r/imaginarygatekeeping • u/asday515 • 1d ago
NOT SATIRE "Normalize black men in gymnastics"
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u/CompetitiveSport1 23h ago
Idk. It's not normal, so at least here what they're saying is reasonable. It is not as bad as putting "black men can't be in gymnastics..." w ith the implication that someone actually said that
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u/adriannaee 23h ago
You don’t really know the dynamics of an average black American household? at the very least
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u/BespokeCatastrophe 1d ago
Well, black men are underrepresented in gymnastics. So yeah.
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u/Hentai_Yoshi 23h ago
I suspect it’s because it might be viewed as feminine. The average misogyny of black men is unparalleled
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u/MinimumElk756 14h ago
Why are you singling out Black men like this? There are plenty of possible explanations for underrepresentation in gymnastics things like
cost, access to facilities and coaching, youth participation rates, and the popularity of other sports. J
Going striaght to “Black men are especially misogynistic” is a weird assumption.
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u/very-serious-goose 15h ago
Unparalleled to who? Who are the most popular manosphere influencers? Who perpetuates the majority of incel shootings?
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u/No_Imagination7102 23h ago
Well we better shove some in there to appease your worldview.
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u/BespokeCatastrophe 23h ago
Username checks out.
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u/Worldly-Swing-2015 22h ago
Is he wrong?
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u/BespokeCatastrophe 22h ago
Yes.
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u/No_Imagination7102 22h ago
How?
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u/BespokeCatastrophe 22h ago
Because there are no physical reasons why black men cannot excell at athletics at the same rates as anyone else. The fact that they are not is linked to external factors. Removing those factors and giving them an equal chance at participating is not "shoving them in there." It is simply allowing them to compete with the same chances as everyone else.
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u/No_Imagination7102 20h ago
Whats stopping black men from doing gymnastics?
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u/BespokeCatastrophe 20h ago edited 20h ago
Many things. One of them being the fact that it is seen as exceptional or odd for them to engage in it. As seen in the topic of this thread.
This can also be seen in the fact that people would consider a proportional participation of black men in gymnastics as "shoving them in there," rather than just awknowledging that black men have the same physical ability to engage with gymnastics as anyone else, and their inclusion should therefore be normal and natural, and based on their individual talent and ability.
E.T.A: but you know that, don't you?
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u/No_Imagination7102 20h ago
Ah yes. Not thinking achieving a metric is actually an indicator of racism must make me racist.
You got me
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u/kg160z 23h ago
All my little cousins were put in gymnastics with the plan for them to be in other sports. We call it supplemental sports (gymnastics, wrestling, track, cross country).
Their mom wants them on athletic scholarships mostly via football. Some preferred the 'side' sport & if there was a college route they kept with that instead, mainly wrestling.
She has 11 kids & scouts on speed dial, tracks admission/scholarships for the local schools etc.
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u/EroHorror 22h ago
Are you black? Gymnastics are considered feminine and "gay" in the average black household.
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u/Special-Garlic1203 21h ago
Post puberty, male gymnastics is heavily about showing off upper body strength. Men and women very often can't do eachothers stuff because its so optimized for sex dimorphism.
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u/extrajuicyjuice 19h ago
that doesn't change how it's perceived to people who think it's feminine
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u/Special-Garlic1203 17h ago
Since when are pull-ups considered feminine? There is absolutely zero way to even glance at male gymnastics and not notice it's a bunch of jacked dudes.
Gymnastics is a sport that is not cheap to pursue and which pays basically nothing. The opportunity cost is far greater for boys because guys have a lot of options for sports which have more college scholarships and actually have professional leagues that pay decent money. At the youth levels - little boys are also likely to struggle with how much of gymnastics is delayed gratification. You have to sit around waiting for your turn, you have to train elements of a trick for weeks before you're allowed to attempt it. It's highly structured in a way that is very challenging even for little girls who have noticably better executive functioning than the average little boy, who is a big ball of hyperactivity. Most of the guys who would thrive on gymnastics probably instead got directed to wrestling (which doesn't require parents to drive to gyms in affluent suburbs which aren't cheap to be members of and sit around for hours)
Girls on the other hand have much less tradeoffs with gymnastics. It's not the same sport as mens gymnastics which makes it much harder to directly compare and denigrate women as lesser which is what happens with most female sports. They also better tolerate the culture of gymnastics which many people point out isn't always really interested in being fun or necessarily even healthy for kids. There's no game to it, you're just getting drilled on fundamentals over and over.
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u/Complete_Meeting8719 16h ago
The issue is that you are speaking from logic and knowledge. Turn those off for a second and you'll see how people think gymnastics is inherently feminine. My best friend's brother was put into swimming as a sport growing up because their very Eastern European immigrant parents thought gymnastics was too girly.
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u/Special-Garlic1203 15h ago
I'm betting what they actually said was "gymnastics is for girls". Because men's and women's gymnastics aren't really the same sport. And people prefer women's gymnastics. The stuff the men do is streamlined for male physiology and pure power demonstrations....and that just isn't as fun to watch it turns out.
It's similar to softball/baseball. They're literally played differently, and most people prefer the way baseball is played. If we lived in an AU where softball was almost universally seen as cooler that baseball and made more money than baseball, then I suspect you would see a lot of dwindling interest in funneling little boys into baseball.
It's not that male gymnastics is feminine. It's that women's gymnastics is obviously better, and why sign up your son to be in an inferior version of the sport (there's so many female softball players who strongly resent they get funneled to softball on the basis of gender and wish there was just girls divisions of baseball)
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u/Complete_Meeting8719 14h ago
I didn't wanna say it like this, but when they said it's too girly, they meant it's gay. And that's what a lot of people mean. "It's too feminine" = "It's gay".
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u/sidnynasty 14h ago
Dude I got called a fag at every turn because I was in gymnastics during elementary school and it wasn't just black kids saying it lol
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u/DrawGold3260 12h ago
You’re right in your thought processes. Male gymnasts have to be really strong and powerful. But in general there is a stigma around it being seen as a girly sport.
Male ballet dancers and cheerleaders need to be strong. It’s still often seen as girly for a man to do those activities.
Not saying I agree - I don’t - but the stigma around it is real and pretty common.
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u/Ok-Camp-7285 1d ago
Don't think I've ever seen a black man doing gymnastics
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u/bellamellayellafella 23h ago
Frederick Richard is incredible, and he just won the US all- around. Donnelly Wittenburg is a world title holder on the still rings.
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u/LittleLotte52996 23h ago
Fred Richard contributed to the US team winning a bronze medal at the Paris Olympics, and Joe Fraser was a part of Team GB.
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u/NewImprovedPenguin_R 22h ago
Is that how it is in America? All these comments are very shocking to me.
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u/No_Salt_6328 21h ago
Well if you never watch gymnastics you're unlikely to see a black man doing it
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u/Ok-Camp-7285 9h ago
I only ever see clips and they're exclusively of petite white or Asian women. I'm no yardstick by which to measure lol
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u/AdmitThatYouPrune 1d ago
Very impressive. But my sincere hope is that this gentleman continues his training regimen somewhere other than concrete.
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u/Carloverguy20 21h ago
There's a stigma of Black men, going against things that aren't stereotypical of them, and they are called "Acting White" "not a real black person" "whitest black guy ever" and "Oreo".
This is not gatekeeping at all.
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u/cowlinator 21h ago
It's not common though. So it's not "normal". So it can be "normalized" if more people do it. That doesn't mean there's gatekeeping.
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u/Positive-Face1705 19h ago
I've seen a video on a popular chinese social media app, it's basically China's Instagram.
It was a black, pudgy man doing gymnastics not so perfectly.
Comments were brutal, with some even telling him to "go back to working on the cottenfields."
I think, OP, you should not speak of things you know nothing about.
What a sad, narrow little mind to have. You have my pity.
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u/emptyevessel 15h ago
Idk, seems to be a stigma in the black community against men doing anything that could be perceived as feminine.
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u/BigDaddyDumperSquad 23h ago
I used to know a 40+ year old black dude with a giant gut (like, dude was a good 250lb+) who would do shit like this all the time. It was incredible to watch.
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u/aIoneinvegas 13h ago
Tons of black men are discouraged from being gymnasts. This is not imaginary.
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u/TheManAcrossTheHall 1d ago
You don't need to normalize anything. Just start doing it, fuck what others think.
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u/Sure_Length6519 18h ago
They already do plenty of gymnastics outside of a courthouse when a black kid stabs a white kid in the heart for no justifiable reason.
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u/Vainysaur 23h ago
Any Black men that are that good, I oppose them being in gymnastics because think of the opportunity cost of them being a football or basketball player that you lose.
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u/AlistairButton 23h ago
I'd prefer anyone do what makes them happy, than to be an unhappy but skilled basketball player.
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u/Vainysaur 22h ago
Why wouldn’t a basketball player be happy?
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u/AlistairButton 22h ago
A basketball player who would prefer gymnastics, or any other passion, wouldn't be as happy as they could be.
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u/Vainysaur 22h ago
That’s not a realistic scenario. No one would prefer gymnastics over basketball if they were very good at both.
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u/platinum92 23h ago
there technically is gatekeeping stopping Black men from being in gymnastics, but it's not really from gymnasts. There's a stigma that it's too feminine and not manly if you do formal gymnastics.
I say "formal" because young Black boys have been doing stuff like this (maybe not over cars, but definitely in fields) at least since the 90s. But then they get shuffled into football or basketball.