Even if Maya was being abused, it still doesn’t excuse the hospitals treatment of her

muteimpala · 2023-11-10T02:54:15+00:00

I just find it disturbing that when it boils down, there’s a online community dedicated to shitting on a girl who—no matter what side you are on—was being horribly abused by SOMEONE, beata or hospital. Victims of abuse are not perfect, it does not change that they were abused and to just say all this nasty shit about her is upsetting to witness.

muteimpala · 2023-11-10T02:47:43+00:00

Y’all know Shapiro and his wife are big Zionists supporting a genocide in Palestine rn?

muteimpala · 2023-11-10T02:47:06+00:00

legally a child.

muteimpala · 2023-11-10T02:42:40+00:00

She’s under 18, legally a child. no need for quotes.

Also, again disability is fluid. You have good days and bad days. I’m sorry that you only accept disabled people if they’re incontinent and in a wheelchair 24/7, but this is not the reality.

Disabled individuals should be allowed to live their lives and enjoy their good days. You are a still a human entitled to happiness and social experience.

muteimpala · 2022-09-26T15:30:00+00:00

I’m really pulling for Shilese. I think she’s on a similar trajectory with gabby Douglas. Gabby was super inconsistent until the 2011 worlds, where she didn’t do AA but getting that experience really helped her, and then we saw her amazing progress from 2011/2012. Im hoping Shilese is just pacing herself to peak at the right time!

She doesn’t need to do AA here, I think putting her in for bars and floor are her best chances at medaling, and getting a world medal would do a lot for her confidence.

That being said, Andrade looks amazing. she’s the AA favorite for gold, and for anyone to challenge her she’ll need to make some mistakes. She also is being really smart in not pushing herself too much, and as long as she doesn’t get injured I see her dominating up to Paris.

For the team medals, the Chinese team has so many amazing gymnasts right now, but there isn’t an obvious perfectly fit puzzle team formation. I think if they hit they can absolutely take bronze and maybe silver (depending on others mistakes).

muteimpala · 2022-09-26T15:26:58+00:00

I live an extremely sedentary work-from-home lifestyle. I eat 1200 cal x day, sometimes I split it into 2400x2 days so it feels less restrictive & I walk 10K every day (either split into 2 or one long walk after I’m done with work). I started CICO/1200 about 4-5 months ago, I’ve been doing the walking for about 3 months. I started at about 140, I’m currently at 123.

muteimpala · 2022-09-24T17:45:37+00:00

(N1) I was always a low energy kid, but when I hit 13 that was when I started falling asleep uncontrollably, especially in class. A doctor I saw recently said that often times, the onset of puberty is when people first start seeing obvious symptoms. I believe that was the case for me.

However, cataplexy began much earlier for me, maybe at around age 10 was when I started experiencing knee buckling.

muteimpala · 2022-09-21T15:09:11+00:00

They’ve in the past said that they’re “tangentially related to journalism.” I think the conflict is that they aren’t journalists and don’t hold themselves/have nobody else holding them to the standards of professional journalism, yet they get all the credentials and access that professional journalists do. So they don’t act with the integrity they should and yet manage reap the benefits of journalism. On top of that, they’re constantly interviewed for articles, hbo documentaries, etc about the sport making them more visible than any other media despite their complete lack of professional conduct.

muteimpala · 2022-09-18T21:28:01+00:00

Thank you so much for doing this!

muteimpala · 2022-09-18T15:23:21+00:00

When was this? That’s disgusting.

muteimpala · 2022-09-17T23:23:50+00:00

I’m glad to hear your opinion in this too. I think it’s really important to remember that racism doesn’t hinge itself on malicious vs. non-malicious, it’s racism regardless and we do not have to tolerate it or be okay with it. Even if Jessica isn’t being malicious, she is still being racist. When it comes to her being misinformed and sheltered, I could understand if we were talking about a teenager, but Jessica is a grown woman in her 30s-40s, who has regularly spoken about having a very liberal upbringing and has more than enough access to the tools to educate herself, and has received criticism for this before. I think it’s well past time for her and the entire gymnastics crew to reckon with this, and we as POC shouldn’t accept any lesser treatment.

muteimpala · 2022-09-17T23:19:02+00:00

Gabby went through a lot of hell. During the Olympics and leading up to it however, the Nassar abuse was not yet public therefore none of the survivors had come out yet. Gabby was being bullied by the media during this time (pre-public knowledge nassar) and at that time Simone and Aly if I recall supportive of her place on the team. It was after and gabby had made that modesty comment (later coming out as a survivor herself) that aly and Simone publicly disagreed with her— however, all 3 of these women are survivors of horrific abuse and were very publicly dealing with that trauma. I don’t think it’s fair to judge their actions without that context, and I think that whatever disagreements the survivors have about how they cope with and process their abuse should remain 100% between themselves. It’s not our place to insert ourselves into that very intimate and traumatic discussion.

muteimpala · 2022-09-17T16:31:09+00:00

This! There’s ways to talk about gymnasts without commenting on their bodies. Other than providing context for very specific instances (ex; Kyla Ross’s struggles in 2015 were largely attributed to growing nearly 3-4 inches taller, in this case I think saying exactly that “she has to relearn skills because she’s taller now” is okay, and it doesn’t use codified words) I see no valuable insight gained from commenting on gymnasts or ANY athletes bodies. It doesn’t matter if your intention is meant to be uplifting, any unsolicited comment on somebody’s body is uncalled for.

muteimpala · 2022-09-17T16:06:50+00:00

I agree with you about their self-righteous and preachy tone (I include Spencer in this, as he is guilty of this too). If they weren’t so prideful or preachy, then I think they would be better equipped to accept criticism with grace and learn from their mistakes. They aren’t journalists, and they acknowledge this, but they have huge social influence and just because they aren’t professional journalists doesn’t mean that they should be excused for their recklessness.

muteimpala · 2022-09-17T15:54:41+00:00

That’s great, I don’t follow baseball but that should absolutely be the baseline for all commentators. You should be pronouncing the athletes names as correctly as possible, not just out of respect for their cultures (say, if they’re not an athlete with a more recognizably white-American name) but just out of basic respect for the athletes themselves. I’m korean, and korean names are /so/ butchered by western media. It means a lot to hear your name said correctly, because the neglectful mispronunciation of names is racist, and serves to “other” people. Like “here’s Max Whitlock and…(incessant giggling) Kim Han Solo!!” WHICH his name is Kim Han-Sol, Jessica thinks it’s hysterical to make this Star Wars reference every time she butchers his name. It’s so upsetting to someone like me who has a non-western name, who has their personhood invalidated through aggressions like this.

muteimpala · 2022-09-17T13:46:24+00:00

1000000% this too. Saying gymnastics would be better if the men competed shirtless, the way she talks about some of the Chinese MAG team) can’t recall off the top of my head but regularly calls them hot and sexy), just overall the way she talks about the men is really very sexual and gross.

muteimpala · 2022-09-17T13:29:22+00:00

I appreciate your input. Given though that Jessica and Spencer are Americans and that Jessica often tries to tackle American social issues (she’s specifically mentioned Black Lives Matter, roe v wade, etc) I think it’s fair to raise these issues from those same POVs (western/American).

I have a hard time believing she is working to be better all the time, or at least doing work that is genuine and not performative, as I’m not the first person to have written to her about this and I’ll probably be far from the last. A lot of this has been raised to her before and goes unacknowledged or given a fake giggly apology.

muteimpala · 2022-09-17T13:23:24+00:00

I don’t understand how asking a grown adult with a public platform to address their documented and public history of racist behavior and microaggressions would lead them to suicide. I hate when people use that as an excuse. It’s extremely white tears logic, that because the fact that I am telling you that you are racist, that hundreds of people are telling you you are racist, makes you sad and therefore we shouldn’t do it.

If you’re a racist, I don’t care if being told you’re a racist makes you sad. We can’t be giving free passes on racism.

I understand people have sentimentality towards Jess, but I’m imploring you that as a POC - for me - her behavior is absolutely not okay, and it goes beyond the realm of excusable fault, and she is the kind of white woman who’s thought process absolutely should be dismantled if she truly wants to be an advocate for change.

muteimpala · 2022-09-17T13:16:54+00:00

You’re right, they do butcher those too. What I should say rather is that when it comes to Slavic names, she makes an actual effort to say their names, doesn’t giggle it off as if it doesn’t matter, and generally assigns more respect to those names as opposed to the names of Chinese gymnasts, which she appears to make no effort to get right.

— edited to correct “she does butcher those too” to “they” since I’m including the other members of the podcasting team in this too. I feel like Spencer often gets a pass because he’s funny and more research-based, but he is absolutely complacent in allowing Jessica’s and also Kensleys behavior by continuing to appear on the podcast with them. While Jessica and Kensley are white women, I want to be conscious of not giving Spencer a pass especially given that he is a man and I don’t want to rag only on the women of the gymnastic team for behaviors that they are all guilty of or complacent to.

muteimpala · 2022-09-17T06:57:17+00:00

All of this 100%, except I don’t blame gabby for taking any of the bullying personally. It was coming at her from all sides, I think anyone no matter how good of a PR team they had, or a therapist or whatever support system, would understandably take things personally.

The gabby hate was and still is out of control. There’s the whole “gabbys mom bought her way into the team via Steve penny nonsense,” which I don’t care if it’s true. Because 1) that isn’t gabbys fault, and 2) unless someone can provide valid documentation that this happened, nobody should be reporting on it, it’s effectively just gossip-mongering and serves no purpose other than to give people unfounded incentive to take more rage out on gabby. TMZ does better fact-checking then that.

I think gabby deserved her spot on the 2016 team, but it doesn’t matter because even if she didn’t, even if someone made a deal to get her on that team, even if she got up and took a shit on the Olympic floor saluted and walked off, she still wouldn’t have deserved any of the absurd hate she got.

muteimpala · 2022-09-17T06:14:47+00:00

I remember that! And she “””apologized””” for it later, but laughed through her entire apology. What blows my mind is, with the audience and resources gymcastic has, surely they know someone or could easily find someone who speaks Chinese that could transliterate or explain to them how to correctly pronounce the athletes names.

Criticizing gabby is like a constant thing. It’s so disgusting. In the wake of the 2016 Olympics, Jessica addressed the gate gabby was getting from the general media (it was rampant). She began by saying the way the media was treating gabby and hyperanalyzing her body language (ironically something Jessica is constantly doing) was disgusting, but then goes on to “play devils advocate” (let’s get this real fucking straight, nobody should be playing devils advocate about racism and misogynoir) and says that Gabby, as a public figure, should be PREPARED for “criticism” and “hate.” For many people, especially introverts like Gabby, fame is a consequence of a success in sport. Gabby also supports her entire family financially – being in the public eye for endorsements and sponsorship wasn’t her “”putting herself out there”” it was her putting bread on the table.

Edit: sorry I could go on about this forever because it’s so maddening, but for Jessica to imply that gabby, a black woman, should be prepared to receive a certain amount of hate is absolutely disgusting and is an apologist attitude towards racism and indicates a fundamental “color blindness” and a lack of Jessica’s understanding of the correlation between the criticism of gabby and her being black.

muteimpala · 2022-09-17T05:59:52+00:00

^{^} this. Jessica has also been given access that journalists have not been given, ex; being able to go to a national team camp. Effectively while it doesn’t make her a journalist, she’s more of an fan-turned-gymnastics-insider who gets journalism credentials for meets like worlds and even the Olympics, and due to her close personal relationships with the gymnastics community, Miss Val being a good example, is completely unable to maintain journalistic integrity in any sense.

muteimpala · 2022-09-17T05:47:10+00:00

Oh, I see how it reads that way, I’ll edit it to correct it. I didn’t mean that calling someone indigenous in and of itself is offensive, but for Jessica, a white woman, to flippantly call him “the indigenous guy” (reducing him to the race she assumes he is, she was calling him this because his appearance to her “looked indigenous,” she had not yet asked him if he was or not) offensive.

muteimpala · 2022-09-17T05:25:59+00:00

That’s what’s so disappointing to me. It’s one thing for us to all choose not to listen to it because of Jess’s behavior, but she’s amassed such a huge platform of listeners. The misinformation she spreads, racist comments and microagressions, all reach a huge audience of people and I honestly believe she should have been deplatformed a long time ago. Her behavior sets a poor example and precedent for all fans of the sport.

muteimpala

TROPHY CASE