Black child gymnast being overlooked in medal ceremony?

[Loopylooni]

Anyone else horrified at this?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12554637/Gymnastics-Ireland-embroiled-racism-row-young-black-competitor-skipped-medal-ceremony-Olympic-champion-Simone-Biles-condemns-heartbreaking-incident.html#comments

Even if she was trying to keep up with names being announced she could have wondered why she had a medal left over & sorted it out immediately with an apology directly to the little girl!

We have laws against racism because people are prepared to do things like this. Racists haven't disappeared. They weren't legislated out of existence, or teleported into the heart of the sun.

I just can't fathom getting any kind of personal satisfaction from this kind of behaviour. I can't relate to it at all.

how likely it is that a young gymnastics official would choose to consciously bypass the sole black child in a very public medals lineup as a racist gesture, in the full knowledge that she’s being recorded, photographed etc,

By the looks of the video very likely-and no one questioned it!

The other girls seem to have questioned it. The adults should be ashamed of themselves.

Because better late than never that's why

@Wolfricbriandumbledore

you wrote all that long winded BS to justify what is blatantly to obvious to anyone with even just half a brain cell.

People like you are part of the problem.

And there it is. If this girl was white their protests likely would have been treated differently. I’m not a fan of ‘would have’ arguments but it’s undeniable there would have been no hesitation in the adults present pointing it out if the same had happened to a white child.

That poor girl. Everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves, unfortunately I can easily believe something so blatant still took so long to resolve.

The usual excusers will be taking over this thread soon enough though 🙄

It was deliberate.
All the girls were receiving the same medals and the official went along the row handing them out and left that one girl out.
It wasn't some kind of oversight which might have arisen if say, the group of girls to the right of the black girl were receiving silver medals and she was on the edge of her group who were receiving gold medals and somehow got accidentally missed out.
She even moves forward to receive hers and the woman simply goes on to the next one.

I had a racist teaching assistant once. She was supposed to spend extra time reading individually with EAL pupils. I noticed from the reading records that a black child and an asian child had been missed out - but the records were complete for all the white EAL children. The first time it happened I mentioned it to her - ie. please make sure you hear all the children read. She said she had run out of time with the other children. I asked her to start with the other two first the following time. They were missed out again. I spoke to her again and she came up with another excuse so I reported it to the head. He said that she had said the children smelt unpleasant and that's why she had missed them out and she was sorry. She was then moved to another class - she should have been sacked in my opinion.

So yes, it does happen all the time. Some people have difficulty believing that such blatant racism could occur because they could not imagine themselves, or any of their friends and family, deliberately missing a child out because they were black.

What are you talking about?

Look at the video- what more do you need to see in order to convince you how wrong this is? Wow

Disgusting incident.
The girls mother wanted the video taken down as she feared further incidences of racism. The official involved apparently wrote a poxy apology which wasn’t sincere in the slightest.
Only two positives are that we are talking about it and recognising that there is still racism today in society and the second positive is that quite a few positive role models from the world of athletics/gymnastics have got in touch with the young lady to cheer her along in her sport.

That's really awful. Poor little girl and her family.

Sometimes medals are not given out directly down the line though. To me it looks like the child's name was not called out. And she gives the medal to the next child.

Almost as bizarre and shocking as the event itself is the way some posters are prepared to overlook and excuse the blatant racism because it’s being reported in a paper they disapprove of. Can you not see how fucking hypocritical that is?

Sometimes peoples prejudices are on show in any environment 🤷‍♀️

It could be racism.

I personally think it's more to do with the lady being stressed and forgetting. I just recently worked as a summer school teacher. We had to give out name lanyards that the children wear around their neck. I forgot to give it to one child.

When it is one adult with a lot of children, it is easy to forget something. If the child is white, the incident is minor. If you forget to do something for a black child, you'll be in bigger trouble.

It could be racism .

The other thing that you could say that if it was a white child that she forgot to give a medal to, this wouldn't be in the news at all. It's an interesting one.

One action against a white child is seen as very minor.
The same action against a black child is seen as racist.

That video is very hard to watch. She looked at that little girl multiple times. There's no way it wasn't entirely deliberate.

I don't care if her name wasn't read out. There were multiple grown adults involved in that process, you're telling me not one of them even noticed? Not one of them was able to correct the mistake there and then? Absoluty not. There is overt racism on display there, and imo from more than one person. It is systemic and it is everywhere.

You can see in the video that the medals are given out directly down the line.

Gymnastics Ireland said she she did realise her error shortly after and did give the child the medal before she left the floor. I don't know if thata true or not

The child could have been in the wrong place but the adult giving out the prizes should have
a) called someone over to speak with the child and find out why she thinks she is due a medal and to get her off the "stage" and back to her parent asap is there was no medal due
or
b) brought her down the line until she either found where the child should have been standing or could herself find out what was going on.

The girl is a child in the middle of an arena thinking she won a prize. If its error on the childs side that is nearly more important to deal with than the fact she has won.

If she is due a medal and the adults messed up (it happens) they make a proper short public apology and give her the award (it gets fixed).

What should not happen is leave the child standing there.

Look at the longer video. She doesn't give all the medals out directly down the line. She does the last three girls in a different order

The gymnastics official needs to be named and shamed. And this is yet another example of mediation being used inappropriately. It should never be used where there is abuse, as there is here.

I was just reading about Irish gymnastics response to the family after in a bit more detail. It sounds like they were quite nasty and unapologetic to the family.

Which probably shows that there are issues of embedded racism

That official was sacked. It’s obvs this was racism.