Texas official: Sorry I called Simone Biles “national embarrassment”

Late Wednesday afternoon, Reitz tweeted again about Biles. But this time, he did an abrupt about-face, saying he owed her “an apology. A big one”:

https://twitter.com/aaron_reitz/status/1420517242031194114?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

“I was like, ‘Oh no,'” said Dr. Antoinette Wilson, an assistant psychology professor at the University of Houston Downtown. “Between Simone and (tennis great) Naomi Osaka kind of really taking a forefront and saying, ‘You know, I’m protecting my mental health.'”

https://twitter.com/xmanwalton/status/1420548005640523780?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

“Honestly, a lot of that criticism is tinged with some misogyny and racism,” Wilson said. “Simon Biles is a Black woman. Osaka identifies as a black woman as well, Japanese and Black.”

“They are also human when it comes to facing anxiety and depression,” Bill Prasad, licensed mental health and wellness expert, remarked to KHOU. “No one could have trained for a pandemic, along with isolation, all combined during some of the most pressured filled moments of one’s life.”