Dear Sha’Carri,

I write you this open letter in hopes that the magic of the internet allows these words to find you. In the sea of news swirling surrounding your testing positive for marijuana, my very first concern was for your heart. In the days immediately after my dad’s passing I smoked a lot of weed. Like, a lot of weed. In fact, I remember sympathy bouquets and arrangements arriving to our house, and all I could think was how if anyone really knew us, they would send different flowers.
I felt something much more visceral than sad. I couldn’t stop the tears from falling or the pain of grief from completely taking over my body, the only thing that kept me sane was smoking.

The day of his memorial service, I came home and changed out of whatever it was I was wearing. I presume I work black, I truly don’t remember. I came back to the house and I remember rolling blunt after blunt. Passing them around to that select group of cousins who always partake. I received stares from other family members who probably wanted me to be behaving differently. But I had the words of a dear friend wrapped around my heart. She told me that right now I was in the throws of grief and that I wouldn’t always feel like this. She assured me that smoking to get through those hard moments did not make me bad or weak, it made me a daughter who was doing her best to cope through the loss of my parent. She didn’t just give me permission to light up to get through the grief…She affirmed my humanity.

Too often Black women are not afforded humanity. Somehow, we are supposed to persist and carry on all while being strong, loyal, supportive, nurturing, compassionate and caring. But rarely do we discuss the toll it takes to do all of that sustainably.

I am not an Olympian. But I do understand what it means to train, work hard and earn your place among an elite few. I am a young Black woman who has achieved not only the success of being among the 1% of Black people in the world with a PhD, but I did so in a field dominated by men (Leadership) and dared to do so leading with vulnerability authenticity and other inherently feminist and feminine practices. I leveraged that position of paradox, and tension into an essay that went on to be part of a New York Times best-selling anthology. These are my exceptional things, things that I was able to do while smoking weed. Things that I may not have been able to do if not for access to cannabis.

I hope that you know how many people stand with you and will be with you should you chose to push against the unjust, and quite frankly racist regulations that classify cannabis use as illegal for anyone, including athletes. I hope that you know how many people will stand with you should you not. I hope that you know that you are not wrong for smoking weed. You are human. You deserve to grieve and heal and.manage that process in a way that feels right for you so long as it does not harm you.
I hope that you know you are worthy of peace. That includes peace of mind and I hope that you are able to find it. I hope that no one ever tries to bring shame to your healing. I hope that you do not allow this moment to deter you from your dreams of Olympic gold.

Been that girl, still that girl. Will forever be that girl.