The Shades of Synchronized Skating: Brianna Diary Entry #3

by Brianna Davis

After writing my first two documentations, I’ve received a lot of positive feedback from people both within the skating community and outside of it. People have told me that they had never really thought about tight color before reading my documentations. Truthfully, it wasn’t something I had thought much about before starting this project.

Since I was young, I was told to wear the light tan colored tights, and I just nodded along without question. Besides, before the existence of a company like Aurora Tights, there weren’t even options for darker colored tights, so there was really no point in objecting to wearing lighter ones. However, what people, including myself, are beginning to realize is that the tights themselves aren’t the biggest issue, but rather they serve as a reflection of the underlying issues of a lack of racial inclusivity within the sport.

I was fortunate enough to start off my skating career in a predominately Black environment, and I was not really exposed to the white world of skating until I started my synchro journey. I think that being a young Black skater in an environment surrounded by other Black skaters definitely had a positive impact on me and has influenced my growth as a skater. However, I recognize that most Black skaters did not have that same foundational experience. I cannot speak from personal experience, but I can only imagine how a young Black skater starting out in a predominately white environment might feel left out noticing little things like the color of their tights being way too light for them but matching the skin tone of the white skaters. Experiences like these, although small, could have a subconscious impact on the skater as they move throughout their skating career.

Wearing Aurora Tights has definitely prompted me to think about these things and reflect on my own skating career and experiences I may have had surrounding race that were more important than I gave them credit for.  My experiences with Aurora Tights have also inspired me to think beyond the world of skating and consider how these issues play out in other areas of my life, and in the world as a whole. I am one of the few skaters in my high school, so although many of my friends can’t necessarily relate to the issue in terms of the skating world, they can definitely see the same issues playing out in the rest of the world.

I’m grateful for the opportunity Aurora Tights has given me to really think about how big of an impact race can have in the skating world, and I hope that other people will also be inspired to try and understand these racial issues and their impacts, regardless of whether or not you directly experience them.