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

absolutely disgusted by this, how could that have been allowed to happen? The poor little girl, I can't imagine how upsetting that must have been for her & no doubt tarnished the whole event for her, how could none of the adult standing around not brought it to the attention of the organisers?

the family of the girl have said they want to video removed from the internet as they are concerned by racist comments received as the video becomes more prominent.

This thread was made with good intent, but I think it might be more respectful to have it removed given the family have made their wishes clear.

From Gymnastics Ireland: "We identified the official concerned and informed the individual in question of the complaint. The official in question accepted fully that what had happened had not been acceptable but stressed that it had not been intentional. The official concerned said that upon realising the mistake they immediately rectified it and ensured that the competitor concerned was presented with her medal before she left the Field of Play (FoP)"

Presumably, then, someone must have "mentioned it" on the day or she wouldn't have got the medal before leaving, but what I don't understand is how this could possibly have been unintentional

It's not as if the poor lass was invisible, and if it really was some sort of mistake it was a ghastly and deeply hurtful one to make

This is just my personal opinion. Other Irish people are welcome to their opinions.

I live in Ireland. I do think that there is a huge amount of racism in Ireland.

I heard a man say to his daughter one day "look at the monkey", as a black woman walked past.

Ireland was a white majority for a longer time than other countries. I went to secondary school in Ireland in the 90s. In my school, there were 800 pupils. 799 were white. One was mixed race. We literally had one mixed race student.

In the last ten years there has been a huge amount of immigration to Ireland, and now you see every race. But literally in the 90s , I rarely ever saw a black person in Ireland. I remember a black actor said that he visisted ireland and he thought "there weren't many black people there"

This history of just having white people around up to pretty recently, has made Ireland have a lot of problems with racism in my opinion.

This makes me so sad. She was so irrelevant to the official she became invisible. Disgusting. The official should be sacked. I hope she’s thoroughly ashamed of herself.

@HelpMeUnpickThis She received the medal AFTER her parents complained and after the ceremony was over.
The article states she received her medal before she left the field of play.

Why not now?

Did you ask the same question about those choosing to raise issues now with Russel Brand, why now? Or is it because race is the issue

The whole premise of the 'Me Too' initiative is that people who have been affected by any issue/ previous abuse can raise this with no one questioning them on 'why now'?

Your comment is totally unacceptable!

O please.... very convenient that this woman was not too 'tired or stressed' to give the other white girls their medals.

Shame on you! I hope that when you or your family experience discrimination of any kind, others will tie themselves into knots to consider the reasons/ excuses for the aggression against you!

The public ill treatment and discrimination of a child in modern society is abhorrent

That poor girl. She looks so lost and confused and hurt.

That is so bad. Awful that a full and thorough apology wasn't forthcoming as well.
My God, if I did something like that, as a Brownie leader, I'd be absolutely mortified. How on earth could they not apologize.

Maybe because most of them read the Daily Mail.

Reading a DM article then coming here to condemn racism is... something.

My kid’s dad showed me this video yesterday and he was so angry! I think because now we have kids he could see this happening to our daughter who has Autism.

Apparently the family were given a settlement amount but I can’t find much more information regarding it. The fact that the woman said it was an oversight and a mistake was absolutely disgusting. This made me so upset. This girl will remember this forever

1000%!

Posters on here always find a way to excuse racism as if this can never EVER be possible. It’s quite strange but also quite telling. I can’t say I’m not surprised

Of course we don't know for sure if it was racist. But the only child being ignored being the only one that happens to be black...at the very least subconscious bias is highly likely to be at play. At that is a form of racism. And it could well have been something more blatant than that.

Shame on me? I'm not saying it's not racism
.
I'm saying we can't know for sure.

She left someone out.

I've worked with children and teenagers. I've left children out by accident. When you have a lot of children around it happens

It could be racism. It could not be

Absolutely horrified. The official really making it clear to the little girl what she’s doing. And even more disgusted that people are trying to push the old “it was an accident” argument too. This is about as blatant as racism can get and the fact that she was given a medal later means absolutely nothing. To be that young girl, stood there amongst friends with the official hovering around her, teasing her, it’s heartbreaking.

It's disgusting to see such blatant racism, is Ireland in the 1950's?

Left out by accident the only black child in sight? I don't think so.

The other children all noticed, so why did none of the adults?

Utterly inexcusable.

Please watch the video again, she actually also teases the child by lingering and looking at her. Long gone are the days when people can use silly excuses when they get caught being racist. Whether people like it or not. Subtle racism is now seen for exactly what it is!

I've worked with children and teenagers. I've left children out by accident. When you have a lot of children around it happens

Absolutely, yes - especially if they're all milling around
Surely less likely though when they're all standing in a neat line in front of you?

Let it be your daughter before you even try to make excuses.

Even if she ended up handing the wrong medal to the girl, give the her something for her moment. Sorry but I am convinced that if that were a little white girl, more people would have acted sooner, certainly way before the parents could have complained. The fact that she didn't get a medal, yet the team was able to produce her medal later on the same day AFTER the family complained... says it all. Where was the medal lurking all that time and why wasn't it with the others? It takes four seconds to shout to someone 'oi, where's X's medal, look in that box'.

@Badaba
"Where was the medal lurking all that time and why wasn't it with the others?"

I saw the longer clip of the video and the official actually had the "spare" medal which should have been presented to the little girl, in her hand as she walked off.
The medal was there all along, one for each of the gymnasts...

Of course she had it! There is no possibility this video shows a woman “accidentally” missing the child out. It was fully intentional and disgusting. She’s lucky to have gotten away with it so easily. Hopefully, now it resurfaced, we will see a more fitting outcome.

I don’t. Struggle to get my head around it, that is.

Hope the little girl still rises

WTAF??? What have I just watched? This is unbelievable. That poor little girl, how must she have felt??? Fucking unreal.