The FOMO of MyKayla Skinner
MyKayla Skinner is a former gymnast and silver medalist from Team USA. She is a Latter-day Saint. She is also getting every one of her holes handed to her—in some well-deserved schadenfreude—from her former team mates. Let's talk about it because it also involves a needed discussion about LDS racism.
MyKayla Skinner got the dog and pony show that LDS Olympic athletes often get in our community. At that point, she didn't just become a representative of Team USA. She became a global ambassador for our faith. Which is really unfortunate because she's bad at representing herself well, let alone other people. So let's learn together how not to repeat the mistakes of MyKayla Skinner in public. Let's be prepared to answer well for her behavior, since she has become an emissary for us on the global stage and is doing it badly.
It's unwise to criticize a team to which you no longer belong in any kind of official capacity. But if you must, avoid opening yourself to the entire US women's gymnastics team dog walking you in public for your feedback. Never say anything that Simone Biles could ever use against you in an Instagram caption.
Also, never call Gabby Douglas a monkey in any way, shape, or form. Not in word, not with Photoshop, and not via stupid little monkey emojis. In case you haven't been exposed to the lexicon of racism and slurs, that's a deeply offensive racial slur for black people. And I'm not giving Skinner the benefit of the doubt on this one. It is a knowable fact that NBC got themselves into hot water for the portrayal of a monkey doing gymnastics in an ad that also featured Gabby Douglas back in 2012. The condemnation of that portrayal as a racist slur is something MyKayla Skinner would know about. This isn't poor wording or ignorance on her part. Skinner knew it was racist when she did this to Gabby Douglas in 2016. She still did it anyway.
And as a Latter-day Saint, I condemn what Skinner has said and done to her team mates. She has every reason to know better and do better. I reject the notion that her proximity to the LDS Church and its past failures with race are an excuse for this. This is her failure and she should take responsibility for it. She owes sincerest apologies and restitution to those she has harmed with her words. That's what the Church teaches. That's what her religion teaches her duty and obligations are.
MyKayla Skinner is clearly a deeply competitive person. It has gotten to the point of irrational and self-destructive jealousy. She can barely contain how she feels about not being able to compete in Paris. She cannot bear to see anyone else succeeding in this moment if she can't. And for all of the apologies she's had to give over the years, she doesn't appear to be learning the right lessons.
When people talk about there still being racism in the Church, this is what they're talking about. This is what it looks like. It's what happens when individual members, of whom the Church is composed, engage in the moral licensing and hypocrisy to justify their own racism. The racism, not the envy, came first. The envy only illuminated the racism that was already there.
Team USA has world class athletes, gold medalists many times over, on their women's gymnastics team. Directing racism at any of them is wrong, no matter who does it—even when it's one of our own. Especially when it's one of our own.
