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Jerk of the week: And she came in third.
Thoughts from the 42nd Parallel ^ | 06-29-2021 | Tom Shattuck

Posted on 06/29/2021 5:26:58 AM PDT by calvincaspian

he path was clear for me to finish out the remaining years of my life without ever having had expended a thought about something called the hammer throw. But my plans were dashed.

A 31-year-old hammer thrower named Gwen Berry acted out when the Star Spangled Banner was played as she stood on the podium, having won third place for her athletic feats.

She didn’t want to hear the song because she was “here to represent those ... who died due to systemic racism … That's why I'm here today.''

"My purpose and my mission is bigger than sports,'' Berry said.

Of course it is.

Berry used the Gwen-the-hammer-thrower spotlight to promote Gwen-the-activist. While the two other ladies were considerate enough to follow protocol, Berry was all too eager to steal their moment right away from them for her own side hustle.

“The anthem doesn't speak for me. It never has,'' declared Berry, in what is one of the least bold and gutsy statements a young person could possibly make in 2021.

When she acts like a jerk in Tokyo, she will disgrace her community and embarrass her country because the rest of the world knows real oppression and this spoiled brat’s song and dance will send one message:

Berry has already won the gold for privilege.

(Excerpt) Read more at tomshattuck.substack.com ...


TOPICS: Politics; Society; Sports
KEYWORDS: gwenberry; nationalanthem; olympics; racism
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To: calvincaspian

That line about how the rest of the world will react to her “oppression” is solid gold.

I sincerely hope she gets to visit with folks from different countries while she is there. Especially those from West Africa. I sincerely hope she gets to speak with someone from Niger, Ghana, Liberia or Sierra Leone. I have a feeling she’ll walk away from those conversations with a new view of her homeland. Be even better if she could go visit those countries. After hearing, “please take me with you to America” two or three hundred times a day, maybe she’ll shape up.


21 posted on 06/29/2021 6:24:38 AM PDT by Mathews (It's all gravy, baby!)
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To: uranium penguin

The Japanese are on record as saying these types of shenanigans are NOT permitted.


22 posted on 06/29/2021 6:30:52 AM PDT by subterfuge (RIP T.P.)
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To: calvincaspian

Ungrateful childish fat arse she is. Hammer throwing ? Whoop tee do.


23 posted on 06/29/2021 6:32:16 AM PDT by dforest (huh?)
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To: goodnesswins

I saw a different thread where it told what she did.


24 posted on 06/29/2021 6:32:25 AM PDT by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith……)
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To: metmom

Hammer throwing.

I can toss a mean plate!


25 posted on 06/29/2021 6:35:06 AM PDT by dforest (huh?)
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To: calvincaspian

So sad, she stole the victory from the first and second place winners and made it about her. Bet very few people know their names.


26 posted on 06/29/2021 6:37:44 AM PDT by mware (RETIRED)
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To: calvincaspian

virtue signaling is hard.


27 posted on 06/29/2021 6:39:02 AM PDT by bray (Hating Whites is racist)
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To: subterfuge

Would be awesome if they could have Godzilla stomp on anybody who does an “it’s all about me” act.


28 posted on 06/29/2021 6:40:29 AM PDT by Hillarys Gate Cult
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To: Lou L
"I was under the impression that the country's anthem was only played for contestants who won first-place. Why was our national anthem being played for her third-place finish?"

Everyone's a winner now!

29 posted on 06/29/2021 6:44:35 AM PDT by MV=PY (The Magic Question: Who's paying for it?)
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To: subterfuge

I hope the Japanese can prevent this type of nonsense. I wonder, however, just how much experience the Japanese have in handling these low IQ, attention whores?


30 posted on 06/29/2021 6:51:25 AM PDT by Scott Kraut (Diversity for the sake of diversity is flat out stupidity. )
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To: duckman

My dad has been watching some of the Olympic trials .... for whatever reason, I have absolutely zero interest in the trials or the actual Olympics. Sad, but that’s just the way I’m feeling these days. I rarely watch TV - currently watching the College Baseball World Series - games have been pretty good, family/friends/siblings in the stands make for good fans/crowds. NCAA ... not so much on them (NC State situation). Anyway, no Olympics for me.


31 posted on 06/29/2021 6:53:06 AM PDT by Qiviut (Faith is the antidote to fear. Mindset: be a victor, not a victim.)
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To: calvincaspian

The USA Track & Field Foundation announced shortly after the incident in question that it will pay grants to 100 elite American athletes. Gwen Berry wasn’t one of them.

The USATF Foundation, Berry said, has essentially punished her for protesting “extreme injustice” after winning gold at the Pan-American Games last summer.

“I know for sure that I wasn’t chosen [for a grant] because of my stance on the podium,” Berry told Yahoo Sports on Wednesday. “Because I was told that.”

USA’s(?) Gwen Berry competed in the Women’s Hammer Throw final at the 2019 IAAF World Athletics Championships at the Khalifa International stadium in Doha on September 28, 2019. The USA Track & Field Foundation announced shortly after that it would pay grants to 100 elite American athletes. Gwen Berry, an Olympic hammer thrower, wasn’t one of them. And she has decided, after keeping quiet for almost a year, that she no longer can.

The USATF Foundation, Berry says, has essentially punished her for protesting “extreme injustice” after winning gold at the Pan-American Games last summer.

“I know for sure that I wasn’t chosen [for a grant] because of my stance on the podium,” Berry told Yahoo Sports on Wednesday. “Because I was told that.”

Last August, Berry raised her fist during a Pan-Ams medal ceremony. A USATF Foundation official, she says, called her a couple days later, “and told me I better not do it again, or else I’ll lose funding.”

Around that same time, the Foundation released lists of 2019 grant recipients. The previous year, Berry had received $35,000, as one of 25 U.S. track and field stars in the top tier. In 2019, days after winning gold, she no longer was in that top tier. She was among a second tier of grantees, each of whom received $4,000. Berry also lost sponsors.

When athletes reach the elite stages in international competition, with government funded training facilities, equipment, and stipend, then it is no longer a athletic event as much as a business. And since it has reached beyond the actual events themselves, and stepped into political and personal preferences, then the athletes are a salaried employee of their income and there is an expectation of behavior in that representation. There is nothing in the rules for her event that entertain her person preferences for free speech. Especially against the hand that feeds her.

She can have all the opinions she wants. But as long as she is representing the country, and in this case, private funding companies. she should keep them to herself. But the USATF did make an effort to settle.

The USATF Foundation, which is an independent organization unaffiliated with USA Track & Field, the sport’s national governing body, said in a statement that “Gwen’s allegation that her stance on the podium at the Pan Am Games adversely affected our grant-making decisions in 2020 is inaccurate.” It said that it had offered Berry a separate $5,000 grant, but that Berry had declined.

“It’s not about aggregate levels of support,” Berry said in a tweet. “It’s about hypocrisy.” What she fails to see here is it actually is about an aggregate level of support. And she found that out. Hope more are educated when they try to use a non-existent podium they have neither the full information about or even use the information they have to prosper their agenda. Well the people that control the purse strings have an opinion as well. She can have all the opinions she wants...at her expense if it doesn’t match those of her employers. And I’m a firm believer that our government should follow suit for this. If these athletes are not going to represent their employers as expected, and use their position for personal opinions during that employment, then un-employ them. That’s what the real world is. Step into it.

wy69


32 posted on 06/29/2021 6:55:24 AM PDT by whitney69 (uin )
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To: calvincaspian

attention seeking narcissist will do ANYTHING for attention. Vile creature.


33 posted on 06/29/2021 6:56:35 AM PDT by GOP Poet (Super cool you can change your tag line EVERYTIME you post!! :D. (Small things make me happy))
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To: calvincaspian

Poor loser blackBERRY, tricked into listening to the National Anthem.


34 posted on 06/29/2021 7:05:32 AM PDT by Toespi
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To: subterfuge

Good theory.

if she says (or others) she promises not to make a scene. They search for any offensive signage or whatever..

Then they just drop their pants on the podium “in protest” or whatever. They could write their slogan in lipstick on their chest and “bare it all”..


35 posted on 06/29/2021 7:20:54 AM PDT by uranium penguin
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To: calvincaspian

She just wanted to use the word systemic.
She thinks it makes her look smart.
Biden and the democrat party supports her.

Gwen Berry, White House respond to criticism after her protest at Olympic trials
https://www.yahoo.com/sports/gwen-berry-white-house-respond-to-criticism-after-her-protest-national-anthem-joe-biden-tokyo-olympic-trials-231436212.html

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Biden
He would also say, of course, that part of that pride in our country means recognizing there are moments where we are, as a country, haven’t lived up to our highest ideals. And it means respecting the rights of people granted to them in the Constitution to peacefully protest.”


36 posted on 06/29/2021 8:02:56 AM PDT by minnesota_bound (I need more money. )
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To: uranium penguin

You know it will happen.


37 posted on 06/29/2021 8:08:43 AM PDT by subterfuge (RIP T.P.)
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To: Dutch Boy

AMEN!!!


38 posted on 06/29/2021 9:06:05 AM PDT by Ann Archy (Abortion....... The HUMAN Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)
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To: whitney69

>> The USATF Foundation, Berry says, has essentially punished her for protesting “extreme injustice” after winning gold at the Pan-American Games last summer.

what is it that those who push for people to be fired from their jobs for things they did or said years before, or for what their children say or do, say?

Yes, you have freedom of speech but not freedom from consequences?


39 posted on 06/29/2021 6:38:51 PM PDT by Chicory
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To: Chicory

You are so right. And when these pampered athletes that don’t have to pay their ticket start to confuse athletic success with activism it lowers the bar for IQ.

wy69


40 posted on 06/29/2021 9:48:22 PM PDT by whitney69 (uin )
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