We Are All Simone Biles, and We All Need to Step Back
From the mother to the teacher to the waiter, we have had enough
We are Simone Biles. And Simone Biles is us. A day after the Olympian announced her withdrawal from the women’s gymnastics team final — and later the individual all-around — the Internet devolved into ridiculous chatter about the star athlete’s “toughness.” (Jesus, the woman has four gold medals.) Stepping back instantly re-ignited the debate over whether Tokyo 2020–2021 should have even happened — is the world ready? Are the athletes prepared? Should we be doing this yet? It also made Biles the poster girl of a very acute American identity crisis that is playing out all over the nation — one exacerbated by Covid. Central to it is this important question: for how long can we deny our own humanity?
Nearly 18 months after the pandemic began, here we all are, a nation of 331M people on a planet of 7.7B, questioning daily just how much to push ourselves back to normal, just how much to push ourselves at all. In every area of our lives before the pandemic, we all would have gotten out there and powered through. We all would have smiled to cover the pain and the mental anguish and just persisted. We all would have exhausted ourselves to prove just how superhuman we are. I know I would have. Simone may be one of the most…
