Speaker 1: Good morning, Pieces and welcome to Okay f Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet Your Girl Danielle Moody, recording once again from the Bunker, Folks,
Speaker 1: I want to take a break on this Thursday from
Speaker 1: the regular pace of what just seems like inexhaustive news
Speaker 1: cycle this week. Everywhere that you look, there is something
Speaker 1: that is wrong. Whether it is the action that is
Speaker 1: being taken at the states against abortion now the latest
Speaker 1: being Utah, whether it is you know, the recognition that
Speaker 1: kids in K through twelve schools are having a really
Speaker 1: difficult time getting back into what it means to be
Speaker 1: in school in a pandemic, and we're hearing reports about anxiety, depression, dress,
Speaker 1: all of the things that we have been experiencing over
Speaker 1: the last two years, our kids, the nation's kids have
Speaker 1: been experiencing, and are we dealing with this. There is
Speaker 1: just so much that I wanted to take a break,
Speaker 1: just one day, to take a break and have a
Speaker 1: really thoughtful conversation with the host of a podcast series,
Speaker 1: a storytelling series called American Prodigies. And I speak today
Speaker 1: with host Amia Rose Davis, who is an assistant professor
Speaker 1: of History and African American Studies at U Penn and
Speaker 1: She's also co host of a popular podcast that you
Speaker 1: all may know because they've had over a million downloads,
Speaker 1: which is called Burn It All Down, and it is
Speaker 1: a feminist sports podcast, but in American prodigies. This series
Speaker 1: really delves into this iteration. It is in now its
Speaker 1: third season and what a mirror does if this season,
Speaker 1: the third season is delve into black women in gymnastics,
Speaker 1: and she goes through the eighties, the nineties, the early aughts,
Speaker 1: and into now and what it has meant to be
Speaker 1: a black gymnast right at all levels of competition. And
Speaker 1: when we think about this, I, you know, we will
Speaker 1: have a conversation where I will talk about the Naser case,
Speaker 1: right Larry Naser, you know, the horrific, disgusting sexual predator
Speaker 1: that acted as the doctor for elite gymnasts twenty thirty
Speaker 1: years and sexually assaulted, raped, many of these well known
Speaker 1: gymnasts that we have watched tumble and get gold medals,
Speaker 1: and we have cheered on, not knowing silently the pain
Speaker 1: that they were all dealing with until recently when the
Speaker 1: case became national spotlight. The conversation that I have with
Speaker 1: Amra is, you know, one of the things that has
Speaker 1: always shook me is the pedestal that we put athletes
Speaker 1: on and our thought around the sacrifices that they make
Speaker 1: and what it takes to be and a prodigy one
Speaker 1: of the greats. But what we have learned over some
Speaker 1: very high profile folks like a Simone Biles and deciding
Speaker 1: that she was not going to compete in some of
Speaker 1: the events at the past Olympics because of what her
Speaker 1: mental health. We've heard Naomi Osaka say the same thing
Speaker 1: about her mental health and well being. And I think
Speaker 1: that we for generations have loved to believe that these
Speaker 1: athletes were, you know, superhuman because they can perform things
Speaker 1: that we can only dream and imagine, but we never
Speaker 1: really think about or have conversations about what they are
Speaker 1: suffering through and what they are struggling through in order
Speaker 1: to grab that metal. Many of these young prodigies that
Speaker 1: Amira speaks to, who you know have now since have
Speaker 1: grown right or coaching themselves, will share some of their
Speaker 1: experiences about what it means, what it meant to be
Speaker 1: the only black girl in an entire gym, how they
Speaker 1: were judged differently based on their body structure, points deducted
Speaker 1: because they have a little bit more, but than their
Speaker 1: white you know colleagues, how their hair or was treated,
Speaker 1: how their bodies were treated, how they were talked about.
Speaker 1: So not only are they having to work through some
Speaker 1: of the most unbearable pains and strains, right that they
Speaker 1: put their bodies to in order to be the best,
Speaker 1: but the emotional scarring and the trauma. In this episode,
Speaker 1: we will talk about food disorders, we will talk about
Speaker 1: sexual assault and trauma, and you know, really delve into
Speaker 1: this part of athleticism that we don't necessarily spend a
Speaker 1: whole lot of time talking about. When we looked at
Speaker 1: the makeup of the latest you know, women's US women's
Speaker 1: Olympic team, we were marveling and applauding at the diversity
Speaker 1: that was present. These young black girls, right who I
Speaker 1: can remember growing up and knowing but just a few names,
Speaker 1: right of these gymnasts that look like me, and now
Speaker 1: you have an entire team, But you take into consideration
Speaker 1: what they have fought against in order to get to
Speaker 1: this place. And so in this eight part series that
Speaker 1: Amira takes us through, she takes us through the stories
Speaker 1: of what it's like to be inside these gyms, to
Speaker 1: be inside these elite setups to come from, you know,
Speaker 1: potentially low income families that are literally giving their children
Speaker 1: away because here you have opportunity, you have possibility. I
Speaker 1: often think about, you know, during the Olympics is when
Speaker 1: the world's eyes are on sports and on the same
Speaker 1: sports at the same time. And the stories, the little
Speaker 1: vigneyettes that they do in the Olympics where you get
Speaker 1: to know the people that are competing and you get
Speaker 1: to know their families, and they are you know, wonderfully packaged,
Speaker 1: you know, segments and vignettes that we all you know
Speaker 1: that inspire right or bring us to tears because we
Speaker 1: understand that those people that are performing on the mat,
Speaker 1: on the beam on bars are doing so having faced
Speaker 1: a lot of trauma tragedy in their own lives, and
Speaker 1: it gives us this inspiration that we need to persevere
Speaker 1: through our dark times. But there's a lot that is
Speaker 1: left out about the treatment of young girls. I think
Speaker 1: back to carry strug I think back to her performance
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety six on the vault, doing so knowing
Speaker 1: that she was badly injured, but everything was relying on her,
Speaker 1: the country, the team, and we all applauded as she
Speaker 1: broke down in tears after she stuck that landing, basically
Speaker 1: breaking her body so that America could have a medal.
Speaker 1: And of course you can say, oh, Danielle, but she
Speaker 1: worked her entire life for this, Yes, but I want
Speaker 1: us to pause and think about what it means to
Speaker 1: applaud at other people's pain and suffering. And then we
Speaker 1: would find out later about the sexual abuse that these
Speaker 1: girls were carrying with them and had carried with them
Speaker 1: for years their entire lives because they didn't know any better.
Speaker 1: So in this series, you know, I think that Amira
Speaker 1: gives folks a behind the scenes pulling back the curtain
Speaker 1: in a way beyond the inspirational vignatson. Yes, there is inspiration,
Speaker 1: and she says, you know at the end of this
Speaker 1: interview that there is also a lot of joy, but
Speaker 1: there is also a lot of pain as well, And
Speaker 1: I think that it is okay to talk about those
Speaker 1: things because we are layered complex human beings and it's amazing.
Speaker 1: It's a marvel at what the human body is capable
Speaker 1: of doing when it is optimized, when it's met the
Speaker 1: optimization along with just the inherent talent, and what can
Speaker 1: happen when those things combine, but also thinking about the
Speaker 1: cost of that, right, because there is a cost. And
Speaker 1: while we can say, you know, nowadays, people you know
Speaker 1: can capitalize and commodify in a way that they can
Speaker 1: make financial gains, you know, if you reach the pinnacle,
Speaker 1: But what about those that don't. Because for every Simone
Speaker 1: Biles and Gabby Douglas and Dominique DAWs, there are thousands
Speaker 1: of names that we will never know, but who have
Speaker 1: put their bodies emotionally, spiritually, and physically through the ranger
Speaker 1: in the hopes of getting on top of that Olympic stand.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, it was really great to be
Speaker 1: in conversation to kind of take a break, folks from
Speaker 1: the news of the day and just hear a different story.
Speaker 1: In the coming weeks on the show as well, I'm
Speaker 1: going to start doing interviews with fiction authors right as
Speaker 1: a way to kind of once again sprinkle in something
Speaker 1: that is a bit different, something that is divergent from
Speaker 1: our steady diet of our democracy crumbling, things that allow
Speaker 1: us to just give our brains and our hearts some
Speaker 1: rest so that we are able to continue fighting and
Speaker 1: continue marching forward to where I'm not quite sure these
Speaker 1: days I'm going to be honest with you. But what
Speaker 1: I do know is that I want Woke AF to
Speaker 1: continue being the voice of reason, continue to be a
Speaker 1: space for us to connect with the truth right because
Speaker 1: I think that that's getting harder and harder to decipher
Speaker 1: from the nonsense, from the deep concern that I know
Speaker 1: that all of you have because I share it. But
Speaker 1: every once in a while, it is really important for
Speaker 1: us to just take some respite, learn something different, stretch
Speaker 1: our brains in a different way, or just sit back
Speaker 1: and listen to a good story, read a good book,
Speaker 1: listen to a good podcast that isn't about the news
Speaker 1: of the day. So I hope that you all enjoy
Speaker 1: my conversation with Amra, host of American Prodigies, which is
Speaker 1: out now wherever you get your podcasts. So if after
Speaker 1: this interview you want to check out American Prodigies or
Speaker 1: the other show that she has che co host, Burn
Speaker 1: It All Down, you should, right, because there should be
Speaker 1: some balance into what we are consuming on a day
Speaker 1: to day basis. So I hope that you enjoy this interview.
Speaker 1: Coming up next, folks, I am very excited to welcome
Speaker 1: to okate app daily for the very first time A mirror.
Speaker 1: Rose Davis, who is Assistant Professor of History and African
Speaker 1: American Studies at U Penn, is also the host of
Speaker 1: the American Prodigies a Story, an eight week series look
Speaker 1: at black girls in gymnastics, which is in its third season.
Speaker 1: You're also a mirror the co host of the popular
Speaker 1: podcast Burn It All Down, a feminist sports podcast. Let's
Speaker 1: start with you are a person after my own heart,
Speaker 1: which sounds like you have three and four jobs. I
Speaker 1: would ask if you were like me, if you are
Speaker 1: of Jamaican lineage, because that is our go to. Never
Speaker 1: it is never enough to just do one thing, you
Speaker 1: must do eight. So let's talk first about American Prodigies
Speaker 1: and how this came, how this podcast came to be.
Speaker 1: For sure, I'm not Jamaican, but we do have Caribbean lineage.
Speaker 1: I feel like black women are always kind of primed
Speaker 1: to have multiple hustles. So yeah, Prodigies has been a
Speaker 1: very special project that I've done over the last year.
Speaker 1: American Prodigies is a series on Blue Wire podcast Network.
Speaker 1: The first season was hosted by Grant Wall about freddie Ado.
Speaker 1: The second season was about hen Griffey Jr. And then
Speaker 1: I had the great pleasure of hosting the third season.
Speaker 1: And at first I was thinking about Gabby Douglas. I
Speaker 1: was thinking about these black girl prodigies in sports. Obviously
Speaker 1: I study the intersection of race, gender, sports and politics.
Speaker 1: But as we started getting into it and I started
Speaker 1: interviewing black women and black girls in gymnastics, I was like,
Speaker 1: this sport is set up in a way that if
Speaker 1: you're excelling at all in this sport, you're a prodigy
Speaker 1: because you have to start so young. And we kind
Speaker 1: of blew up the template for the seasons of American
Speaker 1: Prodigies singular and made it American Prodigies plural to look
Speaker 1: at black girless in gymnastics from the nineteen eighties and
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, the early adds up until today. And that's
Speaker 1: what we've done over the last year. Shout out to
Speaker 1: my story editor Jessica Luther and my producers Jessica Bodiford
Speaker 1: and Kelly Hardcastle Jones. The four of us have really
Speaker 1: been in the mud trying to tell these stories that
Speaker 1: oftentimes are muted in our analysis of gymnastics or kind
Speaker 1: of left off of discussions about black girls in sports
Speaker 1: because it's like, oh, that's a white sport. There aren't
Speaker 1: black girls there. And what we've uncovered is that they've
Speaker 1: always been there, they continue to be there. And even
Speaker 1: though right now it feels like black girls are having
Speaker 1: a moment in gymnastics, it's been a long time coming.
Speaker 1: You know, there has often you know, obviously through the
Speaker 1: horrible scandal right UH in the sport of gymnastics that
Speaker 1: really put I think a spotlight onto the treatment of
Speaker 1: these girls, who is silenced, who is not? UM brought
Speaker 1: into also the consideration of economic status right UM and
Speaker 1: how these young girls that ages four, five six years
Speaker 1: old are sent away right to UM to really hone
Speaker 1: their talents and their skills. But then what we've learned
Speaker 1: through the Naser cases then are open to such um
Speaker 1: sexual violence and vulnerabilities, and so UM in in in
Speaker 1: thinking about just how and why gymnastics has been in
Speaker 1: UM in the spotlight for for a while in terms
Speaker 1: of the news. What are some of the things that
Speaker 1: you uncovered um in in the series that has to
Speaker 1: do UM with kind of the the the violence that
Speaker 1: we have learned about, the vulnerabilities and particularly how black
Speaker 1: girls have been situated in particular in the midst of
Speaker 1: all of this. That's a great question. I will issue
Speaker 1: a trigger warning for listeners. I'm about to discuss sexual abuse,
Speaker 1: disordered eating, emotional abuse as well. I think that's one
Speaker 1: of the main questions I had going into this is
Speaker 1: that we had been able culturally to unpack gymnastics as
Speaker 1: a site of harm through the NASCAR case, through even
Speaker 1: in the nineties, little girls in pretty boxes, or these
Speaker 1: ideas that gymnastics is something that grinds you up. And
Speaker 1: I was really stuck with thinking about that inevitable one
Speaker 1: black girl in a gym who was dealing with all
Speaker 1: of those things, and then also layering on racism on
Speaker 1: top of that, And I said, I don't know if
Speaker 1: we've ever asked what gymnastics looks like through the eyes
Speaker 1: of black girls. And so that was really my starting point.
Speaker 1: And a lot of what we uncovered has all of
Speaker 1: these moments where it crashes in to stories that we
Speaker 1: know about gymnastics, but there's just like an added layer
Speaker 1: that they articulate. And so Betty o'kino, who was a
Speaker 1: story gym gymnast, a trailblazer in the early nineties, went
Speaker 1: to the Barcelona Olympics in ninety two. She was also
Speaker 1: one of the first students of the Coroles, which you know,
Speaker 1: they like ran all of American gymnastics. And when I
Speaker 1: was talking to her, for instance, like she was talking
Speaker 1: about disordered eating, she was telling me where she hid
Speaker 1: her food. She was talking about how she was broken down, right,
Speaker 1: how she would be training something that she knew she
Speaker 1: couldn't do, or that she knew she was too tired
Speaker 1: to do, and she would be told to do it
Speaker 1: to the point of injury. Right, the amount of injuries
Speaker 1: people were recapping. And I asked her, you know, she
Speaker 1: talked about how she felt like she had no voice,
Speaker 1: she couldn't speak up. And I said, like, what would
Speaker 1: the consequence be? And she was like, well, it wasn't
Speaker 1: just that I was tall, or that I was brown
Speaker 1: or anything like that. And it's not just that you'd
Speaker 1: be a sassy gymnast, but you'd be a sassy black gymnast.
Speaker 1: You would be, you know, endorsing all the stereotypes that
Speaker 1: they held about you before you walked in the door.
Speaker 1: And the thing about Betty is like Betty was half
Speaker 1: Romanian and so she was in the gym with the
Speaker 1: Coroles while they were talking mess about all of the
Speaker 1: gymnasts in the gym, calling them names, talking about their
Speaker 1: bodies in Romanian. But she could understand, and they just
Speaker 1: didn't think she could because she's black, and they didn't
Speaker 1: expect the black girl just understand Romanian. But she heard
Speaker 1: firsthand right that same level of kind of scrutiny. And
Speaker 1: so we have a point in our conversation that's Betty's
Speaker 1: episode three. Our conversation really talks about the story of
Speaker 1: injury and abuse in that way, and she talks about
Speaker 1: how she when the NASCAR case broke her, even when
Speaker 1: they started scrutinizing what happened at the Coroles ranch where
Speaker 1: everybody had to go train for the national team. She
Speaker 1: there's clips of her on Oprah like defending them, and
Speaker 1: so I had the pleasure of kind of talking to
Speaker 1: her and really unpacking her family, her childhood, and I
Speaker 1: asked her, it feels like the way that the ranch
Speaker 1: was run, it was very similar to how your household
Speaker 1: was run. So I can see as a teenager being
Speaker 1: asked to dismiss all of that was really putting you
Speaker 1: in a position where you had to reflect on childhood trauma.
Speaker 1: And you know, and she talked about her long journey
Speaker 1: to be able to name abuse as abuse, and I
Speaker 1: think that's what we see a lot of times in
Speaker 1: the podcast to other stories that come up mirror that.
Speaker 1: Simone Biles's story, for instance, is all about her as
Speaker 1: a survivor. I talked to her mom, Nellie Biles, for
Speaker 1: that episode, and she's talking about those childs and tribulations
Speaker 1: and what it means to speak out. Or Tasha Swiker,
Speaker 1: black woman who was a victim of Nasser and then
Speaker 1: got her JD and was actually a part of the
Speaker 1: legal team that delivered a settlement to all survivors. So
Speaker 1: black girls are in and of this history, and they
Speaker 1: articulate with pinpoint accuracy how race intersects and and kind
Speaker 1: of expands these traumas that they were unpacking in the sport,
Speaker 1: alongside disordered eating and body scrutiny and you know, exploitation, etc.
Speaker 1: You know, when you bring up UM, the eating disorders,
Speaker 1: UM in particular, I kind of want to delve into
Speaker 1: UM because we know that black women in sports, regardless
Speaker 1: of the sport that you're in, but particularly in gymnastics,
Speaker 1: right your frame um is looked at right in it
Speaker 1: in a certain way. We see this as a culture
Speaker 1: through the experiences, and how Serena Williams and Venus Williams
Speaker 1: have talked about, um, you know, being able to move
Speaker 1: through that outward scrutiny, the just bold racism um and
Speaker 1: so our bodies being too muscular to this to that,
Speaker 1: too big to blah blah blah. How did that? Um? How?
Speaker 1: How how was it that they saw themselves their bodies
Speaker 1: in relation to their peers? Yea, And how did I
Speaker 1: if you're in a space where everything is seemed to
Speaker 1: be normal, right, the hiding of food, the restriction of food,
Speaker 1: the over exertion in terms of of of physical prowess,
Speaker 1: Like if all of these things are considered normal when
Speaker 1: you're in this kind of um compound, right, the ranch
Speaker 1: and these training facilities, how do you know what abuse
Speaker 1: is exactly right? Yeah? And I think like this is
Speaker 1: one of the things that was really great about layering
Speaker 1: experiences because you could see that some families approaches. Right.
Speaker 1: There's an episode episode six follows na Denis and Sophinadjes
Speaker 1: is two of the earliest viral sensations, those videos you
Speaker 1: always see on your timeline. But we also talked to
Speaker 1: both of their mothers, and their mothers had very different
Speaker 1: tactics for attempting to keep their children safe in this sport,
Speaker 1: and so Fina de Jesus's mother, Maria always yanked her
Speaker 1: out of the sport. Right. She was constantly like, that
Speaker 1: was her style of doing it is affirming like you
Speaker 1: that you knew how to lay your baby hairs when
Speaker 1: you went to the ranch in Houston, right, that you
Speaker 1: knew how to retain yourself in these spaces. And other
Speaker 1: people were like, no, we need to play by the rules.
Speaker 1: We need to do this because that's how you're going
Speaker 1: to stay safe. And what we see is that neither
Speaker 1: really matter. When we talk to the gymnast, they talk
Speaker 1: about their hair right all through through every gymnast in
Speaker 1: every decade I talked to, right are talking about the
Speaker 1: politics of their hair being policed in these spaces. The
Speaker 1: first episode of the season is a conversation I had
Speaker 1: with Jordan Chiles, and I talked to her like two
Speaker 1: weeks when she came back from Tokyo from the Olympics,
Speaker 1: and she told me a story she had never told
Speaker 1: anybody before about her early cutting her hair right and
Speaker 1: thinking about all of these ways that they received that
Speaker 1: message that your hair is out of bounds here. Right.
Speaker 1: We talk to people who are trying to reform gymnastics
Speaker 1: judging because gymnastics, like figures getting it's an aesthetic sport,
Speaker 1: which is why figure and frame come into so much
Speaker 1: focus on top of like usual, because it's actually how
Speaker 1: they're judged as well. And so we talked to a
Speaker 1: former gymnast, Jasmine Swinnagan, who's one of three black judges
Speaker 1: in the entire state of Minnesota and is doing work
Speaker 1: to root out bias and judging. And one of the
Speaker 1: things she was telling us is, like, it's so common
Speaker 1: to see your points be deducted because the template they're
Speaker 1: using to judge, say, split legs can't don't you know,
Speaker 1: doesn't account for all that, but right, like doesn't account
Speaker 1: for fuller figures. Judges who are used to like what
Speaker 1: appointed foot needs to look like are taught about like
Speaker 1: looking where the color of the foot is. And she
Speaker 1: had to literally bring in a diagram of a black
Speaker 1: foot to say, don't deduct points because you're seeing two colors,
Speaker 1: because our feet just look like that, right, And so
Speaker 1: thinking about not only the athletes and the sport of gymnastics,
Speaker 1: but all of these other things that factor in and
Speaker 1: are constantly giving you messages that your body's wrong, your
Speaker 1: hair is wrong, your feet are like all of this stuff,
Speaker 1: and it lives on them. They recount it, they talk
Speaker 1: about it, and they talk about also how we're combating it.
Speaker 1: So one of my favorite episodes, the last episode episode,
Speaker 1: it is really about an organization called Brown Girls Do Gymnastics,
Speaker 1: who has been working to provide spaces that are holistic
Speaker 1: for these black girls. They had we went to a
Speaker 1: meet and grambling where the coaches were black, and the
Speaker 1: athletic trainers were black, and the judges were black, and
Speaker 1: they had wacondo leotards, and they had meetings with parents
Speaker 1: about how to navigate predominantly white gym spaces. They've been
Speaker 1: working with HBCUs to develop gymnastics in those programs because,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned earlier, the long history of American gymnastics
Speaker 1: has required you to be in certain spaces that are
Speaker 1: very exclusive, and those spaces are predominantly white, and there's
Speaker 1: a practice of not just enrolling in it and paying
Speaker 1: in it, but literally needing to give your child two
Speaker 1: coaches who supposedly have their best interest in mind to
Speaker 1: this best gym in Iowa, right, like all of these places.
Speaker 1: And I think that you can see the long lasting
Speaker 1: trauma of that really being articulated through some of the
Speaker 1: stories we tell. You know, I think about, now, what
Speaker 1: are some of the differences where you can see and
Speaker 1: I say differences in the way of progress? Right, So
Speaker 1: you have gone through the decades, like you're saying, you know,
Speaker 1: going from the eighties to the earl you know, to
Speaker 1: the early as to now, what are what are the
Speaker 1: indicators that you've seen of progress? Yeah, other other than
Speaker 1: us having a team the Olympic team which looked I
Speaker 1: mean ten year old me who entered a gymnastics gym
Speaker 1: for the first time because I used to watch Nadia
Speaker 1: story on repeat as a as a child and so
Speaker 1: wanted to get into get into gymnastics at that age.
Speaker 1: What are the markers of progress? For sure? I mean
Speaker 1: start with what you just said, the fact that there's
Speaker 1: more visibility, right, And but what we try to really
Speaker 1: push on is just because there's visibility at the elite
Speaker 1: level does not mean everything's good at levels two, three,
Speaker 1: four or five six. I think the work that Brown
Speaker 1: Girls is doing is really UM important. Actually, as we
Speaker 1: were finishing up that episode, Fisk announced the first ever
Speaker 1: women's gymnastics program at at hbcu UM. The coach Connie
Speaker 1: Traversey that they high was the first black gymnast to
Speaker 1: everyone the NCAA All Around title back in the late
Speaker 1: eighties early nineties. She's now the head coach at FIST.
Speaker 1: So we talk about that. That's really kind of poetic
Speaker 1: for me to see happening. I talked to all these
Speaker 1: viral sensations, you know, Hallie and Sophia and Nia, and
Speaker 1: the way that they build a space for themselves within
Speaker 1: an institution, away from the elite space, but still called
Speaker 1: out stuff they were seeing at the collegiate level and
Speaker 1: also figured out what it looked like for them right
Speaker 1: to take ownership of how they love to interact with
Speaker 1: the sport. So Hallie's a choreographer, and Nia is like
Speaker 1: at the met Gala doing gymnastics, and Sophia's in Gatorade commercials,
Speaker 1: and they are really staking their own claim to what
Speaker 1: gymnastics means through their eyes. Somebody like Jordan childs Is,
Speaker 1: you know, has her own clothing line, has her sister
Speaker 1: really intentionally styling her hair, is, you know, not accepting
Speaker 1: these messages is like your hair has to be one way,
Speaker 1: or your body has to be one way, your leotards
Speaker 1: have to be one way. Simone Biles is a blueprint
Speaker 1: for so much of this because she was so undeniable,
Speaker 1: She had a lot of cultural capital, and she has
Speaker 1: spoken out for survivors. She had the Goat Tour, which
Speaker 1: was a gymnastics tour unlike anything we've ever seen that
Speaker 1: wasn't just like the sparkle and frills of the sport.
Speaker 1: There's a whole segment in that show where she's literally
Speaker 1: being chased around by dancers wearing sweatshirts saying your anxiety
Speaker 1: is lying to you. Has a whole discussion of mental
Speaker 1: health in the show, and is really like bringing the
Speaker 1: sport into new ground and talking about mental health, talking
Speaker 1: about wellness in a holistic view, and so all of
Speaker 1: those things for me feel like a new frontier and
Speaker 1: I really kind of mark how recent it has been.
Speaker 1: When talking to recent graduates of UCLA, they said, I
Speaker 1: feel like the freshman when I was a senior. They're
Speaker 1: entering a new day, but it's just like a three
Speaker 1: year turn in the last like five years, right and
Speaker 1: so a lot of the work that we did was
Speaker 1: like giving us this foundation to stand on so as
Speaker 1: we go forward, we're not just like, Okay, here's a
Speaker 1: picture of Simone's gym the WCC with like all these
Speaker 1: black girls who are going to be commedied competing at
Speaker 1: upcoming trials or worlds or whatever, and think that that's enough,
Speaker 1: but really understanding how they went about building that, why
Speaker 1: it had to be build, and how it can be
Speaker 1: replicated so that whether you're a Level one or a
Speaker 1: Level ten, or in college or elite, you have a
Speaker 1: safe space in order to practice the sport you love.
Speaker 1: You know, one of the things that I and because
Speaker 1: you were just speaking about Simone Biles, that I have
Speaker 1: appreciated so much is her openness with regard to talking
Speaker 1: about her mental health. And you know, we saw that
Speaker 1: back you know, years prior. This was after other legal
Speaker 1: conflicts with Michael Phelps having a conversation about depression and
Speaker 1: now being you know, a person that that endorses um
Speaker 1: different like online therapies. You know, there's a part of
Speaker 1: us in society that you know, we hold these athletes
Speaker 1: that are that are at the elite, that are at
Speaker 1: the top of their game as like the model for
Speaker 1: how we all would want to be. Right, Um, look
Speaker 1: at their sacrifice, look at their dedication. But there's a
Speaker 1: part of sacrifice that isn't just about missing you know,
Speaker 1: the prom and the sleepovers and you know, and and
Speaker 1: the entertainment side of youth. But there's a sacrifice of
Speaker 1: their health, of their mental health and wellness and what
Speaker 1: it takes to be at this elite level. What do
Speaker 1: you think about you know, Simone and others being these
Speaker 1: black you know, like athletes with this kind of cultural
Speaker 1: capital to have conversations that are not I don't want
Speaker 1: to say that they're they're still taboo, because I don't
Speaker 1: believe that they are still taboo in the black community,
Speaker 1: but there are not as many notable people that have
Speaker 1: conversations publicly about mental about mental health in the black community.
Speaker 1: So how do you think that that has her openness
Speaker 1: has had an impact not just on the sport as
Speaker 1: a whole, which had was, you know, really grounded in
Speaker 1: a lot of silence, but has had with the black community. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say Simone Naomi Osaka Raven Saunders, black women
Speaker 1: have really been at the forefront of talking about mental
Speaker 1: health in sports and without it. I think that there's
Speaker 1: a real impact that it's having not only in their
Speaker 1: respective sports, but really across like generations. I have a
Speaker 1: lot of athletes I work with doing oral histories with
Speaker 1: from who competed in the sixties and the seventies, and
Speaker 1: over the summer they were calling and wanting to talk
Speaker 1: about mental health and saying that this generation has given
Speaker 1: them a language in order to talk about that. I
Speaker 1: also just think, as you gesture too, it sparks a conversation.
Speaker 1: So oftentimes we talk about sports as a reflection, as
Speaker 1: a mirror, and I oftentimes say what we really need
Speaker 1: to understand it as a laboratory because it can both
Speaker 1: reflect society, but it can also be the place where
Speaker 1: ideas or practices come to fruition and then get pushed
Speaker 1: out to society. And I think that mental health conversations
Speaker 1: is one of those spaces where it's meaningful with somebody
Speaker 1: with their culture, capital, their platform, their visibility to say no,
Speaker 1: to draw boundaries, right to take control of their own narratives.
Speaker 1: Both Simone and Naomio Soccer, for instance, produce documentaries about
Speaker 1: their own kind of journeys and didn't let the media's
Speaker 1: narrative of their mental health or their struggles or whatever
Speaker 1: eclipse what their own truth was. And I think that's
Speaker 1: really a game djur in terms of disrupting the sports
Speaker 1: media complex, you know as it is, and all of
Speaker 1: these things are having effects. I see student athletes, you know,
Speaker 1: at the high school level, college athletes that I work
Speaker 1: with more willing to have these conversations for wherever they're
Speaker 1: at because they're seeing people like Simone have those conversations.
Speaker 1: It's incredibly important. And I tell you the best time
Speaker 1: talking to her mother, who talked about sports psychology and
Speaker 1: talked about how you know, how important for her it
Speaker 1: was to instill these ideas in her kids that you
Speaker 1: can talk to somebody, right, we can talk about these
Speaker 1: issues that if we keep it bottled up like that's
Speaker 1: really harmful. And I know we're talking about this like
Speaker 1: this heavy, but I have to say, like, there is
Speaker 1: joy throughout this podcast, and in particular when I think
Speaker 1: of joy Nellie Biles is just a ray of light.
Speaker 1: And she tells a story that has had me laughing
Speaker 1: for weeks, right about Simone in the bars and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, and I think that that's part of it
Speaker 1: for me too, like, I as somebody who does this
Speaker 1: a lot. Usually when a black woman in sports does something,
Speaker 1: it means that my schedule gets busier. And I found
Speaker 1: myself this summer taking instruction from the athletes I work
Speaker 1: with to say I need my own boundaries, like I
Speaker 1: need to worry about my mental health because I am
Speaker 1: tired right And it's like, I'm not going to sacrifice
Speaker 1: my body, my mental health and wellness anything like that
Speaker 1: for our institution or for this or for the grind
Speaker 1: or whatever. And we joked at the top of the
Speaker 1: show about having a million different jobs, but knowing when
Speaker 1: to be able to say no to the hustle and
Speaker 1: able to say yes to rest has been something that
Speaker 1: has been almost easier to invoke when you see people
Speaker 1: like Naomial soccer Simone Biles doing it. And I think
Speaker 1: that even when we went into making this podcast, my
Speaker 1: producer Jessica Bodiford saying like we have to find the
Speaker 1: joy and not to discount the harm, but rather because
Speaker 1: it coincides and sometimes moving between. It is how people
Speaker 1: have coped and it's also how we wanted to produce it.
Speaker 1: So after every end credits is a moment of joy.
Speaker 1: There's laughter, throughout it. Me and Betty Okino, who are
Speaker 1: birthday twins, have like extreme Gemini energy during our episode
Speaker 1: and we're like laughing and we're talking about really hard things,
Speaker 1: but we're really jovial while doing it, and that's just
Speaker 1: our affect. And I think that that having the ability
Speaker 1: to talk about mental health and to talk about these
Speaker 1: journeys but also holds space with all of these kind
Speaker 1: of layered, complicated things together is what I'm seeing and
Speaker 1: what I'm really appreciative of folks like Simone, you know,
Speaker 1: facilitating you know, more space for that to occur. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's such an important conversation to have, particularly you know,
Speaker 1: even on my show, which I do a terrible job
Speaker 1: of doing, which is the you know, the go between
Speaker 1: between continued conversations on political rage and then the need
Speaker 1: for there to the rest right that you can't be
Speaker 1: in a state of rage all the time. UM And
Speaker 1: so I think that, you know, in every way, we
Speaker 1: try and show some type of balance, like we're all
Speaker 1: full complete humans that have very complicated, layered, you know,
Speaker 1: beautifully tragic stories. Um to to to share, Uh, please
Speaker 1: tell folks a mirror where they can check out this
Speaker 1: incredible layered eight stories. UM podcasts for sure anywhere you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts, which is like the go to easy
Speaker 1: answer now UM it lives all throughout there. Also, if
Speaker 1: you go to the website on bluewire dot com, find
Speaker 1: American Prodigies. We also have transcripts for all our episodes
Speaker 1: there should you want trainscripts or um need to read
Speaker 1: along while you listen. Um. I also created a podcast
Speaker 1: playlist for Spotify that includes episodes of this podcast, but
Speaker 1: also um of other podcas has showcasing black women in sports,
Speaker 1: and that's called hear Us Now. You can search out
Speaker 1: on the Spotify platform, but it's really everywhere that you
Speaker 1: get your podcast. If you follow me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Mira Rose eighty eight or on Instagram Mira Rose six
Speaker 1: I'm so basic right now. Both places have real snippets
Speaker 1: of interviews, links to the show, the show notes, etc.
Speaker 1: I highly recommend it. All episodes are out now and
Speaker 1: so you get eight episodes plus a bonus episode talking
Speaker 1: about what we wish we could have put in the
Speaker 1: narrative pod. And if you subscribe to like Apple's subscription whatever,
Speaker 1: there's bonus episodes which are my extended interviews with gymnasts
Speaker 1: for each episode and it is I mean, I the
Speaker 1: best time talking to these women. I just have to
Speaker 1: tell everybody you have to get Angie Dankins in your life.
Speaker 1: Angie Dankins was being champion in nineteen eighty six. She
Speaker 1: has no filter whatsoever. She is a gem and I
Speaker 1: just want everybody in the world if they don't, if
Speaker 1: you do one thing, please go find this podcast episode
Speaker 1: two and get you some Angie Dakins in your life
Speaker 1: because she is worth everything. I love it so much.
Speaker 1: I'm Nera Rose Davis. Thank you so much for making
Speaker 1: the time to join woke f We appreciate you, thanks
Speaker 1: for having me. That is it for me. Dear friends
Speaker 1: here on woke f as always power to the people
Speaker 1: and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay
Speaker 1: woke as fuck.