Abstract
In 2008, Marion Jones was convicted and sentenced to 6 months in a federal prison for lying to federal prosecutors about steroid use and knowledge of a check-cashing scheme. This article explores the Jones scandal and the aftermath in the context of the contemporary cultural politics of Black female bodies and Black womanhood. I examine these events in the era of mass incarceration and a post-9/11 culture. I argue that the fervor and contempt expressed toward Jones are emblematic of a climate where the ideology of color blindness and claims to post-raciality promote and sustain the normalization of humiliation and punishment of Black females.
Over the many years of my life as an athlete in the sport of track and field you have been fiercely loyal and supportive towards me. Even more loyal and supportive than words can declare, has been my family, and especially my dear mother, who stands by my side today. And so it is with a great amount of shame that I stand before you and tell you that I have betrayed your trust. I want all of you to know that today I pled guilty to two counts of making false statements to federal agents. Making false statements to federal agents was an incredibly stupid thing for me to do, and I am responsible fully for my actions. I have no one to blame but myself for what I have done . . . I want you to know that I have been dishonest, and you have the right to be angry with me. I have let [my family] down. I have let my country down, and I have let myself down. I recognize that by saying I am deeply sorry, it might not be enough and sufficient to address the pain and hurt that I’ve caused you. Therefore, I want to ask for your forgiveness for my actions, and I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me. I have asked almighty God for my forgiveness. Having said this, and because of my actions, I am retiring from the sport of track and field, a sport which I deeply love.
You Used to Love Me
Black, beautiful, and determined, Marion Jones was 8 years old when she knew that she wanted to be an Olympian. As a teenager, Jones won the 100, 200, and 400 meter events at the California high school divisional finals and bettered the national high school record in the 200 meters. Even in these early years, Jones’s athletic achievements earned her national recognition and extraordinary opportunities. Jones was named National High School Athlete of the Year (1991-1993), and she made her first Olympic team when she was 16 as an alternate for the relay at the 1992 games in Barcelona. Also an accomplished basketball player, in 1994, Jones accepted a basketball scholarship to the University of North Carolina (UNC) Chapel Hill, and in her first year, the team won the national basketball championship. According to her college coach, Sylvia Hatchell, even then Jones embodied the stature of a “movie star” (as cited in Reed, 2001, p. 148).
During her years at UNC, Jones continued to compete in track and field, and following her graduation in 1997, Jones returned to the sport full-time, participating in the USA Outdoor Championships placing first in the 100, 200, and long jump. The year 2000 would prove to be Jones’s breakout year: In a move that many regarded as audacious Jones declared that she intended to win five gold medals in Sydney. 2 She would go on to win three gold and two bronze medals, becoming the first woman to win five medals in track and field at a single Olympics. Jones was subsequently featured on the covers of the U.S. magazines such as Sports Illustrated, Time, and Vogue where she was hailed as “greater than gold” and the “new American hero” (Reed, 2001). Jones’s incomparable athletic success turned her into a global super star, enabling her to earn tens of thousands of dollars in appearance fees and endorsements. As political sportswriter Dave Zirin (2007) observed, as “the feet of Nike, the face of Oakley Sunglasses, [and] the wrist of TAG Heuer watches,” Jones became “a one-woman multinational corporation” (para. 4). Looking back, Jones would say that she found the fame and attention “intoxicating”; “[w]hen you are number 1 people want to meet you” (see Wald, 2012).
Many wondered, however, about the origins of Jones’s success after the revelation that her husband, C. J. Hunter, had pulled out of the Sydney Olympics after returning a positive test for steroid use at a competition in Oslo earlier in the year (they would divorce in 2002). A vociferous opponent of performance enhancing drug (PED) use, Jones asserted that she had “never taken them” and that she would “never” take them (Jones & Sekules, 2004, p. 173). Nevertheless the rumors persisted, and in 2005, the talk intensified when her partner, Tim Montgomery, was suspended for steroid use and ultimately banned from track and field. For many, speculation lived alongside denial. As sportswriter Ron Rapoport explains, “[s]he denied it and we denied it. No one wanted to admit that what she had done was impossible without steroids” (Singleton, 2010). However, on October 5, 2007, Marion Jones publicly admitted to lying to federal prosecutors about steroid use (she acknowledged using a steroid from 2000 to 2001) and about her cognizance of Montgomery’s plan to make money through an arrangement involving forged checks. On January 11, 2008, Marion Jones was sentenced to 6 months in jail (to be followed by 2 years probation and 800 hours of community service). The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) subsequently disqualified all of Jones’s results dating back to September 2000, likewise the International Olympic Committee (IOC) stripped Jones of her five Olympic medals, and she was banned from attending the 2008 games in Beijing.
The mass media’s extensive coverage of Jones’s public statement and ensuing conviction were commensurate with her status as one of the most recognizable athletes of her era. The majority of the commentary regarded Jones alone as blameworthy, and the prevailing attitude was that of scorn and moral outrage. For example, Jones was variously described as a “tarnished girl [who] can’t outrun the truth” (Araton, 2007), a “disgrace,” a “disgraced” former Olympian, a “drug cheat,” a “pathological liar,” and the “new Ben.” 3 Tim Dahlberg (2007) of the Associated Press wrote, “I’d be lying if I didn’t think she was getting what she deserves” (para. 23). Columnist Philip Hersh (2008a) proclaimed, “Marion Jones fall from grace is complete,” while Lynn Zinser (2008) of the New York Times pronounced Jones “a cautionary tale that even the brightest smile can be hiding a lie” (para. 21). Correspondingly, Time magazine writer Sean Gregory (2007) stated that he felt “betrayed by Marion Jones,” while others spoke of the fact that her confession “hurt more than others” (Hill, 2007).
Marion Jones is the first high-profile athlete to be incarcerated for lying under oath about steroid use. 4 Writer Todd Balf (2008) was one of the few to openly question if race had played a part in the relentless expressions of contempt for Jones. In a Los Angeles Times column titled “Demonizing Marion,” he raised the following question: “Why is sympathy so hard to come by and forgiveness seemingly out of reach?” (para. 11)
I address a similar concern in my discussion of the Marion Jones scandal and the aftermath in the context of the contemporary cultural politics of Black female bodies and Black womanhood. As critical race and gender scholars such as Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, and Patricia Hill Collins, among others, have demonstrated, Black women have long been subject to stereotypes and forms of dehumanization that are specific to the history of their racialized gender identity and status. In her important book Not Just Race, Not Just Gender, Valerie Smith (1998) examines how Black women’s lives are simultaneously shaped by the intersection of multiple elements of their identity. In her words, “rather than attempting to determine the primacy of race or class or gender, we must search for a deeper understanding of how these categories of experience inflect and interrogate each other and constitute us as social subjects” (p. 32).
It is important to note that the denigration of Black females and their bodies has become so commonplace that it is rarely acknowledged. Indeed, Black women continue to be “recognized” by an ancient “grammar” that regard them as neither truly female nor as human beings (Spillers, 1987). Nappy headed. Hard-core hos. Unpatriotic. Angry. Niggabitch. Hideous. Ape. Cunt. Orangutan. Slave. Gorilla. Masculine. Liar. Cheat.— These are some of the words that have recently been used to describe members of Rutger’s women’s basketball team, First Lady Michelle Obama, Rihanna, Rachel Jeantel, Brittney Griner, Quvenzhané Wallis, Cécile Kyenge, Gabrielle Douglas, Serena Williams, Caster Semenya, and Marion Jones (Henderson, 2010b). Consequently, I am interested in the facility with which the public, the media, and sport governing bodies endorsed the denigration and the incarceration of Marion Jones.
I argue that the fact(s) of Jones’s Black femaleness activated the anger and anxiety that, in turn, contributed to her legal and public shaming and humiliation. That is, while the fervor and contempt expressed toward Jones are patently linked to a U.S. history that regarded Black females as “public property” (Henderson, 2010a, p. 3) I contend that in this post–civil rights era and post–September 11 (9/11) climate of White cultural nationalism, the disparagement and punishment of Jones is encouraged and upheld by the prevailing racial discourses of color blindness and post-raciality (Enck-Wanzer, 2011; Giroux, 2012; Kusz, 2007).
In what follows, I build upon these insights in my examination of the intersection of formations of race and gender and the link between sexism and racism to consider the varied ways in which anti-Black racism operates as a “gender specific phenomenon” (Collins, 2004, p. 7) in the form of gendered racist stereotypes (Sudbury, 2005) and gendered racism (Essed, n.d.). In addition to identifying the damage of anti-Black racism, I also want to illuminate the “machinery of whiteness” to make explicit the various practices, structures, and ideologies that encourage and sustain White supremacy (Martinot, 2010).
Racial Signs of These “Color-Blind,” “Post-Racial” Times
Marion Jones was on her way to becoming the greatest track and field athlete, man or woman, who ever lived. No one ever competed in as many events. No one had ever won as many big events. No one ever took on as many comers. (Ron Rapoport) I lost the 5 medals I won at the Olympics. I lost a multi-million dollar income. I lost endorsements. I lost my reputation and everything I had worked so hard to achieve. But the most devastating loss was the loss of my freedom. Why? Because I took PEDs and I lied about it. (Marion Jones)
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On March 8, 2008, Marion Jones began serving her 6-month prison term at the Carswell Federal Prison in Fort Worth, Texas. A woman once regarded as “the most glorious female athlete of the 20th century” (Hersh, 2008b, para. 20), Jones’s journey from the podium to prison exemplifies the contradictions of citizenship and the predicament of belonging for Black females in this post–civil rights era (Tillet, 2012). That is, Jones’s ability to reach unprecedented heights only to later “lose her freedom” reflects what sport studies scholar Abdel-Shehid (2002) characterizes as the “two extremes, [of] adulation and repression” (p. 318) indicative of the prevailing organization and operation of current race and gender hierarchies in the United States. 6 Consequently, I want to suggest that Jones’s hyper-visibility as a Black female athlete is analogous to the hyper-invisibility of the mass incarceration of Black women.
It is also important to note that the Jones scandal took place during an amalgam of inter/national political, cultural, and social shifts that brought a particular pressure to bear on discourses of citizenship, national identity, and expressions of patriotism in the United States. For example, following the events of 9/11, American public discourse has obscured the lines differentiating domestic and foreign enemies, reconfiguring Black and brown bodies as potential threats to national security. In addition, White racial anxieties and tensions were elevated during the 2008 presidential election campaign when then Senator Barack Obama was vying to become the first non-White (i.e., Black) president of the United States. Furthermore, the prospect of a Black First Lady elicited a particular kind of apprehension and hostility, one which Ralina L. Joseph (2011) describes as a specifically “virulent, racist, misogynistic anti-Black woman brand” (p. 56). That is, the assertion that Michelle Obama is unsuitable in the role of First Lady, the most visible position of “ladyhood,” can be traced to the legacy of the presumed incommensurability between Black femaleness and womanhood (Higginbotham, 1992; Lorde, 1984). As Lugo-Lugo and Bloodsworth-Lugo (2011) explain, Michelle Obama is located “at the intersection between enduring perceptions of black women within the United States and new post-9/11 constructions of threat/danger to the country and its citizenry-rendering her ‘unsafe’” (p. 203).
Also germane to my analysis of the Jones scandal is Kusz’s (2007) argument that White racial projects have been invigorated by the use of images, symbols, and narratives that construct a domestic White cultural nationalism that defines White men as the epitome of “true” patriots and model citizens. Consequently, sport media, fans, and sport organizations play an important part in current efforts to reinscribe White male power in post-9/11 American society through the activation and dissemination of racial and gendered meanings of loyalty and belonging. Kusz (2007) persuasively demonstrates how the White racism that undergirds the rhetoric of “traditional American values” and claims to an “unapologetic pride” in America are forcefully conveyed through the constant observation and denigration of Black male athletes. I want to trouble Kusz’s analysis further by inserting Jones into this conversation to explore how Black female athletes and their bodies are specific targets in this current cultural climate.
In addition, a number of scholars and activists have addressed the development of the punishment industry in the so-called era of color blindness (Alexander, 2010; Giroux, 2012; Sudbury, 2005). The complex connections between gender, blackness, criminality, and imprisonment are revealed by the fact that women constitute the fast growing segment, with Latinas and Black women comprising 60% of the U.S. female prison population (Sudbury, 2005). The disproportionate representation of Black women in prison illustrates how the law continues to discipline Black female bodies. Michelle Alexander (2010) succinctly describes the figurative relationship between contemporary race-making, race-thinking, and notions of criminality thus, “[t]his process of being made a criminal is to a large extent, the process of ‘becoming’ black” (p. 195). 7
In short, an atmosphere of heightened vigilance, racial profiling, and the erosion of civil liberties mark the present. As Henry Giroux (2012) explains in his book Disposable Youth, in American society, the culture of cruelty and punishment has become normalized. In his words, . . . the widespread adoption of a set of values, policies, and symbolic practices that legitimate forms of organized violence against human beings increasingly considered disposable, . . . Such practices are increasingly accompanied by forms of humiliation in which the character, dignity, and bodies of targeted individuals and groups are under attack. (p. 36)
While Giroux (2012) does not specifically discuss Black females, his argument is connected to my discussion of the perception and treatment of Marion Jones. I want to make the case that the prevailing cultural climate of hostility and violence that targets Black females is linked to the legacy of western discourses of White supremacy and systems of domination. That is, the vilification of Jones is not without precedent; Black women have been subject to stereotypes and forms of dehumanization that are specific to the history of their racialized gender identity and status. For Black women, anatomy has never served as evidence of womanhood as slavery gave rise to White supremacist discourses that classified Black women as property, and consequently, they were not legally or socially regarded as either female or human (Higginbotham, 1992; Peterson, 2001; Spillers, 1987). I would suggest that the public eagerness to denigrate Black female athletes’ bodies and their personhood builds upon this legacy of violence. In her article “‘Who you callin’ nappy-headed’? Gloria Ladson-Billings (2009) draws attention to the “ease” with which Don Imus challenged the physicality, beauty, and humanity of members of the Rutger’s women’s basketball team. Cooky, Wachs, Messner, and Dworkin’s (2010) examination of this incident confirm the limited, and subsequently limiting, portrayals of Black female athletes in the public sphere. The contemporary body politics of Black female athletes is further revealed in Caster Semenya’s mistreatment by her White co-competitors, the global media, the public, and various sport governing agencies. Furthermore, analyses of the tennis careers of Venus and Serena Williams expose how mediated narratives and sport commentary repeatedly degrade both their bodies and their accomplishments in a manner that privileges the colonial White gaze of Black femaleness (Douglas, 2002; McKay & Johnson, 2008). Notably, this work also exposes the hostility the sisters have encountered from the primarily White crowds, whose conduct has ranged from intolerant to malicious on numerous occasions (Douglas, 2005, 2012). Consequently, I would suggest that the lack of compassion for Jones is related to established and emergent expressions of racialized fear and racist loathing of Black females and their bodies in sport (and in society). With this broader cultural and political context in mind, I now want to take up the Marion Jones scandal. I begin with the trial, which took place in White Plains, New York, October 5, 2007.
Here Comes the Judge/ment
I plead guilty, your honor. I understand, your honor. This was a lie, your honor. (Marion Jones, October 5, 2007).
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At the sentencing hearing for her conviction on two counts of making false statements to federal prosecutors, Jones’s defense team sought probation or house arrest. During the inquiry, Jones made a formal apology, declaring that she was fully cognizant of the “gravity of these offences” and that she was “deeply sorry” (“Six-Month,” 2008, para. 14). Jones also asked that the judge be “as merciful as a human being can be” (para. 2) and not separate her from her two young children, one of whom was 8 months old. U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas did not defer, however, sentencing Jones to 6 months in prison, the maximum according to the terms of her plea deal. Karas’s ruling means that Jones would become the first athlete to be sent to jail in the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO) drug case.
In his reasons for judgment, Karas emphasized that his decision was based on the severity of the offenses, stating, “[t]hey each involved lies made three years apart,” thus her actions were “not a one-off mistake . . . but a repetition in an attempt to break the law” (para. 25). Karas also declared that he did not believe a statement made by Jones in October 2007 when she said she did not realize she was taking steroids until after the 2000 Olympic games. In his words, “[t]hat is very difficult to believe, that a top-notch athlete . . . would not be keenly aware of what he or she put in her body” (para. 27). He asserted that he had decided to imprison Jones “because of the need for general deterrence and the need to promote respect for the law” (para. 3). He believed that a message needed to be sent to athletes who had used steroids and who had subsequently ignored the values of “hard work, dedication, teamwork and sportsmanship . . . Athletes in society have an elevated status, they entertain, they inspire, and perhaps, most important, they serve as role models” (para. 4-5). Karas concluded with the proclamation that “[n]obody is above the legal obligation to tell the truth” (para. 6). On March 7, 2008, Marion Jones entered a federal prison to serve her 6-month sentence.
While the jailing of Jones may appear straightforward—she admitted to breaking the law, and thus she should be held accountable—I want to draw attention to the judge’s pronouncement that he wanted to make an example of Jones, a Black sport star and a mother. According to Karas, Jones is a deliberate liar who is contemptuous of both the law and the principles of fair play. He also suggests that her deceit persists. The suspicion directed toward Jones could be read as a continuation of America’s preoccupation, fascination, and fear of Black bodies (Gray, 1997). Nevertheless, I would suggest that the concern about steroid use in the United States relies on the decades old narrative of the war on drugs and the overwhelming association of drug use as a specifically Black problem. In the words of Cole and Mobley (2005), “[r]ace and drugs are so inextricably linked in U.S. culture that even when steroids seemingly are bracketed, the black body becomes the narrative replacement for drugs” (p. 6). This moral panic gained prominence during the Seoul games after Ben Johnson’s positive test for anabolic steroids and sprinter Florence Griffith Joyner’s (Flo-Jo) gold medal performances (Denham, 1999). The speculation continued when Flo-Jo retired prior to the implementation of random mandatory drug testing, and it endured following her untimely death at the age of 38. Notably, Flo-Jo’s 100 and 200-meter world record times remain unchallenged; Jones was one of two athletes to come close (Cole & Mobley, 2005). 9
In turn, the U.S.-directed war on drugs has redirected the focus of public discourse and policy from “social welfare to social control” (Davis, 1998, para. 25); given the overrepresentation of Black women in the prison system, Karas’s ruling confirms that the implementation of stringent drug laws and punitive measures are not extended to all citizens equally. Remarkably, in the days prior to Jones’s sentencing hearing, Judge Karas sought additional information to determine whether he could impose a lengthier term than the 6 months outlined in the plea deal (her lawyers were able to negotiate her sentence from a potential 5-year term to 6 months). Moreover, Karas’s assertion that Jones continues to be dishonest about her knowledge of PEDs confirms racialized ascriptions of Black women’s immorality. Thus, the state’s punishment of Jones inaugurates the racial stigma of blackness and reinscribes the color line such that Whites are configured as law-abiding and virtuous while Jones (and other Black females) is upheld as a threat to American cultural values. Hence the denial of mercy is not accidental.
Karas’s portrayal of Jones’s character is persuasive because it links her to prevailing stereotypes that are founded on assumptions that regard all Black women as untrustworthy (Harris-Perry, 2011). The official identification of Jones as a fraud renders her undesirable and, thus, she becomes “disposable” (Myers, 2005, p. 265). Consequently, the violence of incarceration is one of the ways in which White patriarchal power is organized and implemented, since the removal of Jones safeguards White innocence and preserves White cultural domination. In brief, Jones’s punishment is an example of how anti-Black gendered racism is normalized through the ostensibly unbiased application of “the law.” I want to suggest, therefore, that it is precisely because this Black woman, the former face of U.S. track and field, is believed to have shamed the nation that she is subject to “brutal enforcement” (Gray, 1997, p. 87).
While Jones’s class status and celebrity gave her access to legal representation that is not available to the majority of Black women who become entangled in the legal system, the judge’s ruling indicates that Jones would lose all that she had gained because of the fact(s) of her Black femaleness (Crenshaw, 1997). As a convicted felon, Jones joins the burgeoning population of women who are being disciplined via the prison industrial complex: From 1977 to 2007, the female prison population grew by 832%. Moreover, two hundred thousand women are in prison or jail in the United States, and more than one million women are under criminal justice regulation. Of this group, the majority are mothers who have been incarcerated for non-violent crimes such as drug-related or property offenses, including larceny and fraud; Black women comprise nearly 33% of this population. 10
In addition, the growth of “zero tolerance” youth policies has led to the criminalization of Black girls who are increasingly being channeled through the “school to prison pipeline” for offenses such as truancy and emotional outbursts (Hutchinson, 2013). A national study conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center (Losen & Skiba, 2010) confirms that while Black girls do not commit more infractions, irrespective of their class status, they are regarded as threatening and dangerous. What’s more, public discourse and media support the stereotype of the uncontrollable Black female body (consider the characterizations of Michelle Obama and Caster Semenya, Brittney Griner’s punch, Serena Williams conduct at the 2009 and 2011 US Open tournaments), creating an atmosphere that encourages the unprecedented number of Black women involved in the criminal justice system. Thus, while justice may be seen to be done, the judge’s solution to the problem of Marion Jones reproduces the historical and current practice of disciplining Black female bodies.
Moreover, the jailing of Jones separates her from the social body in myriad ways (Sudbury, 2005). First, the felony conviction confirms that Jones is no longer one of us, “the deserving” (Alexander, 2010, p. 140), and thus she is deemed worthy of contempt. In the era of mass incarceration, the stigma of being a criminal is overwhelmingly a racial stigma (Alexander, 2010, p. 193). The sentence also removes one of the most basic rights of citizenship, namely, the right to vote, and thus she was unable to cast a ballot in the historic 2008 Presidential election. 11
In sum, both Justice Karas’s sentence and the reasons for judgment are important forms of public knowledge because they reinforce identifications and definitions of morality and national identity that are already in play; the incarceration of Jones reminds the public that Black women are unsafe (Henderson, 2010b). Marion Jones has been officially identified as a dangerous body (i.e., a felon), and thus barred from exercising the rights and privileges associated with legal citizenship. Consequently, at a time when it is deemed impolitic to speak of race, the law continues to quietly function as a mechanism of control in Black women’s lives. Furthermore, in the current atmosphere of racialized fear and threat, the perception and treatment of Jones exists at the intersection of long-standing concerns about Black female misbehavior in the United States and contemporary racialized anxieties about threats to the safety of the nation (Lugo-Lugo & Bloodsworth-Lugo, 2011). Thus, in the era of color blindness, the disproportionate representation of Black women in the criminal justice system is readily understood as confirmation of the unruly nature of Black female bodies (Alexander, 2010; Enck-Wanzer, 2011). As a result, the practice of anti-Black gendered racism (Essed, n.d.) that “disappears” Jones (and thousands like her) from “public view” under the guise of maintaining law and order (Davis, 1998) masks how the law continues to organize and regulate the racial and social character of American society.
No Mercy
You know, if she lied, then we can throw her away. We can throw the body away. (Williams, 1997, p. 146)
While in prison, Jones wrote to President George W. Bush in an effort to have her sentence commuted. In response, then CEO of USA Track & Field (2008-2010) Douglas G. Logan wrote a letter to the president, stating that he had “a moral and practical duty” (as cited in Hersh, 2008b, para. 2) to oppose Jones’s request for a pardon. In his words, With her cheating and lying, Marion Jones did everything she could to violate the principles of track and field and Olympic competition. When she came under scrutiny for doping, she taunted any who doubted her purity, talent and work ethic. Just as she had succeeded in duping us with her performances, she duped many people into giving her the benefit of the doubt. She pointed her finger at us, and got away with it until federal investigators teamed up with USADA and finally did her in. Our country has long turned a blind eye to the misdeeds of our heroes. If you have athletic talent or money or fame, the law is applied much differently than if you are slow or poor or an average American trying to get by. At the same time, all sports have for far too long given the benefit of the doubt to its heroes who seem too good to be true, even when common sense indicates they are not. To reduce Ms. Jones’ sentence or pardon her would send a horrible message to young people who idolized her, reinforcing the notion that you can cheat and be entitled to get away with it . . . Few things are more globally respected than the Olympic Games, and to pardon one of the biggest frauds perpetuated on the Olympic movement would be nothing less than thumbing our collective noses at the world . . . I must right the ship that Ms. Jones and other athletes nearly ran aground. I implore you, Mr. President: Please don’t take the wind out of our sails. (para. 19-23)
While Logan’s letter outlines a number of arguments in support of the upholding of Jones’s sentence, for the purpose of this discussion, I consider the following three themes: dupe (e.g., the public as victim), Jones’s character (e.g., arrogant, and a fraud), and the integrity of U.S. national identity. Both the content and tenor of Logan’s letter are emblematic of what sociologist Joe Feagin (2010) describes as the “white racial frame,” an “emotion laden construction process,” which “both rationalizes and structures the racial interactions, inequalities, and other racial patterns in most societal settings” (p. ix). I want to suggest that Logan’s letter is a symbolic expression of White outrage that reiterates that imprisonment is the appropriate and essential reaction to Jones’s deceit (Martinot, 2010). That is, the narrative reads as a discourse of White racial revenge—she pointed her finger at us—she duped us, and therefore she must be punished (Crenshaw, 1997).
According to Logan, Jones defiled not only the sport of track and field, she also dishonored America’s international reputation. His use of the rhetoric of taunting is instructive as he portrays Jones as a treacherous Black woman who is a danger to the body politic. This interpretation of Jones gains its meaning through the racialized (and racist) assumptions of White innocence and integrity; Logan’s narrative confirms White identity as the embodiment of true patriots (Kusz, 2007). Once again, a Black female body is used to signal the boundary of propriety and morality to secure the uprightness of whiteness (Yancy, 2012). Subsequently, Logan’s contempt for Jones and his enthusiasm for her continued incarceration reflects the visceral and emotional component that Feagin (2010) describes as a key element of the White racial frame. To put it another way, Logan’s efforts are illustrative of how anti-Black gendered racism is expressed not only through structured exclusions, stereotypes, and images, but also through the intensely held feelings of antipathy and superiority that Whites hold about Black women.
Moreover, Logan’s assertion that Jones’s actions are worthy of imprisonment reveals the normalization of the punitive state, while simultaneously obscuring the fact that the United States imprisons more of its citizens per capita than any other country in the world (Davis, 1998; Giroux, 2012). Accordingly, Logan’s attitude renews the White fear that the “unregulated black female body” constitutes the ultimate threat to traditional American values (Cooper, 2010, p. 49). I would suggest that Logan’s entreaty to President Bush reveals the enduring devaluation of Black women. In this context, the conviction and jailing of Jones are insufficient penalties—in this current atmosphere of cruelty and humiliation, Jones’s “debt to society is never paid” (Alexander, 2010, p. 139)—deemed a disreputable figure, nothing less than social death will do.
Furthermore, the preoccupation with “catching” individual drug cheats combined with Jones’s pronouncement that she alone is responsible for her situation encourages the identification of her as the latest “designated enemy” (Alexander, 2010, p. 221). Thus, Logan’s declaration that it is his duty to “right the ship,” and restore the integrity of track and field is emblematic of what Kusz (2007) describes as the activation of post-9/11 efforts to advance a discourse of domestic White cultural nationalism by reinscribing White masculinity as the American norm. Similarly, the claim that Jones’s sense of entitlement, lying, and cheating constitutes a “threat” to “traditional” American values relies on the construction of Whites as proper patriots and law-abiding citizens. As Kusz (2007) explains, White “discontent over a loss of White dominance on America’s national sport stages silently echoes through a seemingly nonracial discussion of the deficient values, honor, and morality” (p. 86).
Furthermore, the hyper-visibility of the Jones scandal masks the operation of “exclusionary practices” that preserve White racial domination (Collins, 1998, p. 14). For example, Jones is not the only sport star to stridently deny steroid use and yet she alone has been incarcerated; Jones has also served more time in prison than Victor Conte, the head of BALCO. Who, then, are all the others who Logan claims got away (How did they manage to do so? And why were they allowed to go “free”?) Jason Giambi publicly admitted to steroid use, as did Mark McGwire who admitted to using PEDs (solely for “health purposes”) when he broke baseball’s home run record; Roger Clemens was found not guilty of lying to Congress about taking PEDs. All the three men continue to garner an income through their varied positions with Major League Baseball. In 2011, Barry Bonds was convicted on the obstruction of justice charge for giving an indirect response to a question under oath about steroid use; unlike Jones, however, his penalty was house arrest and probation.
Perhaps the greatest example of the organization and operation of hierarchies of race and gender power is embodied in the response to Lance Armstrong’s admission of steroid use throughout his storied career and during each of his seven Tour de France victories. During a lengthy interview with Oprah Winfrey in January 2013, Armstrong acknowledged that he did not think that his use of PEDs was a “big deal,” that it did not feel “wrong,” and that he did not feel “bad[ly]” about taking banned substances to compete at the highest level (“Lance,” 2013, para. 5-10). Thus, while Jones may no longer be regarded as the “biggest fraud” in sport, given the racialized and engendered nature of the drug discourse, Jones is inevitably subject to White anger and White resentment. 12 The criminalization of a Black female is part of the tradition of White supremacy; I would suggest that the enthusiasm for the punishment of Jones is an example of the culture of “permissibility and impunity” (Martinot, 2010, p. 43) that continues to sanction anti-Black misogyny and gendered racism.
As the first and only athlete to be incarcerated for her actions, the inconsistent perception and handling of these athletes associated with steroids confirms Jones’s location as a subordinate in the “hierarchy of humanness” (McKittrick, 2006, p. xvii). In sum, the widespread disregard for Jones’s personhood demonstrates how notions of the public good are invoked to animate and sustain a climate where claims to post-raciality are concomitant with the normalization of humiliation and punishment of black females (Crenshaw, 1997; Giroux, 2012).
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Marion?
In a word—expunction. The widespread condemnation of Jones has been accompanied by various symbolic and material penalties. Having been identified and judged a danger to society, Jones’s conviction meant that her penalty was authorized by the law and subject to the full weight of state power; hence the symbolic and social removal of Jones is, therefore, the accepted form of response (Yancy, 2012). That her Black female body is a problematic body is supported by the fact that no male athlete has been imprisoned for admitting to steroid use. Thus, the criminalization of Jones demonstrates how the law sanctions the systemic violence of anti-Black misogyny, confirming Black female bodies as separate from White men and women on the “scales of humanity” (Higginbotham, 1992, p. 263). Removed from the status of sport star and denied the privileges associated with civic recognition, the spectacle of the Jones scandal furthers the discourse of White cultural nationalism by affirming that purity and patriotism are inherent to White racialized identities (Kusz, 2007; Martinot, 2010).
. . . as they say in prison . . . she decided to try me . . . so she’s coming at me and I’m pushing her away. I probably got in a swing or two, so I pushed her. I remember I pushed her down on the bed, and I’m running to the door I’m trying to get out of the room, right—so she comes after me and I had this water cooler that somebody had loaned me and she’s comin’ at me and all I remember is taking the water cooler and hitting her in the face with it to just get her away from me. I think she was bleeding at the side of her eye or something like that, and so the guard tells me to stay right there . . . Even though I tried to plead my case that she had attacked me, you know they didn’t want to hear it, they put me in solitary confinement for 48-49 days. It’s tough because I had no phone calls, no visitation . . . You are by yourself . . . no radio, no tv, nothing. All you have are your books, your thoughts . . . (Singleton, 2010)
Upon her arrival in prison, Jones was placed among the general population. At the time of the altercation, she had four roommates; that someone decided to “try her” is not surprising, given her celebrity. I would suggest that the duration of Jones’s isolation, nearly 6 weeks of her 6-month sentence, extends beyond an act of humiliation to dehumanization. Jones’s treatment confirms that she remains a threat—not simply to those in prison (while her removal might be construed as a form of protection one must keep in mind the psychological, emotional, and physical ramifications of the duration of her isolation) but to the nation. As Marion’s husband, Oba, explains, “Certain forces were at play where I think people, some people, wanted to break her spirit” (Singleton, 2010).
In addition, Jones’s relocation to “the shoot” is illustrative of how the “state’s identity as a white state is created through its demonstration of domination over a black female body” (Martinot, 2010, p. 36). The denial of her personhood is what allows for this additional humiliation and violence; she is not regarded as vulnerable, but deserving, of segregation and the attendant sensory deprivation. Already a captive body, Jones’s relocation to solitary confinement is the equivalent of “throwing her body away” (Spillers, 1987). Such is the potency of the unregulated Black female body that additional enforcement is required.
Jones has continually resisted the state’s efforts to “coercive[ly] control” her by attacking her body and self-respect (hooks, 1989, p. 113); Jones has exercised her agency and asserted her humanness through embodied action in an effort to achieve some measure of corporal integrity and bodily freedom (Gordon-Chipembere, 2011; Yancy, 2012).
Because I was in the cell by myself and there was another bed and I took the mattress off the other bed and I put those on the ground. You don’t have running shoes. You only have those Kung Fu like shoes with no sole. So I would put both of the mats on the ground and run in place for a half hour until they figured out I was using my watch and they took my watch away. You walk two steps I had to turn you walk two steps you have to turn . . . because, I mean its a box . . . however many jumping jacks I don’t know it was like 50 or a 100.Then 20-25 push ups, a lot of ab work . . . I would get blisters on the bottom of my feet because those shoes gave me no protection. (Singleton, 2010)
Following her conviction, all of Jones’s race results dating back to September 1, 2000, were expunged, and she was told to return her five Olympic medals along with the seven hundred thousand US dollars in prize money that she had been awarded. Other strategies of eradication included banning her from attending the Beijing Olympics, and the UNC removed her photo from the track and field hall of honor. While the jailing of Jones separated her from the social body, the deletion of her records achieves a related but slightly different effect, in that it is an attempt to construct a new reality, one that imagines Jones was never there. In her important book Demonic Grounds, Katherine McKittrick (2006) discusses how racism and sexism are spatial acts. Building upon this theme, I want to suggest that the erasure of Jones from the record books can be interpreted as the destruction of “bodily evidence” (McKittrick, 2006, p. 117) or the “consequential punishment/death of black[female]ness” (p. 115).
In addition, the incarceration of Jones repeats the narrative of Black deviancy and its opposite, namely, White supremacy. As Martinot (2010) explains, “the punishment that buries those caught and exiled by the law can be considered an act of purification, an exorcism of corruption producing social virtue and respectability” (p. 31). In sum, the brutality of objectification is revealed in the characterization of Jones as untrustworthy and unpatriotic. Deemed expendable, the various techniques employed to remove Jones’s presence sustain racial and gender hierarchies and affirm White patriarchal racial domination.
Can You Be a Black Woman and Recover From This?
Don’t you ever get into these integrated kind of situations thinking you can do the same thing they can . . . I don’t care if you are the President of the United States, or Marion Jones, or Barry Bonds or Michael Vick. There are people waiting for you consciously and unconsciously to screw up . . . And when you screw up you are throwing yourself on the feet of a court that historically does not have mercy on black people in this country. William C. Rhoden, sportswriter. (Singleton, 2010)
Formerly hailed as a hero and the symbol of American sporting dominance, Marion Jones’s current status as a convicted felon bars her from many of the rights and privileges of formal citizenship. Indeed, the public’s antipathy and the symbolic and embodied erasure of Jones suggest that she is beyond redemption. The connotation of Jones with shame can be traced to a history that has doubted Black women’s “humanness” (Lorde, 1984, p. 129). Correspondingly, the unprecedented imprisonment of Black women (and men) in the “post racial” present indicates how Black women continue to be regarded as subhuman. As Melissa Harris-Perry (2011) explains, when the state seeks to shame individuals by removing their right to vote the state has “moved from punishing guilt to imposing shame . . . this disenfranchisement marks the citizen as defective and unfit for participation in a democracy” (p. 109). I would suggest that the fervor and contempt expressed toward Jones reveals the difficult politics of recognition and belonging for Black females in U.S. society. Thus, the Jones’s scandal and the myriad efforts to punish her can also be interpreted as an attempt to put all Black women in their place.
“I Am Not Done”
. . . I am not
Despite the concerted efforts of the state, the public and sport governing bodies to “disappear” Jones, she has refused to remain imprisoned in the house of shame and humiliation where they have sought to confine her. Denied the privileges of whiteness and maleness, Jones has fashioned herself in accordance with the politics of respectability in her ongoing struggle to secure corporeal integrity and personhood (Cooper, 2010). At the age of 34, Jones signed with the Tulsa Shock (17 years after she was first drafted in to the league), where she played for one season (she was waived in July 2011). Jones is also “talking back” using “embodied rhetoric,” (Cooper, 2010, p. 40) speaking publicly about her journey. She has written a book and created “Take a Break,” a campaign designed to provide youth with the skills to make sound life decisions; in 2013, she established the Marion Jones elite performance program in Austin, Texas (http://marionjoneselite.com). The program targets young women, offering them the opportunity to realize their potential in every element of their lives through basketball and sport training.
However, in a cultural climate where the humiliation and dehumanization of Black women is permissible, Jones’s decision to reenter the public sphere comes with great risk. Arguably, Jones’s decision to lead a public life signals “the irrepressible desire to be seen—truly seen and understood as human and as a citizen” (Harris-Perry, 2011, p. 300). In this context, Jones is compelled to assert her humanity and attempt to define the terms of her visibility and recognition (Gordon-Chipembere, 2011). Jones’s response has been one of resistance—and refusal—refusing to be whom and what she has been perceived to be, a criminal, a figure meriting derision and hatred. Since her release from prison, Jones’s public demeanor has challenged attacks on Black womanhood embodying traits of humility, prudence, and a devotion to Christian values. Jones has been vocal about the importance of God to her life, appearing on the 700 Club, a program on the Christian Broadcast Network, to discuss her incarceration, her faith, and the lessons she has learned as a result of her experiences. While Jones’s response can be interpreted as an attempt to silence public condemnation, and gendered anti-Black stereotypes by leading a life that reflects “traditional” American values, her actions simultaneously reproduce dominant cultural notions of class, gender, and sexuality. Thus, while Jones’s post-prison public presence “provides an alternate measuring stick for judging” her worth (Harris-Perry, 2011, p. 222), challenging claims that she does not belong, the effort to assert an affirmative image does little to disrupt the racial and gender order. In short, given the virulent anti-Black gendered hostility that Black females (athletes and nonathlete) continue to confront in the public sphere, Marion Jones will undoubtedly continue to pay an indescribable debt for the rest of her life.
It is clear that in this so-called post-racial and color-blind era, one of the ways in which a Black female presence has been disciplined has been through erasure. However, as Gamal Abdel-Shehid (2005) demonstrates in his discussion of Ben Johnson, erasure does not eliminate “the problem.” As he explains, Johnson is the “ghost [that] haunts the nation . . . Remembering/forgetting Ben marks the nation’s boundaries and separates good from evil, pure from impure . . .” (p. 92). Abdel-Shehid’s (2005) description is relevant to Jones given her status as the first athlete to be imprisoned for lying to federal prosecutors about steroid use; she too stands as yet another Black female figure against which the boundaries of integrity, citizenship, and propriety are measured. In closing, the incarceration of Jones, combined with the efforts to remove all traces of her presence, reveals Black women’s ongoing struggles for recognition and acceptance. Jones may have been removed from the record books, but she will not, she cannot, be forgotten—her “country needs” her (Spillers, 1987, p. 64).
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
Parts of an earlier version of this paper were presented at a talk I gave at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. This paper has been revised considerably owing to feedback provided by a number of people: many thanks to Katherine M. Jamieson for her detailed questions and comments on its original incarnation. I would also like to express my gratitude to Janine Jones and Mary G McDonald for their analytical insights on a later version of this project. Lastly, I appreciate the support provided by JSSI editor C. L. Cole and the suggestions offered by the two anonymous reviewers.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.