On January 26th, UCLA gymnastics team members Margzetta Frazier and Sekai Wright, sat down with actress and comedian Amanda Seales on her podcast Small Doses to provide deeper insights into the ongoing situation involving the racist antics of a former teammate.
For those of you unfamiliar with the incident, UCLA gymnasts addressed former teammate Alexis Jeffrey for allegedly using racial slurs (most notably in the form of rap lyrics). Despite their warnings, she continued her behavior.
What many don’t know is that the allegations of racist behavior go much deeper than a single isolated incident. Through the interview, we learn that this same gymnast has allegedly said things in the past that were offensive, including ranking girls on their “ugliness” according to skin color and placing Black team members at the bottom. When previously addressed by her teammates, Alex downplayed any harm by saying “this is how I was raised,” or “I don’t know what I did [wrong], but ok.” Common language that people use to distance themselves from behaviors they know to be wrong, without actually acknowledging any wrongdoing.
The behavior continued, so they brought it to the attention of the coaches, who later reached out to their athletes via texts and met with them individually.
These individual meetings were followed up by diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) meetings that Margzetta Frazier described in the podcast as more like “checking a box” than actual processing sessions. In fact, she felt that they were “subpar and ineffective” overall.
Frazier’s feelings about the DEI meetings contradict the statement released by UCLA athletics director Martin Jarmond.
“Over the last three and a half months, we’ve proactively engaged the support of campus and external experts on equity, diversity and inclusion, incidents of bias, mental-health and communication,” wrote Jarmond. “As we move forward, we will continue to work with student-athletes, coaches, campus and external partners on how best to support the team.”
If what Jarmond says about DEI work with a focus on mental health and communication is true, how proactive could the conversations be if the gymnasts didn’t find them useful or effective? Claiming to be engaged in proactive DEI work is not the same as doing the work itself.
Frustrated by the school’s response, Gymnasts used social media to let us know that their teammate wasn’t punished for her actions even when leadership was confronted by both Black and white team members.
Instead, the team was told to handle that teammate with care as she had expressed via text to another athlete that she had thoughts about harming herself. Self-harm is no laughing matter, yet who cares for the Black girls? Who cares for the girls who were harmed by Alexis Jeffrey’s words and actions?
Sekai and Margzetta discussed the ways the team was forced to continue interacting with Jeffrey even after their concerns were raised. Their requests to have her kept out of the gym were generally overlooked, and at one point, they were even forced to sing her happy birthday and essentially told that if Jeffrey actually harmed herself, they would be responsible.
Is this proactive engagement with DEI? I don’t think so.
As a Black woman, a Black feminist, and a sociologist, my heart clenched as I listened to the pain and frustration expressed by these young women as they revealed their side of the story during the lengthy podcast. Their truths raise the questions: when Black girls are in distress, who hears us? Who treats us with kid gloves?
Certainly not the UCLA administration.
Margzetta and Sekai discussed feeling gaslit by the leadership and that they were painted as bullies despite being subjected to general racist language and anti-Blackness.
We live in an age in which Black pain and distress are trumped by white tears and discomfort. This is becoming a legal reality in Florida where a state Senate committee advanced a bill that would prohibit making white people “feel ‘discomfort,’ when taught or trained about past discrimination in public schools and private businesses,”
What are Black folx to do when we experience racism, anti-Blackness, and other targeted forms of harassment?
When it comes to sports, we are often told to be silent or “shut up and dribble.” As the gymnasts noted in the podcast, gymnastics is accustomed to a “code of silence and obedience,” one that reached a head when the allegations about Larry Nassar took flight. Now they are boiling over as UCLA gymnasts continue to speak up about what’s transpiring behind closed doors.
While people in charge continue to tout their allegiance to #BlackExcellence and #BlackLivesMatter via hallow Instagram posts or public declarations of doing DEI work, the gymnasts themselves made it very clear that they don’t feel supported by their coaches or school administration. When there are no repercussions for racism in the team handbook, and teammates are not held accountable for their actions, the UCLA coaching staff is sending the message that they don’t really care about DEI or the health and well-being of their athletes.
They just need them well enough to perform.
Margzetta noted the UCLA gymnastics top brass essentially use “the Black women on the team as branding horses,” to bring in the money.
Black athletes and Black folx are consistently used in this country as commodities, and that isn’t ending any time soon. The UCLA gymnasts are experiencing this right now, and the lack of support is alarming.
Sekai mentioned a recent incident in which she was confronted by a white gymnastics coach for wearing a hat (a piece of swag that any of the gymnasts could have had access to) and posting a picture on social media. Though the hat was in one of the open access areas, it wasn’t one that the gymnasts were supposed to advertise at the time (though this was not known). As a result, she was called a thief and made to stand in front of her team and apologize.
For Sekai, a Black woman and an athlete who has spoken about her own issues with mental health and the lack of support, to be treated this way by UCLA gymnastics while Alexis Jeffrey’s behavior is tolerated speaks volumes.
It is in recognition of that double standard that her teammate Margzetta Frazier declared, “let’s hold this same energy when people are being racist!” after witnessing Sekai’s treatment. Frazier’s remarks demonstrate the willingness of the program and institution to publicly shame a Black woman but demand that a woman who uses racist slurs around her teammates even when they express their hurt and discomfort be shown grace and understanding.
So, I ask again, who protects the Black girls? Who protects those fighting for what’s right?
These young women want a change in leadership, apologies, an internal investigation from the university’s DEI office, and for truths to be told. There is evidence to support their claim, and as Amanda Seales mentioned, we know that the “modicum of justice” has come for some Black folx only because we have access to technologies that are capturing the injustices we face in real time.
Rather than worrying about optics, stand on the side of what’s right instead of placing the burden on Black people.
So listen to Margzetta Frazier and keep that energy for the real fight against racism and racists.
