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Treatment of South African Runner Shameful, Repulsive
Posted Aug 27, 2009 12:02PM By Kevin Blackstone
It was almost two centuries ago when, I suppose, the first indigenous young woman of what is now called South Africa showed up in Europe and was greeted with ugly fascination. She was paraded around, poked and prodded (sexual assault we'd call it today) because she looked so different than the European aesthetics of a female. Her name was Saartjie Baartman. She was 22 and she became known infamously as Hottentot Venus.
You would think 199 years later that we, as a more civilized society, have moved far beyond that. But the contrails of the world track and field championships that ended last weekend in Berlin are highlighted by an equally disgusting story about an 18-year-old black South African girl named Caster Semenya, who ran away with the women's 800. Semenya is being investigated to see if she is, instead, male.
It isn't the sex testing, however, that is sickening to me. I'm accustomed to that in the sport of track and field. There was a lab at the 2008 Beijing Olympics to inspect female athletes suspected of being males. At the '96 Summer Games in Atlanta, eight participants failed such testing but were cleared upon further examination.
Who wound up investigated in Beijing, Atlanta or Summer Olympics in between, we don't know. Their privacy was respected and protected.
What makes Semenya's case so utterly disgusting is that we've learned of it. She has been all but raped of human dignity, not unlike her countrywoman in Europe in 1810. She reportedly was so shaken by publicizing of her testing that she didn't want to take the podium to receive her gold medal.
It was somewhat unfortunate on Tuesday that it was South African President Jacob Zuma who welcomed Semenya back home and fired a first executive volley at the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) over its acknowledgment of the investigation. Zuma hasn't fared well at standing up for women. He admitted to having intercourse with the daughter of a family friend who charged him with rape. Zuma was acquitted in 2006. Nonetheless, he was spot on Tuesday, even restoring some of Semenya's esteem by referring to her with courtesy.
"Ms. Semenya has also reminded the world of the importance of the rights to human dignity and privacy which should be enjoyed by all human beings," Zuma said, according to The Los Angeles Times. "In recognition of the supremacy of these rights, we wish to register our displeasure at the manner in which Ms. Semenya has been treated."
A South African parliamentary committee for sports announced before Semenya arrived home that it would file a complaint with the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights that Semenya's testing undermined human rights. It reminded one of Rachel Holmes' finding in her book, African Queen, about the charge England's finest actor in the early 19th century, John Kemble, made to whoever would listen about the presenting of Saartjie Baartman upon first witnessing her unveiling.
Semenya is suffering not just from some centuries-old perverted European curiosity with black women's different physiques but also from a 20th century sexist belief that some extraordinarily gifted female athletes are, quite degradingly, more mannish. Babe Didrikson, the first great female athlete of the last century, fought the label her entire life, going out of her way to marry, cook and clean house in order to prove doubters otherwise. Some of the women Martina Navratilova vanquished on the tennis court whispered that she was less female than they were because of her chiseled body and introduction of power to their style of tennis. Dave Zirin and Sherry Wolf reminded in an article they wrote last week for The Nation that 50 years ago an Olympic official named Norman Cox proposed that a separate competition category be established for black women because he believed them to have an unfair physical advantage.
Semenya won her first world gold by running 800 meters 2.45 seconds faster than defending world champion Janeth Jepkosgei, who is also African, a Kenyan. Elisa Piccione, an Italian who finished sixth to Semenya, said of the winner immediately afterward, "For me, she is not a woman." Russian runner Mariya Savinova agreed. "Just look at her," Savinova said.
"She's a girl," Semenya's mother protested to reporters in Berlin last week. "I'm the mother of that girl. I'm the one that knows about Caster. If they want to know about Caster, tell them to come to me."
"Both testosterone and estrogen are found in male and female bodies," Sally Gross, the founder of Intersex South Africa, wrote Wednesday in The Times of Johannesburg, South Africa. "Setting sharp boundaries, whatever the consequences and ignoring the fuzziness, flies in the face of objectivity and is anything but scientific."
But that's inside information, which is where Semenya's story should have remained. Gross knows better than most.
As Gross explained in the beginning of her article, she went through what Semenya is being dragged through now.
Kevin Blackistone
Kevin B. Blackstone is a national columnist and commentator for FanHouse.com. He is a regular panelist on ESPN's sports-debate show, "Around The Horn,'' seen Monday through Friday at 5 p.m. ET. Blackistone currently serves as the Shirley Povich Chair in Sports Journalism at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland. A former award-winning sports columnist for The Dallas Morning News, he currently lives in Silver Spring, Md.
Posted Aug 27, 2009 12:02PM By Kevin Blackstone
It was almost two centuries ago when, I suppose, the first indigenous young woman of what is now called South Africa showed up in Europe and was greeted with ugly fascination. She was paraded around, poked and prodded (sexual assault we'd call it today) because she looked so different than the European aesthetics of a female. Her name was Saartjie Baartman. She was 22 and she became known infamously as Hottentot Venus.
You would think 199 years later that we, as a more civilized society, have moved far beyond that. But the contrails of the world track and field championships that ended last weekend in Berlin are highlighted by an equally disgusting story about an 18-year-old black South African girl named Caster Semenya, who ran away with the women's 800. Semenya is being investigated to see if she is, instead, male.
It isn't the sex testing, however, that is sickening to me. I'm accustomed to that in the sport of track and field. There was a lab at the 2008 Beijing Olympics to inspect female athletes suspected of being males. At the '96 Summer Games in Atlanta, eight participants failed such testing but were cleared upon further examination.
Who wound up investigated in Beijing, Atlanta or Summer Olympics in between, we don't know. Their privacy was respected and protected.
What makes Semenya's case so utterly disgusting is that we've learned of it. She has been all but raped of human dignity, not unlike her countrywoman in Europe in 1810. She reportedly was so shaken by publicizing of her testing that she didn't want to take the podium to receive her gold medal.
It was somewhat unfortunate on Tuesday that it was South African President Jacob Zuma who welcomed Semenya back home and fired a first executive volley at the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) over its acknowledgment of the investigation. Zuma hasn't fared well at standing up for women. He admitted to having intercourse with the daughter of a family friend who charged him with rape. Zuma was acquitted in 2006. Nonetheless, he was spot on Tuesday, even restoring some of Semenya's esteem by referring to her with courtesy.
"Ms. Semenya has also reminded the world of the importance of the rights to human dignity and privacy which should be enjoyed by all human beings," Zuma said, according to The Los Angeles Times. "In recognition of the supremacy of these rights, we wish to register our displeasure at the manner in which Ms. Semenya has been treated."
A South African parliamentary committee for sports announced before Semenya arrived home that it would file a complaint with the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights that Semenya's testing undermined human rights. It reminded one of Rachel Holmes' finding in her book, African Queen, about the charge England's finest actor in the early 19th century, John Kemble, made to whoever would listen about the presenting of Saartjie Baartman upon first witnessing her unveiling.
Semenya is suffering not just from some centuries-old perverted European curiosity with black women's different physiques but also from a 20th century sexist belief that some extraordinarily gifted female athletes are, quite degradingly, more mannish. Babe Didrikson, the first great female athlete of the last century, fought the label her entire life, going out of her way to marry, cook and clean house in order to prove doubters otherwise. Some of the women Martina Navratilova vanquished on the tennis court whispered that she was less female than they were because of her chiseled body and introduction of power to their style of tennis. Dave Zirin and Sherry Wolf reminded in an article they wrote last week for The Nation that 50 years ago an Olympic official named Norman Cox proposed that a separate competition category be established for black women because he believed them to have an unfair physical advantage.
Semenya won her first world gold by running 800 meters 2.45 seconds faster than defending world champion Janeth Jepkosgei, who is also African, a Kenyan. Elisa Piccione, an Italian who finished sixth to Semenya, said of the winner immediately afterward, "For me, she is not a woman." Russian runner Mariya Savinova agreed. "Just look at her," Savinova said.
"She's a girl," Semenya's mother protested to reporters in Berlin last week. "I'm the mother of that girl. I'm the one that knows about Caster. If they want to know about Caster, tell them to come to me."
What makes Semenya's case so utterly disgusting is that we've learned of it. She has been all but raped of human dignity.
Semenya doesn't look like Piccione or Savinova or the East African she beat. She has a more muscular build, speaks in a deep tone that belies Western beliefs about femininity and has some facial hair. Some early leaked test results supposedly show she has more testosterone than normal. So what?"Both testosterone and estrogen are found in male and female bodies," Sally Gross, the founder of Intersex South Africa, wrote Wednesday in The Times of Johannesburg, South Africa. "Setting sharp boundaries, whatever the consequences and ignoring the fuzziness, flies in the face of objectivity and is anything but scientific."
But that's inside information, which is where Semenya's story should have remained. Gross knows better than most.
As Gross explained in the beginning of her article, she went through what Semenya is being dragged through now.
"It brought a brutal end to my career as an academic pedagogue and teacher of philosophy and it killed an almost completed doctoral thesis in which the Oxford University Press had expressed interest. The ostracism I experienced and the shattering of expectations and hopes left me a dead person on leave.
"A few years later, medical evidence documenting the ambiguity of my genitalia led to the denial of any official South African identifying documents, making me a non-person in the South African legal context, unable even to return to my land of birth.
"The two examinations that informed the documentation I was required to submit were respectful and gentle, but I still remember them as deeply traumatizing."
And what Gross was forced to endure wasn't as a teenager on a world stage. Track and field owes Caster Semenya a public apology no matter its findings and should pledge never to allow such an inhumane assault to happen again."A few years later, medical evidence documenting the ambiguity of my genitalia led to the denial of any official South African identifying documents, making me a non-person in the South African legal context, unable even to return to my land of birth.
"The two examinations that informed the documentation I was required to submit were respectful and gentle, but I still remember them as deeply traumatizing."
Kevin Blackistone
Kevin B. Blackstone is a national columnist and commentator for FanHouse.com. He is a regular panelist on ESPN's sports-debate show, "Around The Horn,'' seen Monday through Friday at 5 p.m. ET. Blackistone currently serves as the Shirley Povich Chair in Sports Journalism at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland. A former award-winning sports columnist for The Dallas Morning News, he currently lives in Silver Spring, Md. 
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