For BIPOC, Running—and Its Online Forums—Is Not a Refuge From Racial Discrimination

Censored posts within a race forum on social media highlight why we
need to continue to talk about racism.
By Emilia Benton
Sep 18, 2020

courtesy chevron stewart
Courtesy Chevron Stewart

When Ben Chan, 38, completed the Great Virtual Race Across
Tennessee (GVRAT) on July 31, he was excited to share his
accomplishment and recap his run in the race’s Facebook group, as
many of the race’s thousands of participants had done over the last
couple of weeks.

In doing so, he also shared his experiences of being on the receiving
end of racist and homophobic slurs throughout the event. What he wasn’t
expecting was for his post to be deemed “political” and removed
completely.

The GVRAT is the brainchild of Barkley Marathons founder Gary
“Lazarus Lake” Cantrell, who created the virtual event after his
signature race was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The race
distance is 635 miles, or slightly over 1,000 kilometers, which is the
rough equivalent of running from the southeastern corner to the
northwestern corner of Tennessee. Participants had to cover the
distance between May 1 and August 31, and it averaged out to running a
minimum of five miles per day. Cantrell had been expecting roughly 200
people to sign up, but the number of registrants ended up reaching
about 13,000 from around the U.S. and across the globe.

Chan, an information technology manager for a family services
nonprofit, did most of his running beginning at 3 a.m. in Queens, New
York, where he was living at the time. (He has since relocated to
Keene, New Hampshire.) He posted his race recap in the GVRAT Facebook
group immediately after finishing his final run of the event, which
included a photo of himself wearing a Black Lives Matter singlet. Chan
noted that he didn’t share his experiences in an effort to elicit
sympathy, but to stand in solidarity with those who have dealt with far
worse, such as his wife, Chevon, who is Black.

The next morning, he woke up to a notification that his post had been
removed, with a note from Cantrell saying that while he “agreed 1,000%”
with his sentiment, the group was not a place for political posts.

Although he hadn’t seen the majority of them, other runners informed
Chan that his post had received numerous comments both in support of
him and other comments in agreement with Cantrell’s sentiment. Cantrell
eventually posted his own statement within the group that he had no
interest in moderating a political group and that the forum is intended
as a “refuge” from such discussions.
gary “lazarus lake” cantrell at the 2019 barkley marathons in his
classic red flannel and “geezer” hat
Gary Cantrell is best known for being the creator of the Barkley
Marathons.
Alexis Berg

“ is not a place for political posts or human
rights matters —it is just about a run,” Cantrell told Runner’s World.
“I’m not interested in moderating the arguments that these posts
bring.”

But for Chan, the derogatory comments he would hear during his runs
were actually a part of his GVRAT experience, showcasing that for
Black, Indigenous, and people of color, racial discrimination is
prevalent in all aspects of life and isn’t something they can choose to
escape. While Cantrell allowed other participants to share personal
hurdles such as going through divorces, overcoming cancer, or dealing
with mental health issues and hitting emotional lows as they completed
the race, the topic of racism was not allowed to remain.

“A lot of runners posted in the group looking for words of support,
advice, and sympathy, and there was a sense among the thousands of us
in the group that vulnerability was welcome,” Chan told Runner’s World.
“That’s why I thought my finisher post where I mentioned dealing with
bigotry would be welcome.”
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Cantrell’s response to Chan’s Facebook post immediately elicited a
common question from Chan and other participants and observers: For
whom does the forum serve as a refuge? Where does this leave the BIPOC
who don’t have a safe space to seek refuge from their lived
experiences?

“In his mind, thinks removing these posts is the fairest
thing to do [to avoid fueling arguments about politics amongst
participants], and that this is the best way to handle the situation,”
Chan said. “Frankly, I disagree—those of us sharing our experiences
with racism are not trying to push our views on anyone else or trying
to change people’s hearts and minds. We’re just trying to speak our
truth and say, ‘this is how we experienced running.’”

When the political is personal

As the U.S. continues to go through a reckoning confronting racial
injustice, many people, particularly non-minorities, are starting to
see that BIPOC’s experiences with racism aren’t exactly a new
phenomenon.

Chan, who grew up in Brooklyn, noted in his Facebook post that the
derogatory comments he received during his runs weren’t too much of a
surprise due to the anti-Asian sentiment brought on by the COVID-19
pandemic; he has grown used to it, having dealt with racism throughout
his life. He and fellow Asian-American friends have exchanged stories
about experiencing harassment while running, whether it was from
drivers yelling things from their cars or other runners glaring and
jumping off shared running paths even though everyone was wearing
masks.

“Even before the pandemic, there was a sense amongst Asian Americans in
New York that there was increasing apprehension about the atmosphere of
racism and violence, so I figured that [running during late-night and
early-morning hours] would work best for me,” Chan said.
Related Story
BIPOC Runners Speak Out About Running and Race

The running community has a long-held reputation for being
overwhelmingly white—and the ultramarathon space is no exception. In
fact, according to a 2010 study on trail running by the Outdoor
Foundation, 69 percent of respondents who participated in trail running
were white, compared to 6.4 percent Black, 9.8 percent Asian or Pacific
Islander and 11.1 percent Hispanic.

For BIPOC, the topic of racism is more one of human decency than
politics. But even with regard to political systems, it still has a
place within all shared spaces, because minorities don’t have the
ability to escape their differences and the hardships they’ve caused.

“When a space is marked as a ‘refuge’ from discussions on race, it is
essentially communicating ‘whites only’ and denying the impact that
race has on the entire personhood and lived experience of a non-white
person,” said Carolyn Su, 36, a Boston-based runner and creator of the
Diverse We Run Instagram account, which serves to highlight the
stories of diverse voices within the running community.

“Race, and the consequential experiences because of it, is a part of a
runner’s identity,” Su continued. “To deny the impact that
race has on a BIPOC runner’s participation in the sport is to
invalidate who the runner is as a person.”

Telling minorities to keep their experiences to themselves in an effort
to keep the peace also further perpetuates the idea that they don’t
belong in these spaces. In an interview on the Rich Roll Podcast,
Mirna Valerio, 44, a Montpelier, Vermont-based professional
ultramarathoner, social media influencer, and author of A Beautiful
Work in Progress, recently shared her experience having the police
called while she was on a training run in her Rebun Gap, Georgia,
neighborhood.

“It’s possible to listen to and acknowledge someone’s experiences
without preconceived notions,” Valerio, who is also a trained diversity
practitioner, told Runner’s World. “By telling people they can’t share
their racism-centered experiences, you’re sending the message that you
don’t care and that you don’t see them in those spaces. That’s a
problem in every arena, including the outdoor industry as a whole.”

Nia Akins, 22, a professional middle-distance runner with the
Brooks Beasts Track Club in Seattle, shared that sentiment.

Related Stories
Nia Akins on Why Runners Need to Confront Racism
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“Most people, especially women, are familiar with avoiding running at a
certain time of day or in a certain area because it’s considered
unsafe,” Akins, who recently shared her own experiences with racism
while running on her college campus at the University of Pennsylvania,
told Runner’s World. “That ‘unsafe’ region is pretty much anywhere and
everywhere in the country for Black runners and Black people in
general—there’s nowhere to hide from systemic oppression.

“It’s no surprise that there are fewer Black marathoners [than whites
or other groups] when you consider the perceived risk Black people face
when going for runs and the inherent fear we have to push past in order
to do so. Without even knowing it, this turns people away and slows the
progression of our sport.”

While these examples highlight the microaggressions and instances of
overt racism that have been going on for years, it consequently sheds
light on the fact that many just haven’t felt comfortable or been given
a platform to speak about them until now.

“To deny the impact that race has on a BIPOC runner’s participation
in the sport is to invalidate who the runner is as a person.”

Rebecca Mehra, 25, a professional middle-distance runner for Oiselle’s
Littlewing team in Bend, Oregon, recently wrote a blog post on the
brand’s website about her experiences as an athlete with a multiracial
background. Mehra, who is half-Indian and half-Jewish, wrote how she
has often been mistaken as being Mexican, which led to her being the
target of anti-Mexican slurs from drivers while running with her high
school teammates in southern California, as well as how she was often
asked if she was a “dot or feather Indian.”

“, I just never thought to
speak about these experiences. It wasn’t until I took the time to
reflect that I realized just how bad those things really sounded,”
Mehra told Runner’s World. “That was why I felt the need and the want
to speak out, because I want other people to feel that they can share
their experiences in a safe space and be respected and embraced by
allies within the running community.”

More allies choosing to be openly anti-racist

In the weeks that followed the removal of Chan’s post, other runners in
the group reported similar incidents of having their posts censored. A
common denominator among them all: Evidence of support of the Black
Lives Matter movement, whether through signs runners had observed and
documented on their runs, or shirts like Chan wore in his initial
censored post.

While they are arguably still in the minority, a number of people are
choosing to walk away from financially supporting events and
organizations that don’t align with their values, such as actively
speaking out against racial discrimination.
ben chan
Ben Chan marches at a protest for Breonna Taylor on the Brooklyn
Bridge.
Courtesy Santino O. Zambrano Limongi

“I will be more cognizant of where organizations send/spend their
dollars and if they have made active strides towards
anti-racism—something I honestly should have been doing all along and
am ashamed to say I didn’t consider previously,” said Holly Batchelder,
45, a runner in Jacksonville, Florida, who shared that she left the
GVRAT Facebook group and stopped logging her miles after reading
Cantrell’s Facebook post.

Lela Moore, 44, a GVRAT participant in Brooklyn, shared that she
struggled with finishing out the race in light of these events and that
in addition to not participating in Cantrell’s events in the future,
she committed to making donations to anti-racism focused causes such as
the American Civil Liberties Union, Liberty Fund NYC, and the GoFundMe
for Jacob Blake, the African-American man who was shot and critically
injured by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on August 23.

“I made these donations in solidarity with BIPOC runners who want to
tell their stories but are silenced,” she said. “I would like to see
this conversation continued and to stress the importance of having
these conversations in the first place.”

Is Cantrell concerned about the larger impact—making BIPOC runners
hesitant to join his events, especially with a lack of diversity and
inclusion in the ultra space in general—that his decision to delete
Chan’s post might have? When Runner’s World asked, Cantrell said
simply, “I don’t think about it in those terms—they’re all just people
and anyone who wants to be there should know they’re welcome.”

Continuing the fight

On August 30, Chan shared in an Instagram post that he had tried to
register a team for Cantrell’s next virtual event, the Circumpolar Race
Around the World (or CRAW, a year-plus-long virtual race), under the
team name “Black Lives Matter.” In an email, Cantrell gave Chan an
ultimatum: Change their team name, or accept a refund to the race.

“We are not having a team called Black Lives Matter...We are not having
a team named MAGA [in reference to President Trump’s longtime campaign
slogan, ‘Make America Great Again’]...The ‘culture wars’ can be fought
elsewhere,” Cantrell told Chan in an email. “Everyone is going to
be welcome as long as they leave their baggage somewhere else.”

“MAGA is a political movement that strives to maintain and reinforce
inequality and exclusion, whereas Black Lives Matter is a set of
guiding principles that prioritizes inclusion and humanity,” Chan said.
“It only makes sense to say ‘Black Lives Matter’ and ‘Make America
Great Again’ in the same breath or sentence in order to contrast them.”

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Chan and his team decided to take the refund for the CRAW. After
getting their money back, the team (since renamed Runners United for
Black Lives) used a portion to register for HBCUs Outside’s
#BlackToTheTrails5K. HBCUs Outside is a nonprofit dedicated to
increasing representation of Black faces on running trails and
mountains, as well as in outdoor industry boardrooms, by providing
leadership training, outdoor skills courses, and event opportunities to
students and alumni of historically Black colleges and universities.

Chan’s team is meeting virtually on a weekly basis to discuss other
events and organizations it can support. They are also in the early
stages of creating their own virtual race that will celebrate BIPOC
history, recognize BIPOC excellence, and acknowledge BIPOC victims of
racial violence.

“Cantrell is a legendary race director, and in a lot of ways, still
someone that I look up to, who has great influence within the running
community. We genuinely want to continue the dialogue and avoid digging
a trench between , which is what we feel he did
by removing us from his race and banning the words ‘Black Lives Matter’
from the CRAW,” Chan said.

Nonetheless, Chan is committed to moving forward. “My team is as
committed as ever to creating more diverse, inclusive running
communities and spaces.”
Emilia Benton Emilia Benton is a Houston-based freelance writer and
editor.
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