Nappy Gabby!

While following the Olympics, the big stars of the games have lived up to their advanced billing. From Usain Bolt to Michael Phelps, decorated Olympians have shown their stuff in front of the whole world. Gymnastics is usually a marquee event at the games. Countless female gymnasts achieve stardom while competing including: Mary Lou Retton, Dominique Dawes, Kerri Strug, and Shawn Johnson. This years phenom is Gabby Douglas. The sixteen year old for VA became the first Black gymnast to win gold in the all-around competition! I was excited to see her do it, not only for my country, but also, being Black myself, i wanted the Sistah to succeed! Yet all anyone could talk about was how the girl's hair looked. Apparently, Gabby's hair was too nappy for some people's liking. What bothers me the most about this is that Black people were very prominent in making these ignorant and ridiculous remarks about a sixteen year old who should be lauded and celebrated throughout the country! What was she suppose to do, wear a weave? Or was she suppose to have braids? Gabby can do what she wants with her hair and we as Black people should be proud to have her winning and our race being shown doing something positive as oppose to the constant negativity you see on the nine o'clock news! Conversely, we as Americans should be proud of Douglas for bringing home the gold for us and acquitting herself graciously (as have all of her teammates). The Gabby Douglas "nappy hair story" brings to light a larger issue in our country and especially in the black community. We need to end the "crabs in the barrel" mentality and use our people's successes as inspiration to do better! While it's one thing to condemn buffoonish behavior, it's another to just be mean-spirited and ignorant, which is not uplifting to the black race!