In just 10.86 seconds, Sha’Carri Richardson made history when she crossed the finish line for the Women’s 100-meter dash at the U.S. Olympic track and field trial. In an instant, the 21-year-old became an overnight sensation as she set her sights on representing the nation in Tokyo.

“I just want the world to know that I’m THAT girl,” she exclaimed to the world, as fans and onlookers fixated on her poise, ambition, and, yes, bright orange hair.

But only a few days later, the world received very different news: Richardson was suspended for a month over a positive marijuana test, which ultimately resulted in her complete exclusion from the Olympic Games.

Her story became an all too familiar symbol of the barriers that Black women have to endure in every sector of life, including elite sports. Time and time again, the select obstacles reserved for Black women athletes are harsh reminders of the hurdles Black women have to continuously clear — on and off the field.

Just this year, the International Federation that governs swimming (FINA) banned swimming caps designed for natural Black hair because the caps did not “fit the natural form of the head.” The decision was telling because of whose hair — and heads — were excluded from FINA’s definition of “natural.” FINA decided to reassess the ban only after its initial decision was met with backlash. Shortly after the swimming cap ban, two Namibian runners were disqualified from the Olympics for their natural testosterone levels — reinforcing the harsh reality that the policing of who counts as a “woman” has always been deeply racialized. And when hammer thrower Gwen Berry practiced her right to peacefully protest racial injustice at the track and field trials, some lawmakers called for her to be removed from the Olympic team altogether.

The very differences that are overlooked, and even celebrated for other athletes, are weaponized against Black women. Take Michael Phelps’ “unique genetic blessings,” including unusually long arms, double-jointed ankles, and a body that produces half the lactic acid of the average athlete. Phelps has been praised as a marvel for these genetic mutations, which enhance his ability to excel in his sport. Meanwhile, athletes like Christine Mboma and Beatrice Masilingi — whose bodies naturally produce testosterone at a higher level than the average woman — are shamed and ultimately disqualified from competing at all.

The double standard is glaring: Black women are required to alter their bodies and practices, inside and out, simply to step onto the playing field. And once they finally have a spot, their achievements are denied and their work is undermined, punished, and disqualified for reasons that are profoundly unfair.

Richardson, for example, has said she used marijuana (a depressant) for relief from what she described as “emotional panic” following the news of her biological mother’s death only days before the race. Her resilience in the face of the tragedy took center stage during her post-event interview when she broke the news about the passing. While many sympathized with her situation then, little grace was offered when it came to how she chose to grieve, even though there still remains no scientific evidence that marijuana can create bigger, stronger, or faster athletes.

Richardson’s exclusion cannot be divorced from racial disparities in marijuana enforcement, however. Even though Black people and white people use marijuana at similar rates, Black people are still 3.64 times more likely than white people to be arrested for marijuana possession.

Richardson’s excellence challenges notions of white supremacy — making her success a threat to the very Olympic team that she qualified to be on. In fact, the legacy of chattel slavery in the United States burdens Black women because of their race and their gender. From generational wealth inequality — caused in large part because they carry the biggest burden of the student loan debt crisis — to the increased violence against Black women, nearly every system in America has failed Black women. The International Olympic Committee shouldn’t be one of them.

Although Sha’Carri will not compete in Tokyo, she isn’t giving up. Instead, she’s looking ahead to next year.

“I’m sorry, I can’t be y’all Olympic Champ this year but I promise I’ll be your World Champ next year,” she wrote on Twitter.

But the International Olympic Committee doesn’t have to wait until then to address the exclusionary effects of its policies, as Black women across the country make clear that they will no longer be pushed off the podium.

With 233 mass shootings so far this year, the issue of gun violence in the U.S. is all too familiar. Tragic events like the Pulse nightclub and Parkland shootings go from being media spectacles to quotidian events at an alarming rate in a country that often heralds the Second Amendment above meaningful safety for all its citizens. The vigilantism of widespread gun ownership puts Black Americans in an especially vulnerable position given the brutality and human cost of discriminatory policing.

The gun violence epidemic continues to spark debate about the Second Amendment and who has a right to bear arms. But often absent in these debates is the intrinsic anti-Blackness of the unequal enforcement of gun laws, and the relationship between appeals to gun rights and the justification of militia violence. Throughout the history of this country, the rhetoric of gun rights has been selectively manipulated and utilized to inflame white racial anxiety, and to frame Blackness as an inherent threat.

In this week’s At Liberty podcast episode, you’ll hear from historian Carol Anderson, author of The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America, and Charles Howard Candler, Professor of African American Studies at Emory University, who interrogates the elegiac worship of the Second Amendment and how racism determined its very inclusion in the Bill of Rights.

Do Black People Have the Right to Bear Arms?

Do Black People Have the Right to Bear Arms?

In 2021, the U.S. experienced over 200 mass shootings. Americans are more likely to be killed at the hands of firearms than in vehicles. This years-long gun violence epidemic continues to spark debate about the 2nd Amendment and who has the right ...

In 2021, the U.S. experienced over 200 mass shootings. Americans are more likely to be killed at the hands of firearms than in vehicles. This years-long gun violence epidemic continues to spark debate about the 2nd Amendment and who has the right ...

Listen to this episode

I never thought I would be a cautionary tale. More than that, I never thought I’d have to explain to my daughters why their daddy got arrested in front of them on our front lawn. How does one explain to two little girls that a computer got it wrong, but the police listened to it anyway — even if that meant arresting me for a crime I didn’t commit?

This is what happened to me: As I was getting ready to head home from work one day in January of 2020, my wife called me and told me that a police officer had called and said I needed to turn myself in. She was scared and confused. The officers called me next, but wouldn’t explain why I was supposed to turn myself in or what I was accused of, so I thought it was probably a prank. I couldn’t imagine what else it could be. But as I pulled up to my house, a Detroit police squad car was waiting for me. The squad car swooped in from behind to block my SUV — as if I would make a run for it. One officer jumped out and asked if I was Robert Williams. I said I was. He told me I was under arrest.

By then, my wife, Melissa, was outside with our youngest in her arms, and my older daughter was peeking around my wife trying to see what was happening. I told my older daughter to go back inside, that the cops were making a mistake and that daddy would be back in a minute.

But I wasn’t back in a minute. I was handcuffed and taken to the Detroit Detention Center.

As any other person would be, I was confused, scared — and yes, angry — that this was happening to me. And as any other Black man would be, I had to consider what could happen if I asked too many questions or displayed my anger openly, even though I knew I had done nothing wrong.

When we arrived at the detention center, I was patted down probably seven times, asked to remove the strings from my shoes and hoodie, and fingerprinted. They also took my mugshot and DNA sample. No one would tell me what crime they thought I’d committed.

After that, a full 18 hours went by. I spent the night sleeping on the cold concrete floor of a filthy, overcrowded cell next to an overflowing trash can. No one came to talk to me or explain what I was accused of — or why. Meanwhile, my family spent the night at home without me, scared for me and for what my false arrest would mean for all of us.

I eventually got more information after the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan connected me with a defense attorney. Someone had stolen watches, and the store owner provided surveillance footage to the Detroit Police Department. They sent a blurry, shadowy image from that footage to the Michigan State Police, who then ran it through their facial recognition system. That system incorrectly matched a photograph of me pulled from an old driver’s license picture with the surveillance image.

I’ve since learned that federal studies have shown that facial recognition systems misidentify Asian and Black people up to 100 times more often than white people. Why is law enforcement even allowed to use such technology when it obviously doesn’t work? I get angry when I hear companies, politicians, and police talk about how this technology isn’t dangerous or flawed or say that they only use it as an investigative tool. If any of that was true, I wouldn’t have been arrested.

What’s worse is that, before this happened to me, I actually believed them. I thought, “What’s so terrible if they’re not invading our privacy and all they’re doing is using this technology to narrow in on a group of suspects?”

Lawyers at the ACLU and the University of Michigan’s Civil Rights Litigation Initiative filed a lawsuit against the police department on my behalf, but winning that case can’t undo the damage to me and my family. My daughters can’t unsee me being handcuffed and put into a police car. They continue to suffer that trauma. For example, after I returned from jail, they started playing cops and robbers games where they tell me that I’m in jail for stealing. And even today, when my daughters encounter the coverage about what happened to me, they are reduced to tears by their memory of those awful days. We just don’t know what kind of long-term impact this might have on them; we do know that this was their first ever encounter with the police.

But my daughters can see me use this experience to bring some good into the world. That means helping make sure they don’t grow up in a world where their driver’s licenses or Facebook photos could be used to target, track, or harm them — or anyone else. That’s why I brought the case with the ACLU and it’s why Congress should stop law enforcement from using facial recognition technology. As it is, it’s just too dangerous.

I keep thinking about how lucky I was to have spent only one night in jail, as traumatizing as it was. Many Black people won’t be so lucky. My family and I don’t want to live with that fear. I don’t want anyone to live with that fear. Congress should do something to make sure no one else has to.