Unlike many, I am not mad at Rachael “Raygun” Gunn, the Australian breakdancer who has gone viral at the Olympics. Her moves were, probably unfairly, compared to a kangaroo.
I will admit her version of breakdancing did seem somewhat comical.
It was hard to tell while watching her performance if she was completely serious. Supposing that all athletes who reach the pinnacle known as the Olympic games are serious about their respective sport, Gunn must have been serious, too.
But her commitment to her performance does not minimize the fact that many onlookers were essentially hurt.
Breakdancing was once a revered dance form that was born alongside hip hop. Created from the need to tell the untold stories of urban neighborhoods, hip hop has become everyone’s music.
That Gunn would take on break dancing is not strange. It’s popular. It’s cool. It looks like a lot of fun.
While I do believe Gunn’s performance was unexpected, to say the least, I also believe there were bigger lessons we could take away from the Olympics.
Lesson one: brilliance does not have a zip code. Or a home state or country. Greatness abounds across this planet.
So does tenacity, grit, talent, skill, determination, will and strength.
One of the greatest aspects of the Olympic games is that countries from around the world are represented and have a chance to compete for the top prize.
Rebeca Andrade, a gymnast from Brazil, won gold for her floor routine. In what I am sure will become an iconic photo, America’s Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles bowed to Andrade on the Olympic podium. Their combined joy in the moment was palpable.
Andrade’s rise to win the most medals for her country teaches us what is possible. She grew up in a favela, an underserved neighborhood in Brazil. If she can achieve, so can others who come from her area.
The Olympic games teach us that a Pakistani man, Arshad Nadeem, can be the best in the world in his sport. Even though Nadeem’s home village lacks adequate electricity, cooking gas and roads, he rose to the top of javelin throwing to win his country’s first medal in 40 years.
If we can see and accept Nadeem’s triumph, why is it so hard to accept that a kid who was born poor and not in a preferred skin color, could earn their spot at an elite university?
Maybe they are the best at what they do regardless of their background. Maybe that kid deserves everything they have worked for. Maybe a woman of color is the best candidate to be a CEO or a president.
At the very least, maybe we can stop discounting people because of where they were born or what they look like.
Lesson two: we’re not so different after all.
Though we may speak different languages or come from different parts of the world, many of us want the same things. We want to live well and contribute to our communities.
It seems so easy to cheer for others during the Olympics. We can root for the underdog even when we never heard from them before. We can even accept defeat when one of our own homegrown star athletes has been bested by someone from across the world.
If that is the case during the Olympics, why do we have such a hard time believing that people of all races have a lot more in common?
The lines that separate us are arbitrary. Even our DNA proves that any two humans are 99.9% identical.
In my humble opinion, all the backlash against DEI means we missed the point of the Olympic Games.
Anyone from anywhere can be great. The only obstacles we face are the ones we create.
Contact Editor-in-Chief Camike Jones at camikej@indyrecorder.com or 317-762-7850.
