Linford Christie's reaction

[Mankyfoot]

C'mon Linford

Black people competing in sport and it being unfair is, I think, a relatively recent, post equality legislation whinge, propagated mostly by white men who are annoyed things aren't still going their way in every walk of life any more.

But not being invited to the White House was about racism and a still segregated America. It had nothing to do with a perception that Jesse Owen's abilities and successes as an athlete were inherently unfair because he was a black man.

That being said, Jesse Owens' story of his life post those Olympics breaks my heart and makes me all the more angry that McKinnon is trying to co-opt his experiences.

What McKinnon has done here is the same tactics as when TRAs equate sharing changing rooms with lesbians to sharing changing rooms with men who ID as women. White women should push back every time we see this, the same as straight women should push back when lesbian women are being used to try and make their argument. The common factor is that all women are equally female irrespective of our race skin colour or sexual orientation.
Racists/sexists such as McKinnon do this all the time to women like Serena, a powerful strong black woman so a double whammy there. He's a despicable human being.

WTF would have been the only appropriate response when the idea to allow some men to compete in women's sports was first suggested. Followed by Nah, fuck off.

But not being invited to the White House was about racism and a still segregated America. It had nothing to do with a perception that Jesse Owen's abilities and successes as an athlete were inherently unfair because he was a black man.

That being said, Jesse Owens' story of his life post those Olympics breaks my heart and makes me all the more angry that McKinnon is trying to co-opt his experiences.

Thanks, this first parapgraph was how I intended to answer and you beat me to it (likely much more eloquently than I would have as well!)

Agreed with the second, which is why I was cautious to say the US still did and had a lot of issues with racism. Taking Owens to the Olympics does not mean they didn’t. Owens life following the Olympics is a clear example of that.

I'm confused

WTF is the reaction I expect from people upon hearing McKinnon type bullshit. also a lot of TRAs seem racist, have seen many times 'excluding transwomen from womens changing rooms is exactly the same as excluding black women'. Erm, no, not even close.

Totally right Toxteth I agree.

Toxteth
I just read the synopsis of Jessie Owens life post gold medal. So sad.

I also read the wtf to be peak trans.

He isn't thick

Bits of him are, if I remember rightly

Bits of him are, if I remember rightly

Oh dear...

Linford has experienced a lot of racism much of it centred around the fetishisation of his body.Linford Lunchbox hahahhaah no one said that shit about Seb Coe did they.

Exactly. Many women crushed on both these athletes at the time (me included) but only one got reported like that.

Excellent posts Toxteth.
If you have the stomach for it, there is a whole thread on the Amber Rudd interview in AIBU, with various people being told that we must have misremembered ‘coloured’ being acceptable in even the 1970s, let alone more recently. One poster has accused another of being ‘unhelpful’ because she is not personally bothered about being described as coloured. Etc.

To be fair, Linford did tend to wear more tight fitting lycra running shorts and the rate of movement in sprinting vs middle distance meant that there was more "swing" so to speak, both things making it a bit more obvious . I can't recall anyone making similar comments about other sprinters at the time like John Regis, or Colin Jackson in the sprint hurdles.

@WarpedGalaxy I know precisely why the NAACP say they want to keep the name. I have black friends in America who disagree with them. It is what it is. But it indicates that one size does not fit all, is it were, when it comes to linguistics.

That aside, I still don't see any other take on what LC said with his WTF other than the very obvious one.

Yes, Allergictoironing, but to be fair, references to the size of black men's penises are in fact crude racial sterotypes.

"He worries that for all he has achieved he will be remembered most of all for being 'Lunchbox Linford'. After he won his gold medal in Barcelona, The Sun devoted a page to Christie's genitals, euphemistically describing them as his lunchbox. A photographer turned up at Christie's celebrations carrying a lunchbox and expecting him to pose with it."

That was The Sun's decision, to focus on his genitals, and to call them his 'lunch box'.

You can't say 'well they don't talk about 's penis' and somehow blithely assume that these tabloid decisions are made in a vacuum.

He won the biggest athletics event on earth, and The Sun devoted a page to his dick.

There you go: books.google.co.uk/books?id=NGmGAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA145

Peagreen oh I completely agree it was Bad And Wrong to focus on his genitals rather than his sporting achievements, and The Sun were totally out of order.

Completely agree with these posts about the fetishisation of LC's body. Remember feeling aware of it at the time, even though I was quite young.