Emilia Benton "platforms" another race-grifter, this one vacuuming up handouts from the B.A.A. while suing the B.A.A.
The industry still has a lot of progress to make before no normal people want to hear a single damned word about marathons or diversity, especially from insufficiently sexy Wokish people
Emilia Benton is an unadulterated and unambiguous American dunce and a dialogue-averse racist jogger in her thirties based in Houston, Texas. In a functioning mass-media environment and a less-dilapidated culture, no one would even be aware that this woman and her jittery, fantasyland-based prosaic cacklefests exist. In a society in which journalistic accuracy, integrity, and basic wordsmithing quality still carried significant heft, Benton would be relegated to her proper role as an angry, sieve-minded marathon plodder, probably broadcasting the same lies and drone-strike-caliber ignorance about low-level training physiology from a low-traffic hag-blog as she now does for money in the electronic pages of the remnants of the corporate fitness media.
This shambling colossus is clearly sinking under the weight of its own listing propaganda; though well-funded by wealthy race-baiters and anti-biology enemies of the Enlightenment, the flow of darkly hilarious bullshit from these wide-bore Wokish sewage-conduits is increasingly unpopular with the stench-weary public. Outside CEO Robin Thurston should have taken Outside public by now, based on his apparent timeline two years ago and his sizable staff cuts in 2021 and 2022, but obviously hasn't. Maybe those cheap annual subscriptions are enough to fund low-skilled chum-slinging editors and writers like Zoe Rom, Erin Strout, David Roche, and Benton, but it appears the company as a whole isn't thriving as well as Thurston hoped when, as the owner of Pocket Outdoor Media, he bought Outside in early 2021 and rebranded the whole thing Outside. I wonder what the folks at Sequoia Capital are thinking of their investment these days.
Benton's self-delusions and staticky persona can always be summarized using the same image:
Even had Benton spent the last week in a literal coma instead of her baseline mental and moral fog, she was going to generate some kind of pre-2024 Boston Marathon wordburst about someone “of color” rising like a full-figured Phoenix from the ashes of whiteness-inflicted miseries to…well, in the case of Liz Rock, file a lawsuit against the folks whose marathon she’s running for free on Monday.
To dispense of the obvious: For many years, spectators have not been allowed to scamper in groups onto the Boston Marathon course while runners are passing. You'd think what happened way back in 1967 to a woman who's still being Celebrated would, by itself, lend justification to this move. Add to this the combination of the 2013 bombings, the fact that missiles are flying right now toward Israel (probably duds, but that's not the point), and most of all the intentional generation of interracial strife by sleaze-mongers like Emilia Benton, and the potential for real trouble Monday exists. If so, almost all of it will emanate not from dreaded cishet white folx but from the letters-adorned (e.g., BIPOC, LGBTQIA+) who boast of their own mental disarray and concomitant malign grievance-grifting-powered intentions.
As for the specifics of Take Back Mile 21 and the lawsuit against the Boston Athletic Association because of the hellish injustices of the 2023 event, it's all based on lies. Funny how Alison Desir bailed from Twitter last year not long after getting some real blowback for a change, even if she’s still emanating social-stank at a phenomenal flux rate.
If someone feels the need to run on to the course for any reason instead of just yelling from the sidelines, then he or she has the discipline of a child and his or her complaints should be treated accordingly—as anchored in childish, solipsistic logic. The proper response from the reality sector, then, is to explain to these huge, superannuated children the basic rules of conduct that have served people organizing in groups well for a long time—not adjust the rules of the game to accommodate squawking, unsocialized brats.
Moving on to the content of the story this post might be somewhat about, I have been led to believe that weight loss is a categorically bad thing for runners of color, no matter how fat they already are. Perhaps this only applies to the ones seeking freebies. And Rock, who comes across as one of one or more children, doesn't present herself as a very reliable personal historian.
In the section below, Benton, being thunderously oblivious to her ugly "brown" core, admits that Rock started the TrailBlazHers Run Co. because she felt Less Than:
In June 2018, Rock found herself venting to her friend, Frances Ramirez, about how, due to her body image insecurities, she couldn’t bring herself to take off her shirt during a hot summer run. Together they created the Bra Run, an event in which hundreds of women met on Boylston Street in downtown Boston to run in their sports bras together.
The success of the Bra Run lit a fire in Rock, leading her and Ramirez to turn it into an annual event, and eventually inspiring her to create TrailBlazHers Run Co. (which is now an all-women sister club to PIONEERS Run Crew) with Ramirez and fellow runner Abeo Powder. In addition to group runs, TrailBlazHers Run Co. hosts various events tied to physical and mental wellness, including their Self-Care Sundays, which include activities ranging from African dance classes to meditation, and even post-run shopping.
The perceived absence of necessary hotness is a massive driver of female and ersatz-female Wokish grifting across ethnic groups (Internet, 20XX-2024).
These race-grifter stories always pretend their subjects only just noticed after starting to run that black people are a minority in literally every leisure pursuit you can name even allowing for the fact that blacks represent a significant minority even in most large U.S. cities.
While Rock trained for Boston, she mostly ran alone, occasionally joining social runs in the city or running with her coworkers. She couldn’t help but notice a stark lack of diversity and inclusivity, both in terms of the backgrounds represented and in pace-level offerings. “There were no people of color–it was all your typical tall, skinny white runners, and I was ending up running by myself regardless,” Rock says.
This is such obvious nonsense, even without the oomphsized absolutisms and to those unfamiliar with Boston. It's just as obvious that it’s not conscious discrimination by tall, white, skinny runners that's keeping the number of slow black legs at major marathons low.
Benton next gives an example of why her writing services are in such high demand:
After the controversy [sic] that transpired [sic] at the 2023 race, in which the police were called to the crews’ cheer station at mile 21 in the town [sic] of Newton after numerous spectators entered the street to encourage and support runners [sic]. That section of the course has been a prominent place for enthusiastic fans for years and celebrated by many elite and recreational participants alike [citation needed].
The first sentence above is incomplete, as Benton gets lost in a subordinate clause and forgets to explain what happened after the “controversy.” But that’s Benton being Benton, as is her feigning (I think) ignorance of a simple principle: If everyone in a crowd follows the same rules, no one will be singled out for ill behavior.
(I'm pretending not to be aiming this at people who manufacture these kinds of “controversies” by inventing injustices wherever they go, often on even thinner evidence than that presented by the diverse, water-balloon-cannon sporting “running fans” at mile 21 last year.)
Next, Benton gets to the central point of the story, albeit an angle that gains purchase only in the brains of normal readers:
Disappointed by what many thought was an excessive police presence, Rock was initially convinced she would never run the Boston Marathon again.
However, the desire to feel that joy and experience what runners recount experiencing at mile 21 eventually motivated Rock to take the opportunity to run with an invitational bib reserved for members of the BRC initiative.
So, Rock was traumatized, but not enough to turn down DEI freebies. Looks like the white people ultimately behind the DEI in the "S" part of ESG know how to mollify complainers, eh?
See how this works? Wokish grifters demand things because of their principles, scream about white capitalism, and reject being called grifters. Yet all it takes to shut them up is to satisfy their real appetites. They're not hungry for social change, they are voracious for attention, cash, and swag like free trips and race bibs. Like handing a big lollipop to a preschool child just to stop his mouth from making misdirected, throaty bellowing noises.
Next, Benton scrutinizes the appropriate bending of highly positioned white knees:
On March 28, it was announced that BAA president and CEO Jack Fleming had issued a private apology to the Newton Police about how it handled the aftermath of the incident, in which the organization publicly acknowledged a need to continue to strive to provide a welcoming and supportive environment for the city’s BIPOC running community.
Yes, Jack Fleming surely never meant for this private apology to “leak” the public, even though this kind of basic admittedly slick PR move is also an easy way to pacify illegitimate and mostly brain-dead agitators. He wasn't just making token statements last spring--this guy is serious about social justice!
The real message from the BAA isn't one of concession but that the newly controversial roadside barricades need to be there, with a clear Sorry if some of you didn't get it last year we haven't stressed this enough:
A few days later, it was also announced that four miles of the course, along the towns of Ashland, Natick, Wellesley, and Newton (where the two clubs are traditionally stationed), and Boston, would be barricaded by police...
Maybe if no angry, scam-happy BIPOC-ers were going to be carrying out trolling operations on Boston's pavement on Monday, the barriers wouldn't be necessary. But this will not be the scenario in any American city for a while, maybe permanently.
Later in the day, news came out that TrailBlazHers Run Co. is suing the BAA and the Newton Police Department for racial profiling at last year’s race.
“After what happened at mile 21 last year, there were a lot of BRC meetings to try to rebuild and figure out what would happen for this year’s Boston Marathon,” Rock says. “To be honest, I am very hurt by the BAA, which ultimately has not learned a thing since last year.”
I wonder if Rock (or Benton) has any idea how this looks to adult normies: Someone who says she suffered a major injustice at the Boston Marathon (and Boston cops) accepts a free race entry into the next Boston Marathon while becoming a plaintiff in a frivolous lawsuit against the Boston Marathon.
The coda is the same as it always in these race-grifter stories is and always will be until the entire dismal sham of extortion-based handouts ends, if it ever does: The industry has a long way to go, brands are missing the mark, and whites are profiting off the labor of industrious athletes of color.
Rock emphasized that the running industry still has a long way to go in terms of making true strides in diversity, equity, and inclusion. She and Baptista confirmed that PIONEERS Run Crew and TrailBlazHers Run Co. will not be continuing their partnership with the BRC after this year.
Benton will be back with "reporting" after Monday's race about how well American women of color fared despite the challenge of racist New England asphalt and the entire distance-running world being aligned against the interests of arm-twisting, tubby, dishonest, openly insecure crybaby-slowpokes because of these wonderful and litigious' people's skin color.