August 10, 2024
Lackluster Olympic Breaking Competition Have People Asking Where The B-Boys And B-Girls From The Bronx Are
The event has faced significant criticism, with several performances by the competing b-boys and b-girls eliciting puzzled reactions.
Snoop Dogg introduced the first-ever Olympic Breaking competition on Aug. 9, continuing his ubiquitous presence at the Paris Olympic Games.
According to Billboard, Snoop has been on a remarkable run during his Olympic coverage.
However, the event Snoop introduced has been criticized on social media as several videos of some international b-boys and b-girls have circulated with confused or puzzled reactions.
Most reactions have concerned the women’s competitors, like Australia’s Racheal Gunn, competing as B-Girl Raygun, and Lithuania’s Dominika Banevic, also known as B-Girl Nicka.
Gunn’s viral performance was roundly panned on social media for her seemingly awkward moves. And Banevic was bashed for wearing a durag.
Then there is Manizha Talash, or B-Girl Talash, who removed her T-shirt in the middle of her third round competition to reveal a blue cape emblazoned with the words “Free Afghan Women,” a nod to the ongoing crisis for women in Afghanistan, according to The Athletic.
Talash, a Refugee Olympic team member, worked in Spain at a hair salon before joining the team, which made its debut in the 2016 Rio Olympics, Teen Vogue reports. This year’s squad is composed of 36 athletes from 11 countries. Talash told the BBC ahead of the competition that she would be representing Afghan women everywhere, but especially those trapped in the repressive regime of the Taliban, which controls her home country.
“I’ll compete for my friends and for their dreams and hopes. The girls of Afghanistan will never surrender. Whatever pressure you put on an Afghan girl — restrict her, or even imprison her — she’ll definitely find a way out and will definitely achieve her goals. We fight and we will win.”
Aside from the B-Girls controversies, others have called out the lack of Black and/or Latinx performers on the U.S. team, given that Breaking was born in The Bronx as one of the elements of hip-hop culture and created by Black and Latinx youth.
Only one American breaker, Jeffrey Louis (aka B-Boy Jeffro) is Black and Victor Montalvo (aka B-Boy Victor) is Latinx. Louis, it should be noted, made the team as an alternate.
As BLACK ENTERPRISE previously reported, Olympic Breaking represented a chance for the sport to blossom again, but that now seems highly unlikely given its initial reactions.
As Zach Slusser, the vice president of Breaking for Gold USA and USA Dance, told the Associated Press, they need to change the narrative.
“We need to change the narrative from yesterday’s first impression of breaking as an Olympic sport. There were significant organizational and governance shortcomings that could have been easily reconciled but, unfortunately, negatively impacted Breaking’s first touching point to a new global audience.”
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