Conservative commentator Larry Elder blasted hurdler Alaysha Johnson for saying "this is for everybody that looks like me" after she took second place in the 100-meter hurdles final at the U.S. Olympic Trials Sunday, which earned her a spot on the team heading to the Paris Games later this month.

A clip Elder posted on X showed Johnson after the race saying, "It was all God. ... everybody all the time said that I wasn’t good enough, said that I didn’t deserve. And so I did this my way, my team’s way, and just the way that it was meant to be. This is for the hood babies. This is for the people who are poor and come from nothing. This is for everybody that looks like me that was ever doubted, and I did it with a black designer on my chest. This is what I stand for, and I’m making a way for everybody in my position.”

'If you know me then you know EXACTLY what I meant by my speech. If you don’t, it wasn’t for you & that is OK!'

Elder's reaction? "Alaysha 'Lay' Johnson (@ImJustLaylay), congrats on making the Olympics. But why the, 'This is for everybody who [sic] looks like me' crap? There was but ONE non-black runner — and she finished next to last. Can we quit this 'we shall overcome' BS? For crying out loud, this is 2024!"

The post from Elder — who has 1.5 million followers on X — has attracted about 50,000 likes since it went live Sunday and has garnered over 2,000 comments. Here are a few of them:

• "Thank God we can finally see a strong black woman representing the U.S. in the Olympics!" one commenter quipped. "It's long overdue!"
• "Why do people look for skin color everywhere? It does not matter! Be proud of who you are and what you have achieved. America is not racist, we had for 8 years a black president, if that is not enough, I do not know what it is!" another commenter stated.
• "I’m old enough to remember watching [black sprinter] Wilma Rudolph run in the (televised) 1960 Olympics in Rome. I was 4 [years old]. I remember my mother yelling at the TV, 'Run, Wilma, run!' That was something special," another user recalled.
• "I can’t imagine how this would’ve made me feel if the black athletes I admired growing up made comments like this," another commenter said. "The first biography I ever read was Herschel Walker’s. I idolized him after that. I’m glad I grew up in a time when looking like someone wasn’t a prerequisite to admiring or wanting to be like them."

The day after the race, Johnson posted the following message on X: "If you know me then you know EXACTLY what I meant by my speech. If you don’t, it wasn’t for you & that is OK!"

Anything else?

Johnson's personal-best 12.31 in the finals put her a hair behind winner Masai Russell's 12.25, USA Today reported, adding that Russell's time broke Gail Devers' 24-year-old meet record and was the fastest time in the world this year.

“People like me who come from the inner city of Houston ... it’s hard for us to get opportunities,” Johnson — a 27-year-old who ran at the University of Oregon and Texas Tech — told the Associated Press. “It always takes what I say is double the effort to get half as far. I always tell people if we had a little bit more support, I probably could have been here a long time ago. But it made me understand that regardless of how many people have your back, I’m still strong enough to do this on my own two feet.”

Johnson has hypothyroidism, which causes fatigue, and she told the outlet she cut back on her warm-up Sunday “to make sure I can conserve as much as I could to be able to get through 10 hurdles." The AP added that Johnson also ran on borrowed spikes after the “bubble popped” on the only pair she took with her to the trials.

“We did this ground up," Johnson also told the outlet. "So honestly, I just hope that somebody sees that I’ve worked my tail off — my team has worked their tails off — to get this far. We could have been this far a long time ago, had we had a little bit of help.”

Johnson, Russell, and third-place 100-meter hurdles finisher Grace Stark are all first-time Olympians, USA Today said.

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