Is The Criticism of Simone Biles Fair?
Photo by Gregory Bull from https://apnews.com
Simone Biles, a highly decorated and fantastic gymnast at the young age of 24 years old has been receiving criticism due to her not competing in the all-around competition at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics (The Olympics were supposed to be held in 2020, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it was postponed until this year.)
Simone Biles said, “I have to focus on my mental health…”
For the most part, I have seen overall support for her when it comes to her mental health. As I think most people should be able to understand. Of course with the online community, the negative comments are the ones that tend to outshine the positive and constructive criticism. Mental health has become a hot-button issue over the last couple of years and everyone now understanding that mental health is an important aspect to us as human beings. Some people are defending her by telling the vocal minority that is trying to discredit her about the accomplishments that she has and they themselves are not able to do. And while I do agree that most people are not able to have the athleticism that Simone has, I do not think that is the best way to defend her. I think that the best way to defend anyone is to show your support for the individual and to ignore the negative comments as hard as that may be. I still struggle with ignoring things that tend to target things that I think are right. Even though I am aware that a lot of the comments are either, 1.) A way to get people to react and get more engagement for that person or organization, 2.) What someone really thinks about a situation, or 3.) A combination of 1 and 2. Either way, it is not worth commenting, insulting them, or engaging with them, to begin with.
So to answer the question is the criticism of Simon Biles fair? I think it is fair as long as it is constructive. Where it starts to get uncalled for is when they start to insult her. That is where it crosses the line. For example, if a student gets an answer on a quiz wrong a good teacher does not take that wrong answer and start to insult the student by calling them stupid. They would rather ask questions to see if they are able to help them out. Or they will give advice on how to do better in the future. Unfortunately, people are not doing that when they are criticizing and it is coming off as more hateful speech than it is criticism. That vocal minority is just trying to discredit her, insult her, and paint her in a negative light.
To end this I just want to say that I hope that we are able to empathize with others or at least criticize people in a way that is able to be constructive in the future. I am not saying to sugarcoat anything. I am, however, saying to try and present things in a way that people are able to actually learn something. It is of course more beneficial not to insult anyone because they are more likely to be receptive to the information that you are trying to convey. It is okay to be human, we are not machines.
