The Min­strel show, min­strel­sy, and, in par­tic­u­lar, black­face min­strel­sy where per­form­ers in black­face played char­ac­ters that per­pet­u­at­ed a range of neg­a­tive stereo­types about African Amer­i­cans in­clud­ing be­ing lazy, ig­no­rant, su­per­sti­tious, hy­per­sex­u­al, crim­i­nal, or cow­ard­ly.

Thomas Dart­mouth Rice, an ac­tor born in New York, is con­sid­ered the “Fa­ther of Min­strel­sy.” Af­ter trav­el­ling to the South and ob­serv­ing slaves, Rice de­vel­oped a Black stage char­ac­ter called “Jim Crow” in 1830.

The his­to­ry of the Civ­il Rights Move­ment, Jim Crow and Black Code as per ex­cerpts above can be found do­ing desk re­search in­clud­ing books, es­says and ar­ti­cles. It’s un­easy and un­com­fort­able read­ing, re­flec­tion and study. Even though it pro­vides nec­es­sary con­text for any­one in­ter­est­ed in bring­ing aware­ness to five cen­turies of sys­temic racism and dis­crim­i­na­tion and struc­tur­al so­cial, eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal in­equal­i­ties that are still very much alive in con­tem­po­rary life in­clud­ing glob­al sport.

The April 1968 as­sas­si­na­tion of Dr Mar­tin Luther King Jr was the cat­a­lyst for a mul­ti­tude of race ri­ots in cities through­out the USA. One of the most icon­ic Black Pow­er demon­stra­tions took place at the 1968 Sum­mer Olympic Games in Mex­i­co City when John Car­los and Tom­mie Smith raised black-gloved fists in the air on the medal podi­um.

In 1972, Vince Matthews and Wayne Col­lett’s peace­ful demon­stra­tion on the medal podi­um dur­ing the Mu­nich Olympics re­sult­ed in the two black Amer­i­can ath­letes be­ing banned for life from the Olympics by the Av­ery Brundage-led In­ter­na­tion­al Olympic Com­mit­tee (IOC).

An un­just ban that is still in place. Why is it un­just? Be­cause even with the pas­sage of time, more in­for­ma­tion and knowl­edge of the con­text and lived ex­pe­ri­ences of what the Black Amer­i­can ath­letes were protest­ing. The IOC and the Olympic Move­ment con­tin­ue to be un­moved and adamant.

 In turn­ing away from is­sues re­lat­ed to racism and dis­crim­i­na­tion we ei­ther in­ten­tion­al­ly or in­ad­ver­tent­ly con­tribute to the car­i­ca­ture of glob­al sport as a 21st-cen­tu­ry ver­sion of the 19th-cen­tu­ry and ear­ly 20th-cen­tu­ry Min­strel Show and black­face min­strel­sy.

In­ter­na­tion­al and Con­ti­nen­tal Sports Fed­er­a­tions can seize the op­por­tu­ni­ty and the time to turn things in a dif­fer­ent di­rec­tion. Some will some won’t. In the quest to ad­dress sys­temic, in­sti­tu­tion­alised and struc­tur­al racism and dis­crim­i­na­tion, it’s a snake pit and or like swim­ming with sharks.

Every­body’s got their knife, and they are ready to stab you in the back. It’s an en­dur­ing chal­lenge. There are so many gift­ed young peo­ple of colour, nav­i­gat­ing a sys­tem and World that his­tor­i­cal­ly can of­ten seem in­flex­i­ble to their needs. Life is com­plex, the hur­dles to suc­cess are re­al, and the path is sel­dom clear.

Every­one in the Olympic Move­ment ecosys­tem makes ex­cus­es and de­fends the scripts writ­ten to jus­ti­fy where the move­ment is and what we do. If you be­lieve a dis­tor­tion or lie long enough it be­comes the truth. Mask­ing our in­com­pe­ten­cies, mis­takes and fail­ures by over­am­pli­fy­ing our com­pe­ten­cies and suc­cess­es. We are all sus­cep­ti­ble to Con­fir­ma­tion Bias - on­ly pay­ing at­ten­tion to in­for­ma­tion that con­firms our opin­ion, way of think­ing, and our be­hav­iour.

One may ask why? Why is this so? Why is there this deep-stat­ed un­will­ing­ness to re­al­ly do a deep dive in­to erad­i­cat­ing and dis­man­tling five cen­turies of sys­temic racism and dis­crim­i­na­tion?

I be­lieve it’s dri­ven by fear - the fear of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, ex­po­sure, change and ac­count­abil­i­ty. The Olympic Move­ment is no dif­fer­ent as an or­gan­i­sa­tion and in­sti­tu­tion from any­one of us in­di­vid­u­al­ly. We all have fear that di­rects our lives and keeps us from chang­ing, lim­its our growth and caus­es some of us to nev­er live to our fullest po­ten­tial. All of us dur­ing the arc of our life here on moth­er earth has a choice. We can stay afraid, or you can de­cide to face your fears and make a change.

The change that mat­ters may re­quire a small leap of faith by imag­in­ing an Olympic Move­ment that is in­clu­sive, di­verse - free of, racism, sex­ism - and all forms of dis­crim­i­na­tion.