Posted on 02/13/2022 8:12:32 AM PST by entropy12
BEIJING (AP) — Erin Jackson became the first Black woman to win a speedskating medal at the Winter Olympics.
A gold one, at that.
Jackson won the 500 meters Sunday with a time of 37.04 seconds, giving the American speedskating program its first medal of the Beijing Games and first individual medal since 2010.
But this one meant much more than national pride.
The 29-year-old Jackson, a former inline skater who switched to the ice shortly before the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, joined fellow American Shani Davis as the only Black athletes to win long-track speedskating medals at the Olympics.
Now, she wants others to follow their path.
“Hopefully, this has an effect,” Jackson said. “Hopefully, we’ll see more minorities, especially in the USA, getting out and trying these winter sports.”
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Good for her, but the colors I care about are Red, White, and Blue.
I won 3 down hill skiing medals, but they were definitely not olympic class, they were just during NASTAR races, during my dozens of ski trips to UP Michigan & upper Wisconsin, when I lived in Chicagoland. I won 2 bronze and 1 silver medals.
Great photo of American flag she is holding over her head.
Love the photo.
Good for her - but she got it because of her hard work and effort.
Not because of the color of her skin.
Meritocracy, baby!
Thumbs up! The amount of effort/work that took to win is awesome, as for all these athletes. YOU GO GiRL!
Meritocracy! Absolutely! No race based or gender based or national origin based (Hispanic especially) quota’s.
Indeed.
First black this.
First black that.
First black...whatever.
Why does it make a difference?
If someone reports that So-and-So is the first black person to state openly that black-on-black violence is a critical problem or that black people are the most racist in our country...wake me up because I'd have to be dreaming.
Sounds like a complete racist to me. Does not deserve to wear the Red White and Blue.
“Hopefully, this has an effect,” Jackson said. “Hopefully, we’ll see more minorities, especially in the USA, getting out and trying these winter sports.”
Blacks are making great strides from the days of out right discrimination and slavery. Good for them. I hope soon there will come a time when race will cease to be a news item in America.
Like the liberals always say, she’s a “credit to her race.”
I disagree. Since no American blacks ever won anything in winter Olympics, this is a news-worthy item. Days of out right discrimination (such as for whites only drinking fountains) and slavery are now history and that shows goodness of America. No other country fought a civil war to eliminate slavery.
The Olympic games are on?
Who knew?
Yes, liberals in general are more obsessed with race than conservatives.
Right about red, white and blue. But those colors would be missing from the winner’s ceremony podium without this athlete who must have worked very hard to win the gold medal.
More impressive to me is that she is from Ocala, Florida.
I remember when Vanetta Flowers, the black women from Alabama, won her gold medal in bobsled in 2002. The media were pumping her about being the first black to ever win a medal in the Winter Olympics. She said something to the extent, “That’s all well and good but I’m an American and that’s what matters most.”
Could not have been happier for her.
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