I Am Thalente: Black Boy Against The World… and Winning

If there was one sport I wish I could have excelled at, I wish it had been skateboarding. Skateboarding is like an art of carefree. It’s just you, your board, and skill against the world. Instead, for those of us who don’t have a knack for it, we could appreciate the Tony Hawk Pro Skater series. Tony Hawk Underground (T.H.U.G.) was one of the best skating games as it had you create a player with their own storyline that started them from humble beginnings and ended with them making it big. The game really got you enveloped by putting you in the story and seeing your character in that position to make it. Now the storyline for this game was merely just that for us — a game — but for skater Thalente Biyela, it was nothing compared to his come up.

Thalente hails from Durban, South Africa. He loves skateboarding as it offers him a freedom from life’s circumstances. His name is Zulu for “talent,” which is easily recognizable when seeing him perform in his local skate park. He’s known as the Mayor of the park as he knows everyone, knows what’s going on, and it feels as if he knows the skate park as if it were an extension of himself the way he rides around it. The skate park is also where Thalente was sleeping at night. Thalente spent a majority of his years living on the streets of Durban, and in wanting to change his predicament a team of friends and supporters got together to make a video showcasing his skills to hopefully enable him to go to the states and make it with his p…