I think it wasn't the ponytail, but the kind of "this isn't really a bun but I've doubled-up my ponytail in a half-ass looking way" part? I thought it was a little weird, given how slicked back and glittered and baretted the front was, but...

But a bunch of them were wearing their hair like that. (And she didn't have glitter in her hair. I remember noticing and commenting that all the Russians had a ton of glitter, but the Americans were glitter-free.)

greetings all!

I have moved and have been in my new residence since Thursday. I checked in to Bitches throughout the Hades of my move, but I'm starting to catch up on all things. I am a bigass skipper, but I will read through the 1500 messages I have missed thus far.

I have spent a king's ransom trying to get out of town and getting settled here, but my house is on the market and I hope it will be sold soon!

Yay to Curiosity and to most of the Olympics (except NBC's awful awful coverage). The less said about the stuff bumming me out the better.

Racism and hair politics, in a nutshell. Your hair might frizz out, but at the end of the day, you're still white.

Yeah, I get that, but I still don't see what the problem was. I googled a bit, and found a bunch of articles quoting people criticizing her hair, but I can't find anything with specifics about what they thought was wrong with it. I'm confused about what people were objecting to.

Gabby also had a fake ponytail in the back that people objected to. In large measure, it was no worse or better than most hair I saw in women's gymnastics.

There are few subjects more emotionally charged than black hair.

It's flat-out racism. They just couldn't find anything else to criticize.

At least they're not talking about her teeth. Maybe it's dawning on people that orthodontia can be a luxury.

Ginger speaks truth. What would they have said if she came out in cornrows?

OK, after reading about ten more articles that all quoted people saying things like, "It's great that she won, but with that hair?" I finally found a couple that said that the problem was that there was some texture at the front and nape, but the ponytail was straight, and it shouldn't be mismatched like that. Which, whatever, but at least I'm not staring at photos saying, "But what are they objecting to?" anymore.

I searched twitter for "gabby hair" the night that she won gold.

A couple of points: By far, most of the comments about her hair, and criticizing it, were made by people of color (at least, if their avatars were accurate). ETA: ALSO, most of the Tweets, by everyone - were supportive of Gabby's hair and took others to task for complaining about it.

One of my best friends on Twitter is pretty mad that the media picked up on the "story" at all, because she (she's Black) sees the media picking up on the "Black people are really critical of Black people's hair" angle and she is annoyed that "all Black people are being judged based on stupid people on Twitter trying to stir up shit". Her words.

My conclusion is that media wants you to click on headlines AND people who have a voice on the internet are sometimes going to write stupid things.