“To those of us who have called Lolo's two medaling teammates meanies, or worse, I have this to say. I can sympathize with them. Now, I don't think that the comments that they made about Lolo in their NBC interview were appropriate. Yes, they said things that they shouldn't have said; indeed, their comments were very mean spirited. But, these women are angry. Angry that they have worked so hard to achieve what they have, only to be ignored because, let's face it, they aren't the right complexion to be media darlings in America. Yes, what happened wasn't Lolo's fault, it was the media's, but could we very well expect them to slam the very same media that was interviewing them at the time? And how many of can honestly say, that when really angry about something, that we took our anger out only on the people who deserved it? Nor is any of this new. For centuries, light complexioned black women have been put on a pedestal above dark complexioned women. And, for centuries I imagine, us black women have taken out our frustrations over this pigmentocracy out on each other, and not on the white supremacist society that perpetuates it. Kellie and Dawn took out their frustrations on Lolo, instead of the media (and let's face it, society) who was truly at fault. It wasn't right, but when you're in that position it can be really hard to criticize those responsible, especially when they hold all the power.”

—Reader comment about the media’s treatment towards American Olympic runners Lolo Jones and her fellow medal winning hurdlers, Dawn Harper and Kellie Wells  

Why certain people get endorsements and others don't

Just read a really annoying Jezebel article about how NYTimes is picking on Lolo Jones for being pretty and underwhelming. End article conclusion: people are talking about Lolo Jones because she’s beautiful but also a compelling athlete with a compelling backstory. Everybody stop being so mean to Lolo!

Okay, sure, but let’s talk about why Lolo Jones is compelling ABOVE her teammates Dawn Harper and Kellie Wells, both of whom medaled. It’s because Jones is light skinned. Her beauty fits a certain paradigm and to pretend that that doesn’t factor in importantly or that that isn’t a problem is to be willfully blind. The comparison of Jones to Kournikova that the NYT article makes is spot-on. A commenter on the Jezebel article brings up two other women coming up at the same time as Kournikova that didn’t attract the same type of love and attention: Venus and Serena Williams.

Dawn Harper ran in Beijing on borrowed spikes. Kellie Wells’ wikipedia page is practically barren despite her win. People aren’t checking for these women, these dark and unmistakably BLACK women, like they are for Lolo Jones. Let’s not pretend that skin color is not a factor in the disparate coverage these athletes are getting. Lolo isn’t everywhere in the US media just because she’s beautiful; she’s beautiful in a certain way.

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