Opinion – Bill Straub: Barr is wrong about Imane Khelif, Olympic boxer; diversity makes us better

In his never-ending, toadyrific endeavor to ingratiate himself to his Ming the Merciless-like master, King Donald of Mar-a-Lago, Rep. Andy Barr is blaming Vice President Kamala Harris for every haywire happenstance that occurs under the sun, up to and including, one could suppose, the disappearance of the Hope diamond.

The Lexington Republican recently added another count in his ever-growing indictment against the Democratic presidential nominee – she’s championing boys beating up on girls because an Algerian woman blasted her way to Olympic gold after physically defeating other like-size female boxers.

Hard to follow, I know, but anything having to do with associating our boy Andy and a logical mental path is doomed to despair. So, let’s try to figure this out.

Imane Khelif is a boxer, a welterweight, who was good enough to win the gold medal in her division at the recently concluded Paris games. She is, by all accounts, a hard hitter. Just ask Angela Carini, of Italy, who threw in the towel after 46 seconds of the first round when Khelif smacked her in the mush, causing her substantial pain. It was, she said, the hardest she had ever been hit.

That should come as no surprise. For those unfamiliar with the “sweet science,” the idea of the competition is to hit your foe as hard as you can in various parts of the above-the-belt anatomy. Former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson, who has had a myriad of personal problems over the years but nonetheless is smarter than most people give him credit for, said it best: “Everyone got a plan until they’re punched in the face.”

Carini got punched in the face and her plan went kerflooey. The minds of countless others went kerflooey as well, leading folks to essentially claim that Khelif had an unfair advantage because she was actually a guy.

Among those chiming in was Garland Hale Barr IV, that man of the people, who it would seem intends to expand his congressional resume to include becoming the next Arthur Mercante. Bar was incensed by the outcome and blamed. . .Kamala Harris?

On X, Barr posted a photo of Khelif raising her arm in victory. He wrote, “This is what women’s sports will look like under Kamala Harris, as evidenced by the revised Title IX rules allowing biological males to compete in girls’ sports. That’s not the America I want for my daughters.”

Barr apparently concluded Khelif was a man in drag because the overtly corrupt International Boxing Association, situated in Russia, disqualified her from competing in the organization’s sanctioned matches because a bogus DNA test showed she carries both X and Y chromosomes, providing her, the group asserted, with a physical advantage over female opponents. She was not administered a testosterone test.

The International Olympic Committee, in a rare display of decency for that often-despicable organization, correctly determined the IBA was full of hooey and allowed her to compete. Khelif, it should be noted, also participated in the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo where she was thoroughly outclassed, and her gender make-up wasn’t questioned. She only reached her Olympic gold medal stage through proper training and hard work, not because she’s a man in a woman’s game.

“Let’s be very clear here, we are talking about women’s boxing, and we have two boxers born as women, have been raised as women, who have passports as women and competed for many years as women,” said IOC President Thomas Bach.

But here we find Andy Barr talking out of his hat, as usual, addressing an issue he hardly knows more about than the man in the moon, all done in order to stage a stealth attack on Harris, who is suddenly surpassing his political messiah, Republican Donald J. Trump, in this year’s race for the White House.

Cheap political shots have always been Andy’s stock in trade, as has punching down. This time his target is trans people, primarily men seeking to transition to womanhood, leaving him aghast at the thought of individuals born as men overwhelming women’s athletics.

Those fears assume claims not in evidence. There is no reason to believe born males become trans for the purpose of competing in women’s sports, or that they are so athletically gifted that they will push competitors born female aside. And there remains very few seeking the physical transition to begin with.

Harris supports the Title IX determination, setting the stage for Barr, the professional blowhard, to let loose, even though Khelif isn’t trans, is proudly a woman, and is hardly representative of America’s athletic future.

And, of course, Andy brings in his kids when it suits his political purposes. What a great dad, huh? Who wants to expose their kids to those yucky trans folks? As he said, “That’s not the America I want for my daughters.”

No, the Americas Barr wants for his daughters is one with a president who raped a woman, who was convicted of 34 felonies, and instigated an insurrection against the sort of America he supposedly wants for his daughters. The America he wants for his daughters includes a president who had sex with a porn star soon after his wife gave birth and then saw to it that the erotic starlet got paid off to shut up about it. All that describes the man Andy has endorsed for president and that he really, really, really hopes will support him when he runs for the Senate two years hence. But, yeah, he doesn’t want the evil of trans people to pollute the America he wants for his daughters.

Maybe he ought to get his priorities straight.

It was the French poet and philosopher Paul Valery who said, “We are enriched by our reciprocate differences,” adding that, “The future, like everything else, is not what it used to be.” Barr might want to take heed.

Another person with a Kentucky connection who was intimately involved in the Olympics actually exemplifies what Valery said. Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, a former University of Kentucky track star, captured two gold medals at the Paris games, breaking her own world record in the 4 x 400 hurdles and running a leg in the 4 x 400 relay. She won two other gold medals in 2021 in Tokyo.

Sydney, if I can be allowed a bit of familiarity for someone I have never met, hales from Dunellen, NJ, a small, Central Jersey borough with a population of 7,000, give or take. It is also my hometown, which means I am now only the second most famous person who resided in Dunellen, NJ before becoming a Wildcat. It should also be noted that, while Sydney is the greatest athlete the town ever produced, I am the worst.

I bring this up for a reason. The Dunellen I grew up in more than 50 years ago was basically a blue-collar town. My old man was a journeyman carpenter. Mr. Walker next door was a plumber. Clarence Johnson two doors down worked in the old Art Color plant. The mailman and a bus driver lived on our street. A few folks hopped aboard the Central Jersey railroad that ran through the middle of town for work in New York. A friend of mine used to refer to the part of town on the southern side of the tracks as the Polish ghetto.

I carry a lot of fondness for my hometown. There were more characters in that square mile than you would find in towns with millions of people. It was great growing up.

It was also lily White.

There were no Black kids in my high school graduating class in 1971. There was only one Black kid in the entire school, and I understand he is some sort of preacher in New York City these days. There were a couple kids with Puerto Rican backgrounds, one I called a friend. Other than that, you would find houses and houses filled with White people.

And that was the way the town liked it. Plainfield, the city bordering to the east, was majority Black and the borough pretty much made sure that population never flowed in our direction. It wasn’t uncommon to hear the n-word in everyday conversation (and I hate using that euphemism because it dilutes the evil that the actual word carries, but the intent here is not to offend).

But over the years, since my departure, Dunellen has changed. There’s a Mexican restaurant on North Avenue and a Peruvian chicken place. The New York Times reports that “fewer than half of the borough’s 7,600 residents are white, according to the 2020 census; 32 percent are Hispanic, 12 percent are Black and 7 percent are Asian.”

Sydney, who is African-American, wouldn’t have been welcomed in the Dunellen of my youth.

Now the signs greeting travelers entering on North Washington Avenue and other roads proudly announce it is the hometown of Sydney McLoughlin-Levrone, world record holder. Even though she attended high school at Union Catholic, the Dunellen High School track at Columbia Park is named after her. Scores of folks on the night of the 4 x 400 hurdles finals filled the Dunellen Theater to cheer on their hometown daughter.

I have to admit, when I watched the finals last week, I got pretty emotional, not just because of Sydney’s accomplishments but because of the realization that the town I called home is now a better place.