First of all, I know what you are thinking, everybody has talked about Sha’carri and moved on, yet here I am raising settled dust. Lol. Still, I’m entitled to my two cents on the issue, especially because many young people are still generally triggered by the debate. Understanding the implications of Sha’carri’s actions will go a long way to help us understand the rules of olympic but also the historical and cultural discrimination aimed at communities of people. Anyway, here’s my unfiltered take below:
You know that joy when you see someone that looks like you winning, especially when you have been conditioned not to expect that?It’s pure bliss and considered a big win for black women everywhere. It’s a little too overwhelming to suddenly have a lot of eyes on you, and for those eyes to expect more perfection from you than from the average person. And that’s why Sha’Carri being tested positive for Cannabis (also known as marijuana or weed) did a number on the community and world that praised her not two seconds prior. Athletes and other celebrities are human, just like the rest of us. They deal with fear, faith, loss, confusion and anger. They are not just spectacles for entertainment purposes only. So, when a person loses a parent one week before a life defining competition, you can at least expect some unlikely behavior from them.
However, being a trained athlete in competitive sport requires you to have a great level of discipline, hard work, teamwork and perseverance. It’s literally ingrained in you from the first moment you decide to start training. You learn to follow rules that are put in place to protect you, your teammates and the integrity of the sport. Rules in sport are not made to be broken. Especially if breaking them will lead to consequences for yourself and others.
Sha’Carri’s case has been looked at with a wide variety of lenses and from a few different perspectives. The first and most obvious one being her race. While it is true that black people are being held under much more scrutiny than their white counterparts, those rules were made for everyone regardless of their background and genetic makeup. Sha’Carri consumed the drug considered as a substance of abuse hours before her trials for the Olympic, while Michael Phelps, an athlete with a similar case of cannabis use, consumed it months after the Olympic was over.
Remember what I said about discipline and perseverance? It is in the ability to discern when to do certain things. And knowing to steer clear of a drug that breaks the rules and that would be found in the blood just hours before competing. These rules don’t just stop in America. They cut across this sport all over the world.
So, what is the meeting point? Cannabis is not a performance enhancing drug. And so we should not invalidate her hard work, talent and years of training by crediting the drug for making her run her race in 10.38seconds. It however is a gateway drug. And if I listened to anything in my psychotherapy class, it is that gateway drugs make you want to try out other harder, stronger, more psychoactive drugs. Basically, the rules not only prevent you from using drugs to outperform others, it also prevents you from causing potential harm to yourself and other athletes in competition.
So, in my opinion, the suspension was a consequence of an action. And like everything in life, you face those consequences. It is just unfortunate that it comes on the cusp of the big break she was about to get. The U.S can take the decisions of changing their anti-doping rules but before those rules are changed, they should not be bent or broken.