Olympic Beauty

I’ve been an avid follower of the Olympic games for most of my life. Watching superbly conditioned athletes strive to excel inspired me to emulate their efforts at my own meagre level. Having participated in competitive swimming and running and also having skied for many years, I can appreciate the intense work and dedication elites apply to their sports and the courage and sacrifice that underlies their achievements. I can also appreciate the perfection in their techniques that we mere mortals can only approximate.

The natural result of their labors is that they all have sculpted their bodies into the most beautiful versions of the human form possible. When they speak it’s clear their superficial manifestation of beauty is matched by inner beauty, the character they have molded within themselves in the process of perfecting their skills. These people likely have little time or energy to waste on the petty disputes and prejudice that consume so many of us.

There is beauty in the sportsmanship, mutual respect and affection that is so clearly manifested in the congratulatory hugs between even the most “bitter” of rivals. Those hugs are exchanged between athletes of all hues without hesitation or revulsion.

Here is where we begin to appreciate what has become, to my mind, the most beautiful thing of all.

Over the course of the past few Olympic games, we have seen more and more mixed race competitors, their features made more beautiful by racial blending. Increasingly we see White athletes married to Black spouses, Black athletes married to White spouses and competitors cheered on by parents who have intermarried. The extended families shown cheering from home often include individuals of various races as well.

Beauty also resides in those who happen to be “purely” one race or another. Today, to my eyes, the beauty of every racial type is evident. This was not always the case for me, but, thankfully my attitude has evolved. When I go to the YMCA in my ethnically diverse community I observe diverse ethnic types engaging in their workouts. Each of them, of all races and nationalities, emanate their own particular brands of beauty. I draw no greater gratification from whatever else I have achieved in life than I do for having arrived at this state of mind.

Despite fierce resistance among older hard corps conservatives and poorly educated younger ones, racial blending and tolerance have become the present reality and will be the future of our country. We must choose a leader fit for that future. The choice now is between two diametrically opposed options. One candidate is a mixed race woman married to a White Jewish man. Observe the optimism, the inner strength and joy that animate her lovely face and motivate her lifelong service to the nation. Contrast this against the sneering, miserable, pasty mug of her greedy, self-serving, lying opponent, and tell me which of them you wish to be the face of America’s future.

While White nationalists are still living in 1936 when Hitler refused to shake Jesse Owens’s hand, from what we are witnessing on the playing fields of Paris, it is clear we have come far from Berlin and from the streets of Little Rock and the bridge at Selma.

The beautiful fellowship of the Olympics gives us hope that the days of the haters are numbered.