This Week In Unpopular Opinions
Rules are rules, even when the rules (or the rule-breakers) stink.
I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality of American politics. If someone sent you this email - or you are a free subscriber - and you’d like to subscribe: you can sign up here.
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In Praise of Sha’Carri Richardson
Earlier this week, the USA Track and Field association announced that 21-year-old track phenom Sha'Carri Richardson has been left off the US team that will compete in the upcoming Olympic Games. Richardson, who last month won the 100-meter dash at the Olympic trials in runaway fashion — and was considered a favorite to win gold in Tokyo — was given a one-month suspension last month for testing positive for marijuana. There had been some hope that Richardson would be allowed to compete in the 4x100 meter relay, but it was not to be.
Richardson’s suspension led to an outpouring of anger and frustration. After all, it’s hard to imagine that smoking pot would help you run faster (based on, um, what I hear, it seems to have the opposite effect). Plus, in the state where Richardson smoked, Oregon, marijuana is legal. At a time when states around the country are legalizing pot, her punishment appears to make little sense.
However, since Richardson is Black it also led to an even more predictable set of responses. In a statement on Twitter, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote, "The criminalization and banning of cannabis is an instrument of racist and colonial policy. The IOC should reconsider its suspension of Ms. Richardson and any athletes penalized for cannabis use." This view has been echoed elsewhere on op-ed pages and across social media.
Put aside the fact that Richardson’s suspension did not come from the International Olympic Committee, but rather the governing body for US Track and Field (USATF), AOC’s argument is simply wrong. Indeed, the track and field association’s statement nailed all the reasons why her criticism is off-base.
“All U.S.A.T.F. athletes are equally aware of and must adhere to the current antidoping code, and our credibility as the national governing body would be lost if rules were only enforced under certain circumstances. So while our heartfelt understanding lies with Sha’Carri, we must also maintain fairness for all of the athletes who attempted to realize their dreams by securing a place on the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Team.”
As President Biden succinctly put it, “The rules are the rules. Whether they should remain the rules is a different issue, but the rules are the rules.”
Even if one thinks the rules banning marijuana are wrong, they are not a surprise to potential Olympians. Legendary swimmer Michael Phelps was suspended more than a decade ago for using pot (though under very different circumstances). These guidelines were not invented to trip up Richardson or other Black track stars. They are a response to the routine use of performance-enhancing drugs by Olympic athletes (and it should be noted that no one has accused Richardson of using pot to enhance her performance). There are many athletes - Black and White - going to Tokyo next month who abided by the stringent anti-doping rules that guide their sports. What message is being sent to them if an exception is made for Richardson?
What is most frustrating about the response to Richardson’s suspension is that the one person who really seems to understand this is … Sha'Carri Richardson. Interviewed last week on the Today Show, she owned her mistake, “I just want to take responsibility for my actions. I know what I did, I know what I'm supposed to do ... and I still made that decision,” she said. “I’m not making an excuse or looking for any empathy in my case.”
Good for her. Richardson could have made excuses. She would have had an amen corner of support in the world of politics and media. Instead, she held herself accountable and took responsibility for the mistake she made. It’s unfortunate that so many of her supporters are making excuses when she is refusing to do so. To be clear, I’m not suggesting that America’s drug laws are not applied in a racist manner or that they may exist for racist reasons. But that’s not the issue here. There’s more than enough racism in American society that we don’t need to raise it on issues where it doesn’t belong. We don’t do any favors to Richardson or other Black athletes by suggesting otherwise.
You don’t have to believe me on this — believe Richardson.
The final irony of this situation is that the World Anti-Doping Agency uses three criteria for deciding whether a substance is banned. The last and most subjective is the determination that “use of illicit drugs that are harmful to health and that may have performance-enhancing properties is not consistent with the athlete as a role model for young people around the world.”
One can argue that Richardson is a flawed role model for smoking pot (though I wouldn’t), but I don't think there’s any question that she is an excellent role model in how she has handled this situation.
Frankly, it’s heartbreaking that an athlete as talented as Richardson, who has worked so hard to be an Olympian, will not be able to compete. I don’t know that anyone is happy with the outcome, but at a time when so many of our political leaders act like the rules don’t apply to them and make excuses for bad behavior, we can all take a lesson from the extraordinary maturity and grace of a 21-year-old athlete.
Guilty Until Proven Innocent
Trevor Bauer, who is a well-compensated pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers, seems like a bit of a jerk. And that’s before reports surfaced last week that he allegedly sexually assaulted a young woman. The story, first broken by the Athletic, is, to put it mildy, unpleasant. It’s also not clear-cut. That Bauer punched, slapped, choked, and had sex with the woman is not in question. What is contested is whether it was consensual.
The alleged victim claims that she consented to sex and even agreed to rough sex but claims that Bauer went far beyond that and almost fractured her skull. The pictures of the victim, which you can find on the Internet but I won’t publish here, certainly suggest that Bauer did more than simply have “rough sex.”
For his part, Bauer’s lawyers claim everything that happened between the two of them was consensual and they made public text message conversations that back up their argument. Those text messages also make clear that the alleged victim reached out to Bauer for a second assignation, even though she later claimed he forced himself on her in their first encounter.
It’s not my place to judge people who like to engage in rough and violent sex. Everyone, I suppose, has their kinks. However, considering Bauer’s track record in degrading and attacking women online and being a misogynist, it does appear that he has some unresolved issues with women. But that doesn’t necessarily make him a predator.
I bring all this up because of a column that appeared this week in Deadspin by Chris Baud. In the piece, he argues that Bauer should never be allowed to pitch again in a Major League baseball game. Such arguments are also quite prevalent on social media and across to sports journalism.
This argument makes me super uncomfortable, particularly because Baud argues that we don’t need to give Bauer the benefit of the doubt or have an investigation. He is a jerk, who has been accused of sexual and violent assault. That’s enough.
According to Baud, “Remember, less than 1 percent of rape cases end in a felony conviction. Nice system you got there, America. Benefit of the doubt? The system makes it virtually impossible to hold someone like Bauer accountable. Our justice system can ‘reasonable doubt’ away anything and find technicalities so that even Bill Cosby can walk. The court of public opinion, and MLB, do not owe Trevor Bauer that.”
The thing is, we do him owe that. I take no pleasure in defending Bauer and Baud is correct about how the criminal justice system deals with rape cases. But he hasn’t even been charged with a crime. The alleged victim sought an order of protection. If Bauer is convicted, or if, after a thorough MLB investigation, he is deemed to have engaged in wrongdoing then I say throw the book at him. But we are not at that point yet.
In fact, I’m not really defending Bauer, but rather the notion that every person has a right to due process and no one should lose their job simply because they’ve been accused of a crime. And that’s also true even if they are charged, unless we somehow believe that prosecutors never make mistakes or decisions based on considerations other than the law.
While I’m sympathetic to the place Baud is coming from I worry about moral panics and mob mentalities. I worry that someone simply being accused of wrongdoing — without an investigation or scrunity — is enough to cost them their livelihood and their reputation. I worry that our anger over the nature of the crime Bauer is accused of, causes us to lose sight of universal values like due process and innocent until proven guilty (both inside and outside the courtroom). We don’t get to suspend the rules either when we think the rule is bad or when we think the person accused of breaking it is bad.
Musical Interlude
Over the weekend I picked up one of my all-time favorite albums on vinyl, Otis Reddin “Live in Europe.” Here is Redding performing “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” at the Monterey Pop Festival. Six months later he was killed in a plane crash. What a tragedy that he died at such a young age.
I also picked up this single and 30 years later it still kills.
Much to my considerable chagrin, Mr. Cohen is right about Ms. Richardson’s suspension, whilst I was initially dead certain, knee jerk, wrong.