Free Nick Symmonds

The most disappointing thing about all this is that Nick deleted his twitter, blocked people on social media and briefly suspended all comments on his Instagram. instead of getting in front of the situation and commenting he has just decided to ignore those who try to reach out, many of them his fans. The 2 Black Runners podcast reached out to him and invited him on their show, and I believe they were blocked as well. I hope Nick comes out to clarify his statement none the less.

That probably wasn't the best move but I can empathize. He probably got inundated with 100s of comments and just didn't have the bandwidth to respond to every single one (and then the ensuing conversations) in a thoughtful manner. Hopefully he comes out with a clarifying statement that will likely say something along the lines of "I really support racial justice movements and have been a longtime advocate for the black community but don't support a couple specific policies of this one specific group" (ie. he strongly supports BLM statement, BLM movement sentiment but not all the BLM specific group policies)

Run Numb wrote:

The most disappointing thing about all this is that Nick deleted his twitter, blocked people on social media and briefly suspended all comments on his Instagram. instead of getting in front of the situation and commenting he has just decided to ignore those who try to reach out, many of them his fans. The 2 Black Runners podcast reached out to him and invited him on their show, and I believe they were blocked as well. I hope Nick comes out to clarify his statement none the less.

If he comes out with a statement to clarify all will be forgiven in my book, sometimes a single post can be misinterpreted. Someone should not be "canceled" over a comment, as long as they can clarify or at least make a statement about the issue.

I'm not a Nick Symmonds fan, but people have blown this way out of proportion, just as many other things have in the past few months. Here are some things I've seen thrown around about Nick and I just don't understand.

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"Nick is a racist"

Completely disregarding race, someone please inform me of a single time that Nick has treated ANYONE poorly. You can disagree with how he has been organizing mass events during Covid or that he is all about himself, but I'm not aware of any situations where he mistreats anyone.

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"What have you done for black people, Nick?"

Nick has done the same thing for black people that he has done for any person of any other race. He was one of the world's best 800m runners for several years. Last I checked, anyone can be inspired by him. He hosts fun events for the community that anyone is invited to. He sells a product that anyone can buy. Where does race come into anything that Nick has done in his career? Why does he have to do something specifically for black people and not include anyone else to show that he supports black lives? We could ask him, 'What have you done for Asian people, Nick?' By people's logic from before, Nick would be racist against Asians too if he hasn't done anything specifically for them and nobody else. I also heard something along the lines of implying that Nick should donate money to the blacks to show that he supports black lives. It's his money, he can do whatever he wants with it and that should obviously not be a requirement to show that you support black lives.

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"Nick cares about money more than he cares about black people"

This one comes about because it seems Nick thought he had a right to run his business as usual on Blackout Tuesday. Maybe Nick just cares about money more than he cares about most people in general, not specifically black people. I'm sure he would have the same opinions on running his business if people were encouraging everyone to shut down their business for any reason at all. What if there was some movement that encouraged people to skip their run for a day in support of a race of people? I'm sure lots of people on Letsrun wouldn't feel comfortable giving up their run for a single day, just as Nick didn't want to give up his business for a single day. If you're passionate about something, you want to do your best with it every day. Regardless of what you all think about Run Gum, it's pretty clear that Nick is passionate about what he does.

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Has Nick always been all about himself? Lots of examples would show that, but if you really think he is a bad person, you're crazy. I think his opinion is justifiable, but it was just a bad choice to voice that opinion over social media in today's climate. Give him a break and let him continue to do what he loves.

Also to the guy that mentioned that Peter Bromka has a raging stick over trashing Nick, bravo.

I give Nick 48 hours, and if he does not apologize, I will buy a truckload of Run Gum.

Milton Friedman wrote:

I give Nick 48 hours, and if he does not apologize, I will buy a truckload of Run Gum.

I did not buy a truckload, but I did just place an order.

I had been delaying placing this order for far too long.

Listening to all this senseless whining over a reasonable and honest post by Nick, was enough to spur me to action.

I invite others to join me.

BTW - his YouTube subscribers number is holding steady at 235K

My order is in the mail.

vserbtgsr wrote:

I'm not a Nick Symmonds fan, but people have blown this way out of proportion, just as many o

Nick has done the same thing for black people that he has done for any person of any other race. He was one of the world's best 800m runners for several years. Last I checked, anyone can be inspired by him.

Sure Nick, I am sure you are quite a fan of yourself.

and lololol he hasn't been one of the top 800m runners for 5 years. He's a fit-fluencer. If you are inspired by that, check yourself.

We are all missing something. I firmly believe the lessons of Track contains the answer. Imagine a relay race - have you honestly ever given a millisecond's thought to the race of your teammate who is bringing the stick around? NO. You just want the stick brought around as fast as possible by whomever can get the job done. In Track, the great leveler is we feel the same pain in training and racing. We all know the highs and lows. You are admired for your great ability and sportsmanship. Regardless of color. Whites applaud Black athletes, and vice versa. In my experience, color was absent from the Track. It was a brotherhood or sisterhood of respect. I honestly don't look back and think - wow, my Black teammate was good. I think of them as a human being performing in a shared endeavor that we will always share. That is why Track is the answer - it brings so many people together, and the clock does not care what you look like. Politics is eating us alive.

sure boomer wrote:

Sure Nick, I am sure you are quite a fan of yourself.

and lololol he hasn't been one of the top 800m runners for 5 years. He's a fit-fluencer. If you are inspired by that, check yourself.

Letsrun is too predictable. It doesn't matter how far removed he is from being a professional athlete, his time as a top 800m runner was inspiring. If you're not impressed with 5 straight US titles, 1:42.95, and a silver medal at worlds, then you've got some pretty high standards. That must mean someone like Jim Ryun is very uninspiring to you considering how long he has been retired.

I don't like black people. Or white people. Or any people. Gay people, Straight people. Fat people. Skinny people. F*ck everybody!!! If everyone thought like me, we'd all be good.

And yes, anyone acting like Symmonds wasn't a World Class runner is an idiot, period, don't care what else you think about him.

Bulph corphlough wrote:

AdheretoRules wrote:

The #metoo movement ended when the white woke people realized they were cannibalizing their own. It was like a virus and it burned out. The final nail in the coffin to the #metoo movement was when Pelosi said she believes Biden is innocent of charges simply because he said he didn’t do it, so don’t believe a women making charges.

I think it's more that #metoo got pushed aside by a louder movement (and lets face it, a more violent one). Also, on the hierarchy of aggrieved minorities, black far outranks female. Nothing else could explain the hero worship of George Floyd and Rayshard Brooks, despite their record of violence and disrespect to women. Female is essentially low caste in the woke classification system.

People like you are the worst. a man's past has nothing to do with their life being valued. especially from cops who killed them who had no clue of their past to begin with. The first thing secretly racists people bring up these days are black on black crimes or they bring up the victims past. It's like you don't hear yourself. You are missing the point.

But Bromka is WOKE so what he says goes. When someone says something you don’t agree with, you have to cancel them and divide the community.

YMMV wrote:

Cancel culture = creeping communism

They are boiling the big, clueless frog.

Do you say stupid stuff like this in real life too? Communism has a definition and Nick Symmonds getting some heat on Twitter is not the sign of the proles rising up, you dumbo.

This. And only this.

Scary that we are living in a time when speaking out against a violent, Marxist movement results in persecution.

IStandWithNick wrote:

Nick Symmonds never said black lives don’t matter, only he disagrees with the political group BLM. Nick should not be “canceled” for this and more people should be open to opposing view points, especially when BLM is much more than just supporting black lives #FreeNick

That sucks that he deleted his entire twitter over it.

If anything he should have kept it. Now it just looks on his end like he's guilty or something.

I'm a little bit confused as to why he did that.

Also I guess he does block alot of people that he doesn't agree with.

Just noticed that now on twitter while browsing around.

How will this affect the content of his youtube videos?

IStandWithNick wrote:

Nick Symmonds never said black lives don’t matter, only he disagrees with the political group BLM. Nick should not be “canceled” for this and more people should be open to opposing view points, especially when BLM is much more than just supporting black lives #FreeNick

Also Nick if you're reading this.

I think you need to do a 60meter dash time trial for youtube. Or any variation of that. Have a track meet and include the 60m dash.

How does that sound?

You either support black lives or you don't. Anyone with eyes can see how white folks have economically benefited in this country. Now BLM is speaking out on that & Nick chimes in by more/less saying he won't support that but that he's an ally. Yeah, that's not it.

Nick is definitely a conservative but a young one so, because he's doing well, it's convenient to ignore race but maintain that you're not a racist and that you support non-white people. When you say you don't support BLM, you're making it clear you're not interested in real change.

Turn your IG square black to help the brand but advocate for real economic change? Nawwwwwwwwww.

& shame on this website for locking that other thread but posting a conservative "think piece" right at the top. Conservatives want to scare us all that BLM is Marxist. Ok, cool. The super rich in this country run the show, money needs to get divided to working class people of all races. BLM just points out that non-white folks are hurting even more rn. It's not exactly revolutionary to point out a wealth gap & say let's fix that.

The US spends $100 billion on policing. Another $80 billion on incarceration. $900 billion on the military, which is more than the next six countries spend combined.

I know some of you are just gonna stick to your polarized hot takes. Defund the police is supposed to have a partisan feeling associated with it. But even if you're a conservative and you think poor people aren't working hard, or whatever, do you really think we spend the right amount on the aforementioned things? Maybe crime would go down if we take some of that money and put it to schools/health care/jobs programs/food stamps. Idk, what're your actual solutions? Conservatives love to question government spending but, at least be consistent, do it for these items as well.