“People don’t understand what it’s like to have to…go in front of the world and put on a face and hide my pain,” she told Today at the time.
Just as quickly as she became a household name, Sha’Carri was seemingly written off. While many online defended her, others, she says, suddenly turned their backs on her. “That entire situation taught me to look into myself and to see that I have to be grounded, because do you see how fast they flip?” she says.
Sha’Carri is right; people will flip fast, especially on Black women, especially when we make a mistake. “It almost seems like we have to be superheroes,” Sha’Carri says. “It’s just irritating because you take away the abilities, you take away the speed, you take away the talent…and we’re still human.”
And that’s exactly what Sha’Carri reminded everyone as news was breaking about her positive drug test. “I am human,” she tweeted.
This misogynoiristic double standard became apparent yet again when Kamila Valieva — a white Russian skater who competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing — tested positive for trimetazidine, a performance-enhancing heart medication that is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency. Fifteen-year-old Kamila tested positive for the substance in December, but her test results weren’t revealed until after the Games had started in February. By that time, she’d already helped the Russian Olympic Committee earn a gold medal in the team figure skating event. Despite the fact that Kamila broke the rules, the Court of Arbitration for Sport lifted her temporary suspension, allowing her to continue to compete at the 2022 Olympics. By contrast, Sha’Carri Richardson, who tested positive for THC after smoking marijuana to cope with her biological mother’s death, wasn’t allowed to compete in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
“Can we get a solid answer on the difference of her situation and mines? My mother died and I can’t run and was also favored to place top 3," Sha’Carri wrote on Twitter the day Kamila was cleared to compete. "The only difference I see is I’m a Black young lady.”
Many have expressed that the situations aren’t a one-to-one comparison: Kamila is a minor who competed for a country with an ongoing record of illegal doping — so much so that Russia was banned from the Olympics and currently competes under the Russian Olympic Committee. Also, each athlete’s punishment was considered by different organizations. But the way that several people were willing to defend Kamila without hesitation, the idea that banning Kamila might cause “irreparable harm” while banning Sha’Carri was seen as due punishment, and the fact that Kamila was allowed to compete signifies a double standard. (A few days after her tweet about Kamila, Sha’Carri tells Teen Vogue she doesn’t have anything else to add beyond what she said on Twitter.)
The World Anti-Doping Agency’s marijuana ban is currently under review after backlash to Sha’Carri’s exclusion. Additionally, several people online have said that Sha’Carri is owed an apology now that Kamila was allowed to compete. But it seems as though Sha’Carri is moving on with or without one because she’s learned how to practice radical self-love.
“How I show myself forgiveness is honestly by acknowledging it first, acknowledging the situation for what it is, acknowledging my responsibilities in it, and talking about it to the people I feel like it impacted besides myself,” she says. “When I had the entire situation of being banned from the Tokyo Games, the people who I talked to first were the people who I felt like were with me the most on the journey. I apologized to them first. I felt like they had to hold my shame as well, in a way — or my guilt, in a way. Acknowledging them made me feel like it was okay within myself…and [I] actually allowed myself to feel those emotions. That whole situation was a very big growing and touching experience for me and my community.”
About a month after the photoshoot, Sha’Carri and I are chatting again, this time over Zoom. I ask if her recent work of holding herself accountable involves thinking about a previous offensive tweet that she made, and some of her social media interactions that have been heavily criticized. Regarding her tweet, which has been called hom*ophobic, Sha’Carri says, “I was 15 at the time." And as for the aforementioned problematic social media interactions regarding the appearance of certain Black women, Sha’Carri says, “I’ve actually posted several things empowering Black women, for example, when I did place ninth place [at the Nike Prefontaine Classic] and I did congratulate [the] Black women [who] won.” Sha’Carri says that the positive things that she posts go unnoticed because they’re not considered “as exciting.”
