones, a Roxbury resident who died last
year at 73, was part of the 1964 St. Augustine swim-in – but
when she and fellow protest swimmers jumped into the “white-only”
Monson Motor Lodge pool, the owner of the hotel poured in muriatic
acid. The photo of the incident is one of the iconic images of the
era.
The
criminalization of Black hair starts early. Sadly, the sports arena
is no exception. In 2019, a 16-year-old high school Black wrestler
had to make a split-second decision about his hair before his match
when a white referee gave him an ultimatum: “Your hair covering
doesn’t conform to the rulebook, so cut your dreadlocks or
forfeit.” The viral video of a white female trainer cutting off
the athlete’s locks sent shockwaves.
African
American women and girls endure some of the harshest punishments
concerning hair, permitting racist workplaces, institutions and
educators to discriminate against us without repercussions. In 2017,
Mystic Valley Regional Charter School in Malden banned Black twins
Deanna and Mya Cook from playing after-school sports and attending
prom because they wore hair extensions to school, violating school
policy. Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey stepped in on the
twins' behalf. Healey sent a letter to the school flatly stating that
its policy "includes several prohibitions that are either
unreasonably subjective or appear to effectively single out students
of color."
Of
the 26 women swimmers traveling to the Olympics, only two are black:
Simone Manuel of the United States and Alice Dearing of Great
Britain. Manuel is co-captain of the U.S. Olympic swim squad.
Representation
is critical in dismantling traditionally “white-only”
sports.
FINA
will not remove its universal swim cap guideline that “one size
fits all” for this Olympics. For the sport to flourish, I
suggest that by the next Olympics, it adopts the Crown Act (for
“Create a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair”), a
law prohibiting discrimination based on hairstyle and hair texture
first adopted in California in 2019. Only then can the sports body
begin to uphold its mission: “providing a framework for
increased participation, enhanced promotion and global competitive
success in the sport.”
|
