As it turns out, the hard part for U.S. Olympian Gwen Berry hasn’t started yet.
The raised fist at the Pan-Am Games last …
As it turns out, the hard part for U. S. Olympian Gwen Berry hasn’t started yet.
The raised fist at the Pan-Am Games last summer, along with the public shaming she received from Olympic authorities afterward, followed by the wondering about what might happen if she were to use her platform at the now-postponed Tokyo Games to protest all that seems easy now.
“I feel like, right now, my body and my mind, it’s like I’m going to war,” Berry told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “I’m trying so hard to protect something that is near and dear to me.”
the mother of a 16-year-old son — who captured headlines last year when she used her turn on the gold-medal podium at the Pan-Am Games to raise her fist as a show of her frustration with America’s treatment of blacks.
Her gesture, to say nothing of the punishment that came afterward, are all being seen in a new light these days, in the wake of the killing of George Floyd — a tragedy that has sparked protests across America while also compelling hundreds of commissioners, leagues and players in the sports world to respond.
To Berry, the statement from the U. S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee — that the federation “stands with those who demand equality” — was galling. It came less than a year after the USOPC put Berry on a 12-month probation for her gesture at the Pan-Am Games. The letter CEO Sarah Hirshland sent Berry that day said that while she respected Berry’s perspective “I disagree with the moment and manner in which you chose to express your views.
