The situation Sha’Carri finds herself in wreaks of hypocrisy and privilege and racism.
Today, there are only 5 states in which marijuana usage is fully illegal. In total, 27 states have either legalized it or decriminalized it – not accounting for medical usage.
States which have legalized it have reported collecting billions of dollars in taxes. Dispensaries are popping up everywhere.
The pot business has become a legal multi-billion dollar industry, dominated by white middle and upper class “entrepreneurs,” capitalizing on their class and race privilege to get in on the rush.
Meanwhile, Black and brown folks in states with 3 strikes laws sit in prisons, sentenced to decades for possession, distribution and/or usage. And Sha’Carri, the US’s fastest runner, will most likely be banned from competing at the Olympics even as well-to-do white people continue to capitalize on the industry.
It’s important to note that THERE IS CURRENTLY NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE SHOWING THATMARIJUANA ENHANCES ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE
So, whatever your personal opinions on pot, the accusation that Sha’Carri’s pot usage somehow enhances her athletic ability, is LITERALLY an unscientific and therefore baseless claim. It doesn’t increase oxygen intake into the blood. It doesn’t increase testosterone or adrenaline levels. It doesn’t decrease the production of lactic acid or enhance endurance.
The policing of athlete pot usage is both classist and racist. Before pot became popular and wealthy and white, it was brown and Black, used for recreation in the early 1900’s by Mexicans and then Black folks on the jazz scene. Like most everything else, white people criminalized it then appropriated it. During the Great Depression, the federal government scapegoated Mexican and Blackcommunities for the country’s woes and then white suburban kids who wanted to express their privilege by openly rejecting their parent’s values, began to use it.
Like most other systemically racist institutions, the US Anti-Doping Agency and USA Track and Field enforces and reinforces fundamentally racist policies, without regard for real-world, science-based considerations. It doesn’t matter that she learned of her mother’s death at a competition, on camera, during an interview, from a reporter she did not know because, historically, Black suffering has been ignored, downplayed and mythologized into super human ability to endure pain. A stereotype that ensures Black women are more likely to die during childbirth and that Black patients frequently don’t receive adequate pain management care before, during and after medical procedures.
Sha’Carri tweeted Sunday “I am human.” An apt point for the millions of white people who get high on high-end baked goods as they judge Black folks for selling drugs.
Her one-month suspension ends JUST before several events she may qualify for. I know she has a dream but I hope she walks away and denies this country the glory of her excellence.
Feature By: Clayton P. Carroll II
