Reflection on Billy Mills: Second Part

As Peter Roberts explains, “the perception of sameness logically implies the perception of difference, which in turn implies that those who are perceived as different are treated differently”. This is why Billy Mills’ external journey is full with prejudice, lack of support from his team, school, and various forms of social injustice. As the “white world”, who are the Americans that share the sense of sameness, see Billy with another skin color and language, they treat him differently, whereas he has to fight with his inner self to keep fighting for his dream and what he believes in. We can see this presented in the movie when Billy’s teammate bullies him in the locker room because of his ethnicity and yet he moves on.

But there is a time in Billy's life were he is misdirected, looses his passion for running and just feels misunderstood. As he says in the movie: “I've lost the love of running, now I'm a running machine”. This part of his life is were his internal journey is more critical than ever. Another thing Peter Roberts explains is that “the constant association with and experience of sameness leads to a recognition of one's own features as normal and those of others as abnormal/strange/foreign”. Maybe this is why Billy now has lost his spirit, because he does not feel in place, whereas he believes he is abnormal and strange. Moreover, in the movie is presented when Billy says: “I just want to be Billy Mills, not Billy the Indian”.

Given all that's happened in Billy's external journey, and all the other situations that appear in his way about identity, he once again finds his inner self and starts running again. Now he runs with all his heart and even wins the most important race of all: the 10,000-meter race in the Olympic games in Tokyo.

Billy Mills is an inspiration, not only to his people, but also to all of us. He struggled with himself to not be turned down by his external world and achieved his long-lived dream. He is an example to all of us because every human being, no matter its identity, has to face his inner self in some point so the situations and problems of every day life won’t affect us and makes us as successful as him.