Opinion | Simone Biles and the New Black Power of ‘No’

When superstar gymnast Simone Biles withdrew from team competition this past week at the Tokyo Olympics, citing emotional exhaustion that was hampering her ability to perform, the world gasped. It seemed not to know what to make of a top athlete — and, in Biles’ case, a cultural phenomenon and a singular force in gymnastics — choosing to step away from a game while it was still in play, especially the Olympics, the most venerated of sporting events.

And yet it made perfect sense. Biles was simply saying “no” to the enormous pressure, physical and psychological, that an event like the Olympics demands. In many ways, she’s lucky. As a giant of gymnastics who’s already proven her superior talent with a whole history of gold medals behind her, she had the option of exit — she could write her own ticket, so to speak. But she wasn’t stepping down just because she could. Biles is part of a new, more subtle chapter of Black activism that is elevating personal reflection and self-care over the emotional stoicism and resilience that has long been a feature of Black struggle, and of Black success.

The fact it’s happening among Black athletes like Biles and tennis star Naomi Osaka is no accident. Admitting vulnerability was always anathema to Black Americans striving to win in all kinds of hostile environments, most vividly the fight for civil rights in the 1960s that required nonviolent protesters to remain impassive. But it was perhaps especially anathema to athletes striving to win, period — cross the finish line, put points on the scoreboard. In 2021, thanks to the Black Lives Matter ethos of acknowledging and centering Black humanity, that old approach is being turned on its head: Admitting vulnerability is becoming a strength. It is progress of a particular kind. For a renowned athlete like Biles to inhabit uncertainty at the height of global expectations for her affirms Black humanity — and humanness — in a way that street protests, for all their political importance, can’t.

Chalk it all up to the increasing fatigue of representation. Carrying the banner of America and all the ideals therein has always been problematic for Black people. But these days, it can be downright traumatizing. That trauma was on full view earlier this week, when two Black police officers, Harry Dunn and Aquilino Gonell, testified before the new House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection, speaking about what they experienced on that fateful day in the Capitol. Their straightforward, detailed descriptions of how they were assaulted, set upon and repeatedly called the n-word by a rabid, mostly white mob were horrifying; to watch the officers tear up in pain and anguish at the memories was beyond poignant. Their emotional vulnerability was well-earned, and perhaps overdue. Cops are not star athletes, but they are authority figures charged with upholding American ideals, in this case with holding the line of democracy — a Herculean task that goes well beyond an Olympian one.

The officers appeared at moments to be at wit’s end — a place Black people are supposed to avoid at all costs. Distress is what Black people are never supposed to acknowledge, either to the world or to themselves, even though distress, discouragement and despair come with the territory of being Black in America. For that reason, not displaying or succumbing to such feelings has long been a key part of racial struggle. Although we think of them now as billionaire celebrities, athletes have always been intimately acquainted with this struggle. Jackie Robinson broke the color line in Major League Baseball, but not without epic, sometimes violent harassment from white fans and fellow players. Not complaining about it was part of his job, though stifling all that emotion likely contributed to his poor health and early death at 53. Long before Biles, Muhammad Ali declared himself the greatest of all time, a decidedly un-stoic stance that made him a hero — among Black people. That he was a converted Muslim who also opposed the war in Vietnam guaranteed suspicion, if not downright enmity, among whites. That was Ali’s aim in the era of Black Power; a former Olympian, he later actively rejected carrying America’s banner, literally and otherwise. His self-definition was pioneering, but it came at a price: As the greatest, he could never show vulnerability or hesitation. He declared himself a Black Superman and then had to live up to it.

Yet Ali, like Jackie Robinson, expected the weight of the world to be on his shoulders. Biles might have expected the same thing — it’s hard to imagine otherwise, given the hype surrounding her in Tokyo — but she’s breaking a new path by being among the first to publicly admit that the weight can be too much, and that it’s OK to put it down for a moment. Or longer. Describing the self-doubt that led to her leaving the team competition (she later also pulled out of the individual all-around competition), Biles stressed the need to put self-preservation over performance, or proving her worth. “I didn’t want to go out there and do something dumb and get hurt. It’s not worth it,” she said. “We’re not just athletes, we’re people.”

Of course, that message was entirely lost on her conservative critics, chiefly white men like Charlie Kirk and Piers Morgan. Kirk trashed Biles as a “national embarrassment,” while Morgan said she “let down [her] country.” Aaron Reitz, Texas’ deputy attorney general, declared her a “national embarrassment.” (He later apologized.) While there’s room for discussion about Biles’ decision, comments like these feel rooted in ancient, racist assumptions that Black people are inherently incapable of representing America at all.

The silver lining of the overt racism infecting a good half the country is that it has prompted new and sustained levels of activism among Black athletes. NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick started taking a knee during the national anthem in honor of Black victims of police shootings back in 2016 — and taking lots of heat for it — in turn emboldening other elite athletes in other sports to speak out as concerned Black citizens, and to back up their concern with action. Biles is part of this new tradition. Her thoughtful but resounding “no” is the result of a new kind of soul-searching that, more and more, looks inward, rather than out at the world, for direction. The existential problem is no longer about Black people integrating into the country, but about the country integrating into them.

Right-wing pundits can carp all they want about Biles’ fitness to represent, but the accusation has lost its moral force, if it ever had any. In taking her angst seriously, Biles is rejecting the blanket shame that’s been foisted on Black people, whether they win or not. It’s about time.