Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn
Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn
Art, Appropriation or Ridicule: Did Raygun Break Breakdancing?
Can you imagine Leslie on a pommel horse? This week’s Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn kicks off with some fun banter about the speed of current events, namely the closing of the 2024 Paris Olympics. Of course The Besties have opinions. In particular about gymnast Jordan Chiles’ lost bronze medal and the performance of the Australian breakdancer Rachel Gunn.
Cultural appropriation, misappropriation, and privilege enters the conversation to take the listener deeper (because that’s what The Besties do).
This episode and all previous episodes are available on YouTube. Please join our Besties Quad Squad as a Patreon subscriber at the $5 or $10 monthly level. You'll receive exclusive behind-the-scenes content.Tags: 2024 Paris Olympics,misappropriation,appropriation,breakdancing,bronze medal,Jordan Chiles,Raygun
Visit Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn website for behind-the-scenes extras.
That's why I don't do gymnastics.
Speaker 2:I gave up my pommel horse. A while back I gave up my vault and my balance beam a couple years back. It's not that funny. It's not as funny as you're making it, it's so funny.
Speaker 1:It's so funny because you don't know what's in my head, but I have grace and poise that you have no idea about.
Speaker 2:Hey Ang, hey Ange, hey Les, how are you Doing great? You're looking good, pal. We're both doing a great thing, thank you, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Not indicative of the mood though no, not at all, Not at all.
Speaker 2:Welcome to another episode of Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn, brooklyn.
Speaker 1:It's back, it's back, it's back. I missed it so much. I'm Angela and that's my bestie, leslie. We are two free-thinking Black women and we invite you to join us, to think deeply and act boldly. If you are an inquisitive older woman, or if you love one, or if you want to be one, please hang with us for a little bit. You'll be glad you did.
Speaker 2:So please take a moment to like subscribe and hit the notification button so you'll be notified when we post new content. All right, do it now. Do it now, yes, and when you do that, it encourages youtube to share us with others thank you, thank you, thank you all.
Speaker 1:right, listen, there's been a lot going on, a lot going on, and our phone's been a chatter. It has been.
Speaker 2:YouTube's been a chatter, the phone's been a chatter, twitter's been a chatter. X, I should say no, I like Twitter better.
Speaker 1:You know, I've been on it only a few times and not to post anything, just to read content, Scoop stuff out yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, I don't know, it's just territory. I'd rather not. I'd just rather not. I hear you. Anyway, a few things we wanted to talk about today, because it's going to be like a medley of current events, stuff that, yeah, there's a lot going on in the world, there's a lot going on, there's a lot.
Speaker 2:How going on? There's a lot. How many days has it been since um joe biden stepped down?
Speaker 1:no, I think about two and a half, three weeks. Maybe can you imagine I can't, I can't speed at which the, the um, the campaign, it's the tide of the campaign has changed completely, completely, yeah, yeah and you know, when I'm looking at stuff, usually it's on youtube. I now look and if it's more than four days, honestly it's old news, that's old oh my god, the news cycles are just like spinning and spinning, running to keep up crazy it's crazy, I it's crazy.
Speaker 1:I was watching something and I've also been looking at the Olympics, because I don't have cable. And I've been interested because, you know, I'm Jamaican and I love to watch track and field, but I haven't seen anything live, I've just gone on YouTube. I see yeah, do you know what I mean To consume content there, and so sometimes after you look at two or three things, you look and it's like oh, that was four years ago.
Speaker 2:You mean Usain Bolt isn't the fastest man in the world, oh man.
Speaker 1:Who's this Lyle's person? What is going on? I know what is going on, so you had something that was of interest to you in the Olympics. A couple of things actually. Which one do you want to jump into?
Speaker 2:first Okay, okay.
Speaker 1:You know I'm laughing, so I know which one I want to talk about.
Speaker 2:And I'm going to make you wait just for that, because I know what you're laughing at. So I want to talk about Jordan Childs, the American gymnast who Sure Missed a bronze medal. Then, under protest, she under review, I should say, of her scores she obtained a bronze medal Right Then, under further review, she obtained the bronze medal right then under further review. She lost a bronze medal and, okay, under re-review it looks like she's gonna retain her bronze medal what?
Speaker 1:when did that? What am I talking about? So, what you're talking about, let us know.
Speaker 2:Okay, take it to the videotape. So what happened was for people who really don't know. I'll just say real quickly when Jordan Childs was initially scored for her I believe it was the floor routine she apparently was underscored because the judges did not take into account the level of difficulty and award her the amount of points the level of difficulty and award her the amount of points so she needed. She got an extra 0.1 point for level of difficulty.
Speaker 2:So it took her score from. I think it was a 13.666 to a 13.766. I heard a comment to say if I got that 666, that devil's number, I wouldn't have accepted it either. Don't give me that devil's number, so anyway. So when her score was increased to the 0.1 to 766, she actually bested the Romanian athlete and won the bronze.
Speaker 1:Okay, got it.
Speaker 2:Then it came out that her coaches actually put in the protest four seconds too late after the allotted minute of protest time. Okay, Four seconds. Four seconds because there are rules and if you're going to protest a score. It needs to be within a certain amount of time, and I think I agree with that you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I get it. It's just to me four seconds.
Speaker 2:Four seconds was too late, so anyway.
Speaker 1:Well, I just mean, I just mean whose clock you know like.
Speaker 2:But, as you know, there's an official clock for these things. But you're right, it ain't? You know? Perhaps my I watch, or Apple it's? You know my janky. No, no, um. So anyway, because it was the um, the contested um score came in four seconds too late. Jordan chiles um did not in fact win the bronze because the protest was too late and they were going to award it, in fact, to the romanian. Again, a commenter I heard it was Karen Hunter said if somebody came for my bronze medal I don't know where it is, I can't find it, you're going to have to pry it from my cold live hands.
Speaker 2:I am not returning, I just don't know where it is Sorry.
Speaker 1:But anyway, I have a question, I have a question. So the but the error was made. It's not like the error was made in by the judges. There was an error made.
Speaker 2:Right. I don't know if it's called an error, but there is a time and ability to appeal and reconsider.
Speaker 1:Yes, but so I don't know if so they.
Speaker 2:So there was improper judging Exactly. I hear you that was a rule too.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let me put a bow on the whole story.
Speaker 2:Yep. So as a result of the four minute four second delay, she actually did not win because her prior scores were reinstated. Okay, wait, there's more. Okay, they went to the videotape. Go to the videotape. And they went in and looked at when the the trainers and coaches actually approached the judges. The time stamp is on the video and it was in fact within 60 seconds of scoring.
Speaker 1:wow, wow, not four seconds too late I have to ask something with all of this scrutiny, why did it? And all of these lights, camera action? I'm wondering how the judges did not have access to something to help them to see that. I mean, how much did they?
Speaker 2:investigate to actually Right. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, I just you might be opening up a whole can of worms. Just stop. You know, as a what I, what I, what I'll say is that we don't know how much scrutiny was given to these things. I don't know how much. It's a huge deal. Jordan Childs, the African-American young lady from I don't know what state she's from, but she's American, she's American. I'm not sure how much scrutiny or detail or concern this issue was given. Obviously it's going back and forth, but the last that I heard was that the bronze score, bronze medal is retained and obviously this issue is not over. But it's very interesting and not only does it speak to timekeeping and in gymnastics, but the whole games.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, to all of the scores and protest times and things like that. So I'll let those people figure that out and things like that. So I'll let those people figure that out. But she already did a lot of media circuits, so it would be really unfortunate if she were to lose it. But also, you know, if the Romanian won fair and square, according to all of the rules and legalities, she too should retain a medal. If she's do it. That's why.
Speaker 1:I don't do gymnastics.
Speaker 2:I gave up my pommel horse.
Speaker 1:a while back I gave up my vault and my balance beam a couple years back. I didn't want this to happen. I felt that I was going to be scored unfairly.
Speaker 2:So speaking of unfair scoring.
Speaker 1:Wait, I'm just having a vision.
Speaker 2:It's not that funny. It's not as funny as you're making it, it's so funny. It's so funny because you don't know what's in my head, but I have grace and poise that you have no idea about. But anyway, speaking of scoring. Have you ever seen anyone get a zero for a score in the Olympics?
Speaker 1:I don't see, this one almost took me out. It almost took me out and just just when I thought, just when I thought nothing more, nothing more could be said, done, um, uh, yeah, yeah. What on God's green earth? Literally green earth, because that's the color. What on God's green earth?
Speaker 2:Australian Rachel Gunn, known affectionately to her fans as Ray Gunn, is an Australian, I'm not even going to say. I'll say she's an Australian, but I won't say she's an Australian breakdancer. She's well she's a professor. She's a professor of culture and has studied what they call breaking in the Olympics.
Speaker 1:Who know? Breaking the culture of who? No, breaking the culture of of no.
Speaker 2:The Olympic event is not called break. Dancing it's called. It was called breaking. Got it and her, her research, her her she's a professor of what I think something similar to culture Cultural studies. Let's say she has a dance history and shall I say appropriation or leave that part out.
Speaker 1:It's coming, it's coming.
Speaker 2:It's coming. Australian Olympic contestant who entered the breaking realm and her performance. It almost seemed like it was a joke to me, but I think she was serious and she got a zero.
Speaker 1:She got a zero for every round.
Speaker 2:For every round, but someone told me that she made it to the quarterfinals or something. I'm not. I don't know about that.
Speaker 1:I didn't see it live. It's the first time that breaking was in the Olympics, so I can imagine that there were. You know, there's still kind of growing pains around how you score and all of that, all of that stuff.
Speaker 2:That might be so, but I watched the live breaking and I got to tell you it was. I think it was phenomenal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2:Here's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:I know people performed well. I know people performed well. What I'm saying is that, in order to kind of figure out because when you do it you can see athleticism, you can see creativity and things like that I'm just saying in terms of setting almost a baseline of what is, um, you know what's a zero and what's a 10? I'm just saying I think they struggled. After a while I stopped looking at her and I tried as much as I can to look at the audience to see how they were responding to it.
Speaker 2:And how were they responding? Because I didn't see it.
Speaker 1:I couldn't really make it out. It had to have been. Wait, let me go back a little bit. So she not only she has done extensive research on break dancing in particular and wrote a 300 and something page dissertation for her PhD about this.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And and it is said that I see you being very diplomatic- I'm trying, it is said, I'm really trying. One can say I'm really trying because this is a scholarly discussion. It is said that she was introduced to breakdancing by her boyfriend now husband, so I was like I'm holding him responsible, yeah, but you know what.
Speaker 2:Let me just say a couple of things Now I'm going to just. Ok, so she's apparently this scholar, whatever, but I'm. I have a problem with what she did, for several reasons. Yeah, one, the olympics is. I'm not particularly a sports person, but I I understand the import of the olympics. Right, olympics, it's like, are you messing, mucking around with the Olympics? Right, right, you know, and so you have to take it with the degree of reverence that it's due for the Olympics. All right, I mean to be these break dancers from the Bronx that you know for years and years. This is their life.
Speaker 1:And this is what they do, right? It's not about the Olympics Black Americans impacting culture, global culture, mm-hmm, that, this thing that we used to see all the time. I mean just on the street, walking to school, on the street, walking in the park.
Speaker 2:These skilled people doing these moves, and now it's at the Olympics. Okay, okay, there's a couple of things to be said about that. Should it be at the Olympics? Okay, okay, there's a couple of things to be said about that. Should it be at the Olympics?
Speaker 1:Why not? I'm just, why not? Well, I'll tell you one thing I never questioned that.
Speaker 2:We know, not everything is for everybody.
Speaker 1:I get it, but there are people who actually and we're going to be talking about the Harlem Shake and I'll tell that story oh, not everything is to everybody, yes. However, there are people in other parts of the world who are expert at I mean when I saw it.
Speaker 2:I saw it hit hard. It hit everybody, oh yeah. When this craze hit, it hit hard. It hit everybody, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that is where I have the problem, because all of these things now are coming into question. Should it have been there? You know, it has risen to the ranks, let's say, of this major global sporting competition. Yeah, yeah, right, because it's incredible skill. It's incredible skill, so I don't I'm. I think it absolutely deserves to be there, just as much as snowboarding or just as much as you know other things. And skateboarding Is skateboarding in the Olympics. I don't even as being a sport, you know.
Speaker 2:An athletic endeavor.
Speaker 1:Practice and blah, blah blah, exactly right, and where you can elevate the game and all of those things. And that is where I have the biggest, biggest problem with what she did. You mean that?
Speaker 2:she was allowed into that realm. Well, not that she was allowed into it. No, no, it was minstrelism. What?
Speaker 1:No, but seriously, I, my braids are are making noises.
Speaker 1:Anyway, my, my thing is I was looking at her perspective Right, and I looked at the people who were supporting her and at her and her. What she had written in response to the, the low back across, and some of the things I wrote down, is you know, she called herself the underdog. She wanted to make her mark. She wanted to move differently. This was art for her. Was that the kangaroo thing? She knew that. She knew that she couldn't compete athletically and so she decided to move differently and make it into a work of art. And people said that she was being very courageous and her final message was don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. You never know where it will take you.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm all for that. You know, those are qualities that I appreciate.
Speaker 1:Yes, but that is why those are qualities that I, too, would appreciate, but that is why I got the most angry, because this ain't yours, this. To me, it showed a lack of respect for the craft. I agree, when you decide because you can't compete on the level that it deserves, on the athletic level that it deserves, you're going to decide to make it. It ain't yours.
Speaker 2:It's not yours to make it whatever you want. Change it to an artistic versus athletic, exactly, and then yeah, and what?
Speaker 1:makes you think it's yours.
Speaker 2:But here's something that you've told me in many other settings. Here's something that you've told me in many other settings when people before she got, before Ray Gunn got to this performance that's what she calls herself, before she got to this, before she shot to fame, it's just Many people around her had to say, ok, yeah, yes, I mean somebody, she was backed, she was supported. I mean she represented Australia, so a lot of eyes were on her before she got to the center stage and did what she did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and size.
Speaker 2:Well, that's just it, that's just it. Well, that's just it, that's just it. It's the same thing that we talk about when the commercial of, of the people in blackface for the for the gap sweater or whatever it was, the designer sweater. There had to be a room full of eyes on these items, on these issues, before they get to where they are, to present themselves as buffoonery or exactly appropriated or whatever it is right um right right, and I, yeah, I think there's a degree of privilege in the fact that, oh my gosh, she was allowed to do I wouldn't even say compete do what she did.
Speaker 2:Do what she did. And then the lack of the temerity and the lack of humility to say you know, I'm sorry, you know whatever to push back in the wrong and strong attitude. You know, it certainly says something about her and her ilk.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it fits into the long line of um, wherever the outsiders who come into communities or come into an understanding of another's culture and believe that they are now of the culture because they've researched it, because they've and now they can be the ones to extend the culture. That, to me, is where the privilege comes in and we see it.
Speaker 2:We see a lot. There is now beau derrick and the braids. Oh, just just over. We can just go on and on and on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or I mean even stuff that we don't see. You know, we don't see readily in academia it's. It's like these professors, these, these researchers go into these communities and then it's becomes oh I'm, I'm the, I'm the expert, I know more about them than the people themselves. I know how to cure them, I know how to make them, you know, civilized, I know how to, and it's the same idea.
Speaker 2:That reminds me of these problems that we would incur. And it wasn't obvious, it wasn't overt when, as a medical missionary, I would go to these third world countries to provide medical care and to say third world anymore.
Speaker 1:I want to be politically correct. There's a more appropriate term. Well, my children have corrected me on that. I don't remember.
Speaker 2:Well, let me know, I'm old, I'm old, I'm old. Forgive me, but anyway, I'm still saying Oriental.
Speaker 1:No, you're not.
Speaker 2:Leslie Please don't do that, that's not the kind of show we have. You know how my Nana, margaret, my great grandmother for those who don't know it is. We're colored people, you know, and you know anyway. But when we would go to these places not necessarily in my group, but these saviors, to save these people who are, who don't have medicine, knowledge and who don't have the natives, and you know they're all folk ways we are coming in with our Western sensibilities and our medicines and our equipments to heal people. And what have you, when these communities have been healing themselves for years and years? So, unless we collaborate and respect their cultural norms and ways, that there's not healing, not true healing, going to happen. So again, you know, we have to that's a good analogy we have to be mindful of what we're bringing to these tables, you know and just the broader ideas around appropriation.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I mean when you think of what's his name? What's his name? Come on, angela. What's his name? Elvis Presley.
Speaker 2:You know who just-.
Speaker 1:Oh we can talk all about yeah, grab grabbed the stuff and just ran with it, and you know I was thinking about this the other day too. It's not that you know, side by side two performers Elvis Presley and a Black person doing the original person I can't think of any of the names right now, but if they were side by side that the audiences wouldn't have preferred him versus her right. But the thing is, why can't we just have a fair game? Why can't we have a fair game? Why do things have to be stolen all the time? Why, if you're that good, you shouldn't have to steal. You shouldn't have to steal Anyway.
Speaker 2:I digress, you're getting into a whole other. That's the next podcast, but we're out of time. We are at the end of our session.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, we didn't talk about the Christians. For Kamala, we'll have to do that next time and we will, because, guess what?
Speaker 2:We Christians for Kamala are not going anywhere. We are not, we are not. Anyway, thank you for listening. Don't forget to press like, subscribe, subscribe and get notifications of when we post new content. We look forward to a dialogue leave your comments.
Speaker 1:Um, if you are listening to us on your favorite podcast platform, you can head on over to our youtube channel and leave a comment on um to share your perspective on what we talked about here today. Great thanks for joining.
Speaker 2:All right, this has been another episode of Black Boomer. Besties from Brooklyn, brooklyn.
