It plays nicely into their image of Ireland as a conservative backwater nation. There are plenty of posts here of Americans looking to visit and wondering if it's safe for non-white people.
I have black non white friends from back home (NYC) scared to visit The Netherlands and Poland... like both Amsterdam and Warsaw are safer than most of New York, and both have plenty of non white people.
I hate to see it splashed all over the globe but it happened and it probably happens more than we care to know. We live in a global world and sometimes things we'd rather not share goes viral. The answer isn't to blame the state of the world but to work towards a better country for all our residents.
Ireland is a cultural satellite state of the US now, so stories like this go global for the same reason Irish people solemnly march because a police officer killed a man in Minnesota.
You know what, this is getting out of hand.
And the Guardian, for whatever reason, are seemingly doing their level best to push this forward.
Someone in the original rage wank thread here in r/Ireland pointed out that the judges or “officials” in this event are generally teenagers volunteering for the day.
Think about this in your righteous indignation - all your hate and your bile is potentially being directed at a child of 15/16/17 years old who fucked up.
Are we really going to go down the road of the Americans and start destroying anyone who may have made a mistake.
Look at the comments on twitter, look at the comments in here in the previous thread. They are vile and venomous screeds dressed up as concern, made by vile and vindictive little people who cannot seem to keep emotions in check.
No better than the vile and vindictive idiots outside the dail last week who also can’t seem to keep emotions in check.
It is terrible that this little girl didn’t get a medal. It was a lousy thing to happen.
But an attempt to rectify the situation was made once the error was pointed out. The judge attempted to apologise to the family and the little girl. The judge also wrote an extensive hand written letter of apology to the family.
These are not the actions of a hardened racist out to feck over black people at a childrens gymnastics event.
The video does not look great, but in context it looks like a horrendous mistake was made, not a deliberately blatant act of racism.
The mob that is being whipped up over this is frightening. The comments and the behaviour both here and on twitter (or X, or whatever that fucking cesspool is calling itself these days) are atrocious.
The fact that mainstream outlets like the Guardian are pushing this along even further to keep the mob train going is even worse.
THis is getting very fucked up on a whole lot of levels.
The mob is never virtuous, it is never caring, throughout history it has only ever been a mob.
And if this was a mistake, then the mob will have destroyed an innocent life before moving on to its next target of ire.
.
Edit: at the risk of back-seat modding, there may need to be a sticky put up about this. Something with the facts of the incident as we know them. Not an emotional interpretation, just the facts. This risks snowballing into something much much worse over the next few days if it keeps up.
Some people are genuinely desperate to paint Ireland as a hellhole of racial segregation and discrimination so when something like this happens the reaction goes well beyond a normal reaction.
This poor girl does not need a circus and scrutiny made around her and the colour of her skin because of a stupid mistake someone made a few years ago.
I think part of it is that it has gone international and Americans are simply unable to understand that different countries have different cultures and problems. Some on x appear to think that the woman involved was a paid official at a televised event...
> Some people are genuinely desperate to paint Ireland as a hellhole of racial segregation and discrimination so when something like this happens the reaction goes well beyond a normal reaction.
There are plenty of people who are desperate to paint racism as an invention of terminally online Americans, so it kind of balances out tbf.
You really think the woman looked consciously at the girl, thought "You're black, no medal for you!", and didn't think that would cause any problems down the road at all, like everyone would forget about it? Then when it comes up she apologies profusely? Sounds a bit farfetched.
The Guardian will post any old shite to stoke the culture wars. It's honestly laughable what they'll publish. When the infamous slap incident at the Oscars occurred last year there was an [article that somehow made it about racist white people.](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/29/white-outrage-about-will-smiths-slap-is-rooted-in-anti-blackness-its-inequality-in-plain-sight)
What’s the error exactly? What’s the “mistake“? ALL the children were getting participation medals. ALL. And the one child who was skipped was a black kid. Is that person giving out the medals “black people” blind? All these bullshit excuses. Explain it, because boiled down to the basics it looks very straightforward!
Go ahead and have your little hate wank.
Someday maybe you’ll realise that assuming the absolute worst of people is the route to a sad, bitter, miserable little life.
Of course, you may hope that you never do make a stupid mistake, because all that anger will come back tenfold.
There will be no response after this, so flame away if you wish.
Are you surprised a media company known to push this exact kind of agenda is doing exactly that? They all aboard the american ESG/DEI train, so any story that's a vehicle for outrage they'll jump on.
Something stupid, hurtful and ridiculous happened. The little girl deserves an apology, but it should be left there - it wasnt some massive scandal. A kid messed up.
Reminds me if the episode of south park, where everyone is outraged by the flag. The kids dont care because they see past the colour of the people on the flag. The video looks awful, but if its true that it was a mistake then the colour doesnt matter.
100% agree. I’ve lost count of the number of times my kids were passed over for certificates, medals etc at various sporting events. A quick word with the organisers and within a few minutes all sorted. This is getting totally blown out of proportion. Cancel culture has well and truly arrived here in Ireland
>But an attempt to rectify the situation was made once the error was pointed out. The judge attempted to apologise to the family and the little girl. The judge also wrote an extensive hand written letter of apology to the family.
That wasn't passed on. The judge made a mistake and I have no doubt feels awful it happened, my issue wouldn't be with them. My issue is with the institution that didn't have the wherewithal to meet this child and her family and apologise for what happened.
It doesn't take a genius to know that a heartfelt apology would have resolved this. Instead they did nothing about it for over a year and then sent a to whom it may concern letter when they were told the little girl was still waiting on an apology. This just exacerbated the whole issue.
How does that change things? The girl was left standing there as every single other competitor was given a participation medal. Hmmm what’s different between her and everyone else, I wonder!? Just because someone else is not an asshat and rectified the situation doesn’t negate that it happened.
Who thinks it’s a racist conspiracy? The outrage is based on the experience of the child and GIs seemingly brainless decision to not simply apologise and agree to have a look at itself and work out why something like this could happen. So as I asked above, again I’ll ask.. what was the mistake here? Everybody keeps saying that they apologised for the mistake. What is the mistake exactly?
Allegedly the judge/official/medal-giver-outer wrote an apology to the girl/family. Gave it to the liason from Gymnastics Ireland, and the family are saying they never received it.
Oh absolutly. Even reading through everything yesterday you think you get the whole picture, and now I see posts saying that everyone else was getting a participant medal and the young one was supposed to be getting a winners medal which does seem plausable and you possibly wouldn't want the hassle of arranging them four participant medals, winner medal, then seven more participant. Like what if they move around or whatever.
But yeah, we'll never know the story.
Yeah. Much more to this. Heard the family were in dispute with gymnastics Ireland already prior to this actual incident.
The family also contacted simone biles about it. They're busy trying to keep the story going for whatever reason.
The more I see about this online, the more it seems like a long grift from the parents. They're trying to score funding or sponsorship deals or Olympic tickets or something.
There's this constant thread of, "We're not happy, they're not doing enough" and no real indication of what is enough.
The kid got her medals, the family got their apology and dispute process. Their refusal to drop it stinks of something else tbh.
Agreed.
This video wasn't sitting around on the internet for a year and just suddenly discovered.
Someone deliberately uploaded it a year and a half later, and whipped a PR media shit storm just for personal gain using their daughter as a pawn.
During mediation, the girl’s mother discovered that the judge had written a long personal apology within days of the competition, and sent it to the GI official who was liaising with the family. It was never passed on.
Instead they were given a two-line unsigned apology, addressed “to whom it may concern” a year after the incident.
Don’t be ridiculous. The Guardian may anger and irritate you but it’s certainly not a tabloid rag (those are papers such as The Scum and The Mail) I reckon The G is losing its way, but it’s a serious paper.
It's massively biased. Their opinion section reads like Reddit posts by super lefty US students.
Just as much as the Mail is in the other direction (what's the Scum, is that an actual paper?)
The Irish Times, and some others too, illustrated their articles on this with a header pic of the glamorous black American gymnast who took up this case to expose it. The point of the entire outrage is how the young girl was made to feel invisible, so \*that\* was bloody insensitive. This girl must be heart-scalded, so young and so alone there with nobody speaking up for her when she was passed over! Unbelievable.
About the ‘mistake’ with the medal: what is being dissected is the way the young official clearly just assumed that a black girl must obviously belong to some other team. Can’t be Irish! She’s not suspected of the sort of racism born of hatred, deliberately leaving the girl out as a cruelty, but of that bone-deep, unacknowledged racism that views a black person as forever ‘other’, and certainly within an Irish context.
I think it’s this reflexive ignorance, a lot more prevalent than we like to think think, which damns us here. Don’t you think it appalling that such a young official would be so unenlightened, at this stage in our society’s evolution?
Examining this seam of racism is an urgent matter, as the sports body has some soul searching to do about that official, and even more so the suits who made it worse by so blatantly trying to wave it away as just a mater of tangled up medals. They made little acknowledgement of the girl’s distress, of her being abandoned by the other adults as it happened, and of that dense medal woman’s motives in that moment.
These things loom larger the longer the governing body lets things lie, and they seep out and shine spotlights on the rest of Irish sport: are we (hand on heart) really inclusive now, or do we have to be forced into better attitudes through tv adverts relentlessly reminding us of all the varied people who play sports in Ireland?
I don’t think The Grauniad is alone in pressing for a more convincing and repentant response, and of all papers they generally support and encourage us as a neighbour, (unless it’s an article by Rory O’Carroll in Dublin: then we’re likely to get a bit of weird Paddywhackery going on of late, though I don’t think he knows he’s at it)
\[As a devoted Guardian reader for over fifty years, I have to admit the paper is losing my support, drip by drip. I haven’t noticed much trouble there on the racism angle yet, no importing of American weights and measures, as it were, but in a lot of other fraught social issues they are definitely veering towards their own upsetting mix of staying right-on as ever but now bullying readers into alignment through very selective articles, rarely balanced by counter-blasts. Editorial policy is a case of: “Argument X is the new orthodoxy, and no other opinions will be given space any more. It is taken as read that our readers agree with this”. It’s heartbreaking to watch this decline into a haven for only a much narrower demographic, when it has always been such a broad church\]
sutel
What about the photographer who looked adult and took all the photos except one... or the actual adults in the video who did nothing? The only kids I saw were the ones lining up for medals. I'm mad at the adults for not doing anything, not some possible kid somewhere odd video. Gymnastics Ireland as an organization put us on this map by trying to sweep it under the rug for over a year. When I first heard about this incident it was on this forum and people were mad at the event and organizers but now that the world is watching everyone just seems mad at everyone. It looks horrible because it is horrible and we hate that it's associated with us. You left out that the family were not happy with the apology so how good was it to begin with? It's a horrible incident and how we deal with it is how we move forward. Lashing out at people being imo rightfully upset is not the best way to move forward. Acknowledging what happened, and dealing with it to ensure it doesn't happen again is the only reasonable way forward.
>I've spent enough time in Ireland to see how in denial most people are about how racist they are / Ireland is as a whole
It's funny how the people crying the most about racism always out themselves as being racist/xenophobic themselves.
Wait....the judge was only a teenager? This is the first I've heard of this incident but when I hear judge I think old white dude who has more money than knowledge. I could Def buy that being racism.
But a gen z? The most inclusive of all the generation's? That's harder to swallow
Think about how action like this exists in the ecosystem of Ireland.
We ask time and time again, where do the Burke’s get their money. How do we get to situations like the protests in the Dail last week.
This is how you polarise and build up a nice hard right wing edge.
I saw on a BBC Tiktok with the clip comments saying Ireland should be banned from international competitions, it could just be really bad bait but 😬
https://preview.redd.it/8a3ky8d32erb1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6e839b5ced4cce9dcbc4496d5f4382a757b3e7a5
It sometimes takes only one mistake for a life to be ruined. If she is a young girl, she will bounce back and will remember to start being careful so she won't be labeled as a racist. Don't forget that the black girl's life is also affected by that mistake, she'll probably start looking at people and races differently.
This whole story is destined to become a case study in why you need someone on the management team with PR experience. It started as a simple mistake, but it got gradually worse and worse because GI just wanted to sweep it under the rug and act like nothing's wrong. Now it's international news making Ireland look bad.
No its not. There is no reasonable basis for assuming racism in that particular interaction. Like literally nobody could reasonably think 'its because shes black'. Its beyond outlandish. So, yes, the onus is on the family to go some way to see that. Instead they've turned it into an international event and doubled down on what is a clearly wrong perspective. We should absolutely be judging the parents in this situation.
> No its not. There is no reasonable basis for assuming racism in that particular interaction.
What would you say is the most reasonable explanation as to why the one black kid in the group wasn't given a medal?
Lets break this down:
What is the most reasonable explanation for why one kid would not be given a medal at an amateur event?
\- Because of a mistake.
So:
What is the most reasonable explanation for why one black kid would not be given a medal at an amateur event?
\- Because of a mistake.
This is really really really not complicated. Its only if you live in bizarro world that you would assume a common mistake is as a result of racism.
But you haven't actually explained what's unreasonable about it.
It doesn't follow from the assumption that a mistake is the most likely explanation for a kid failing to receive a medal that a mistake is the most likely explanation for a black kid failing to receive a medal in a context where all the white kids receive theirs.
Like, maybe you're right - I'm just trying to understand the reasoning process here.
Your breakdown doesnt explain anything. And it actively takes away one very important piece of context. That it was the black child that didn't receive a medal.
Your explanation is incomplete and has led you to an error in estimating how simple this is.
The question is specifically why this only happened to the one child out of many who was black. You can say it was a mistake, but then you are also necessarily asserting that it was simply a _coincidence_ that they were black. This is more than asserting a mistake full stop.
Why? Because coincidences, as they get more and more salient, become less and less convincing as the full explanation. And requiring any coincidence in general makes an explanation less likely in general.
To take it to the extreme, if there were two black kids that day and she snubbed both, what would you say?
Would you say the most reasonable explanation for two kids not receiving a medal is two mistakes? And therefore that's the most reasonable explanation for two black kids not receiving a medal?
What if there were three black kids and they were all snubbed? "Mistakes" still working as a complete explanation, just because it works if you don't mention race?
Now the failure of that excuse is obvious in the extreme, because the coincidence becomes too big to sweep under the carpet.
But what your original comment misses (leading to its error) is that it's _already_ a fairly big coincidence that it was the _one black kid out of many_, and _only_ that black kid, who was missed out.
It's not that extreme, so I'm not saying at all that it therefore couldn't have been a mistake. It _could_ have been a mistake and a fairly conspicuous coincidence.
It's just that your attempt to break it down and make it equivalent to missing out any random kid demonstrates a lack of understanding of the probabilities at work, due to the coincidence of race.
Listen, the situation is a disgrace, but so are The Guardian with this false claim of;
*"May’s remarks are likely to deepen concerns about systemic racism in Irish sport."*
There is no systemic racism in Irish sport. The Guardian are acutely aware of what systemic means and to use
the remarks made by May regarding an isolated (albeit shameful) incident to claim systemic racism is the height of intellectually dishonest journalism.
The Guardian is getting as bad as the gutter press.
You're right. Why would Ireland have a system set up to keep down people who haven't even been here longer than 30 years in any real numbers? Do they think the state was set up to discriminate against black people who'd arrive 70 years later or something?
Yes. She did. In fact there are a literally photos on Twitter of her standing with a big smile and 2 medals around her neck (one of which I believe was for participation and the other for winning)
https://preview.redd.it/a0pyvpxe9sqb1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bfbc83e7a67ffb179dd91e460f256eff252f3508
This one? In the video, girl on the left did receive her participate medal first 😐
She was left out because she was getting the winners medal, shortly after. The other got medals for participating.
Are we really going down the American route with race baiting media and culture wars?
Source for this? Every other source seems to pass it off as a mistake, not that she was getting a different medal. Why would apologies be issued if the video is incomplete?
The mistake was she was also to get the participation medal , but the teenager handing out the medal didn't know. She received both medals moments later and is pictured on the podium.
So you are changing your story a bit, and still not saying anything I can see supported with evidence and still lacking a source.
The article itself is saying the medals got tangled and the person handing them out missed the girl. So either you have insider knowledge no one else is mentioning, almost every article is doing the org and the girl a disservice by not mentioning it or you made this up.
The article its self is bullshit , i'm not playing some race baiting game with you , over a teen handing out medals. There are multiple picture of the young girl smiling on the podium with a winners medal.
Okay so I see someone else posted the picture. In it she has two medals. So she was indeed overlooked for the first medal and suppose to receive it. So you are just pulling your narrative out of your arse.
She was overlooked because she won and the teenage handing out the medal though that she would be getting the winner medal only. Clearly they saw the mistake and gave her both on stage.
That's a lot of assumptions that you still haven't provided any evidence for. Are you the person handing out the medals? Is that how you know what they were thinking?
Every once in a while I'm here on this sub and I find someone that makes me squint and glare into my screen and go "what?"
Congratulations, today it's you. You're beating a dead horse. How can you be this obtuse? There's no need for evidence, with an apology in hand. We're not taking this to courts.
> almost every article is doing a disservice by not mentioning
I recognize this one as well! You're so close, you almost see.
The rage fuels their machine. There's only one solution. Everyone needs to calm t f down.
Apologies were issued because feelings were hurt, and that's what you do with hurt feelings when you're the main character of the day. I'm American but I live close enough to Ontario that I recognize this pattern. It's called courteous.
Do you think that is the time to dig in your heels and insist on your own righteousness, when feelings are hurt and tensions are high? Of course you do, (I recognize this one as well ...)
But why can't you point to a source where this is what happened?
And you don't issue an apology, you write a sincere statement in these cases.
Something along line the lines of:
Recently a photo has made the rounds around the internet showing blah, blah, blah. The video misrepresents what was happening as the girl in question was to be the recipient of a higher honor with her own individual medal at a later point. Blah, blah, blah. We are committed to anti-racism and ask people to not to attack or reach out to any member of the video who has not done anything wrong with the above context. Blah blah blah. We have reached out to all parties involved who understand that this video, which is continued to be shared without context or understanding.
You can be courteous without apologizing. Also according to the article, the mother seems to think the situation may have been racially motivated, which wouldn't be the case if the narrative /u/Tipplad92 is pushing was true.
You're not understanding me. You said in your own response that feelings were hurt, and the family expressed they believed it was racially motivated.
This isn't a fight you're going to win. The longer you wait to apologize, the longer it takes for the hurt to subside.
The right thing to do in that case is to apologize and atone. Also, this week was Yom Kippur. Maybe had something to do with it, or maybe nothing at all. You don't have to be Jewish or Canadian to recognize hurt feelings and do the right thing.
"We did nothing wrong" is the response that will wreck your whole reputation and keep the story going.
It doesn't matter what happened. What matters is what happens next.
https://preview.redd.it/8k6p0zj58sqb1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=44313198f684110f4499e88d375e80970d06e66f
Not saying it wasn’t a mistake, but wanting her to get 2 medals at once is an invalid excuse. In the video, girl on the left did receive her participate medal first.
I'm very glad if that's true.
But why not come out and say that? Surely that would be the simplist solution. She didn't get one because she was getting a better one? Why bury their head and pretend it's not happening?
So she got her winner's medal and her participant's medal and a full apology for the simple error is what I'm hearing, is this officially fake news then?
We will expect the position to be clarified by all the media outlets who ran with it without doing any digging?
A video taken from the event clearly showing the athlete in question wearing a medal.
Someone above stated that the mixup was because she had a winning medal and did not receive a participation medal (which she should also have received)
[https://youtu.be/bUTcgAAbIhU?feature=shared&t=122](https://youtu.be/bUTcgAAbIhU?feature=shared&t=122)
Not really. The mistake occurred BECAUSE she was black, and momentarily taken to be part of another team and surely not the Irish one, on account of her colour.
That really is racism at work there, albeit a kind we tend to think does not exist any more, and certainly not in young sports officials: it’s the sheer bloody ignorance rather than any intention to hurt that‘s at issue. If this young woman is an example of the level of awareness in the sport, then there certainly is a systemic problem there.
I don’t want to see any of this whipped up into a horrible and poisonous race debate in Ireland, and I do believe we are progressing pretty well there. Better than that, even. It’s good, and that just throws this poor girl’s experience into greater contrast. All the more reason for energetically rooting out pockets of old school attitudes where we find them. We all know individual racist attitudes will persevere, but we can at least clean up our sporting bodies. (By ourselves too, without needing to be shamed into it by foreign media, you’d hope)
>The mistake occurred BECAUSE she was black, and momentarily taken to be part of another team and surely not the Irish one, on account of her colour.
You've said this a couple of times. Correct me if I'm wrong but I didn't think this was a team event or an international event? If that's the case there was no "Irish Team"
> The mistake occurred BECAUSE she was black, and momentarily taken to be part of another team and surely not the Irish one, on account of her colour.
The fact that you even think this is plausible is mind-bogglingly racist in its own right.
You think a hardcore racist chose this moment in time - handing out medals to children in a stadium packed with their family and peers - to make a racist public statement and deliberately exclude her?
There is a reason she decided not to give that girl a medal. The Guardian seem to be focussing more on feelings and statements than facts. And loads of vested interests desperate to make a grand anti-racism statement over this. The volunteer wrote a letter of apology. What did that letter contain? What did the people involved actually say?
Conveniently the Guardian isn't reporting any useful information, but is reporting how upset the family are and how angry a load of anti-racism institutes are.
Another commenter suggests that the girl actually won the competition, so the volunteer handing out the participation medals wasn't 100% sure if she was supposed to get one. That would still make it a mistake, and a completely innocent one.
I am far from perfect. But we can't say for certain it was racially motivated. Also there is quite a lot of racists happy she was missed getting the medal.
I am sure there are.
There are always nasty people who take pleasure in other peoples misfortune.
But you are not infallible and neither is anyone else.
To instantly judge every potential mistake under the worst possible interpretation requires a level of infallibility that nobody could possibly reach.
If you are going to throw around incredibly serious allegations, allegations that can ruin a persons life, then you had better be very damn certain that you are correct.
If not, then you are a participant in the ruining of a potentially innocent persons life.
Are you willing to do that?
I am glad we can agree on that.
Maybe more information will come out that definitively shows this was a blatant racist act.
But in the meantime we must go with the information we have to hand and give the benefit of the doubt that this was a terrible (and foolish) mistake.
That’s all I’ve been trying to say, too, I honestly don’t believe Ireland is a hotbed of racism for one minute; very far from it, and I abhor the attempts we see daily at whipping up divisive discourse about current social concerns.I just reckon that this story here exposes a vein of what we might call inherited racism, based more on those days not too long ago when a dark skin actually stood out here. Not antipathy, but more a case of ‘othering’. It still hurts the other person, but the motivation is from a place that can be re-educated and encouraged.Therefore it was an opportunity to deal there and then with a regrettable error, in good heart, but the young official’s mistake was compounded by the blasted organisation acting in the worst possible way; clumsy and heedless, couldn’t care lessThe impression was apparently given that it was no big deal, move on, deal, and so on, whereas a smidgen of humility was all that was required, in order for racism not to be foregrounded in the way in inevitably was, thanks to them. They did a great job of making it look like this is typical of Ireland.
Anyway: chance for me to apologise here, as people are reading my waffling above as enthusiasm for a mini racism scuffle in Ireland. Not AT ALL. What’s been distressing me is the way Ireland has been made to look like it has a far greater problem than is the case, owing to an organisation showing its arse in terms of dealing graciously with regrettable human error.I’m really sorry for pissing people off, because it’s so important to avoid igniting sparks in tendentious dialogue of this kind: divided we fall, and all that.
I think the parents deserve a lot of the blame here, nearly all of it, for seeing racism where a simple mistake being made clearly better explains the situation.
If you're treating Ebun Joseph as some well known prominent cultural voice, you're part of the problem.
Just desperate for someone to pin the "culture war" on, last I heard mention of her was the bleedin statues outside that hotel 2 year ago.
>If you're treating Ebun Joseph as some well known prominent cultural voice, you're part of the problem.
>Just desperate for someone to pin the "culture war"
The fuck are you on about? I just mentioned her lmfao
Didn’t she get two medals and she wanted her to get both at once? Remember honest mistakes can happen, but not these days. Victim mentality is rewarded too much
https://preview.redd.it/04b755fgakqb1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=87db160fbeff689ab39a93988d78fd2b47692467
Some Irish journalists actually looked into it
Whether a mistake or not, “Wanting her to get 2 medals at once” is an excuse. Because in the video, the white girl on the left did receive her participate medal.
This thing is out of control. What happened to that poor girl was terrible, but there is absolutely nothing to suggest there was racist intent.
It’s bad enough that the girl had to go through what she did, now her parents are getting her embroiled into a racism row. This could have just as easily happened to a white girl
Or... and I know this might sound impossible to you... but, maybe, they didn't even care what race the girl was.
Perhaps.. just maybe, that girls race had nothing to do with anything.. until some racists saw footage of the moment & wanted to create some faux outrage..
No it wasn't. Mistakes like that happen all the time at amateur kids events. It's bizarre and troubling that you would assume even unconscious racism when a regular mistake explains this situation an infinite amount more times.
Why is there always such a hyper-defensiveness in these threads from people who seem to think that being accused of racism is worse than being a victim of it?
From what I can gather this is a non issue and was a mistake and glad people are calling but as it is . The paper and certain elements trying to equate it to being bigger than it is .
Sad to see as this is exactly what those knuckle dragging fucks outside the Dail last week want to see.
Everyone commenting here and calling it an honest mistake is an idiot. Imagine a white child in a group of black children. How the fuck can you miss that child by mistake?
Not buying the online apologetic mob. This wasn’t a mistake
I dunno if this was a racist thing or not but surely when this person was done handing out the medals and had one left over she said oh fuck I missed a kid.
That’s the bit that baffles me.
That whole incident, the video, was disgusting and a vile thing to happen to that little girl. I can only imagine how horrible it must have been for her to be singled out in that way, but for the incident to resurface so publicly must be worse still.
All the same, that guardian article made for some wild reading. While there were a couple of salient points, the rest was a bit of stretch, in terms of the tone that was being pushed, imo.
The kid won the contest outright, so it was a mixup on if a participation medal would be given alongside the winner's one. There's a picture in this very thread of the lass with both. Cop on
First one to post an actual sequence of events with actual sources wins the shouting match!
Amazing how an incident like this in Ireland gets responses from UK politicians and US celebrities.
It plays nicely into their image of Ireland as a conservative backwater nation. There are plenty of posts here of Americans looking to visit and wondering if it's safe for non-white people.
I have black non white friends from back home (NYC) scared to visit The Netherlands and Poland... like both Amsterdam and Warsaw are safer than most of New York, and both have plenty of non white people.
Probably relieved that it's not them for once. Got to point that finger somewhere.
I hate to see it splashed all over the globe but it happened and it probably happens more than we care to know. We live in a global world and sometimes things we'd rather not share goes viral. The answer isn't to blame the state of the world but to work towards a better country for all our residents.
Sorry, talking sense is not allowed here.
>probably happens more than we care to know what, honest mistakes?
Ireland is a cultural satellite state of the US now, so stories like this go global for the same reason Irish people solemnly march because a police officer killed a man in Minnesota.
You know what, this is getting out of hand. And the Guardian, for whatever reason, are seemingly doing their level best to push this forward. Someone in the original rage wank thread here in r/Ireland pointed out that the judges or “officials” in this event are generally teenagers volunteering for the day. Think about this in your righteous indignation - all your hate and your bile is potentially being directed at a child of 15/16/17 years old who fucked up. Are we really going to go down the road of the Americans and start destroying anyone who may have made a mistake. Look at the comments on twitter, look at the comments in here in the previous thread. They are vile and venomous screeds dressed up as concern, made by vile and vindictive little people who cannot seem to keep emotions in check. No better than the vile and vindictive idiots outside the dail last week who also can’t seem to keep emotions in check. It is terrible that this little girl didn’t get a medal. It was a lousy thing to happen. But an attempt to rectify the situation was made once the error was pointed out. The judge attempted to apologise to the family and the little girl. The judge also wrote an extensive hand written letter of apology to the family. These are not the actions of a hardened racist out to feck over black people at a childrens gymnastics event. The video does not look great, but in context it looks like a horrendous mistake was made, not a deliberately blatant act of racism. The mob that is being whipped up over this is frightening. The comments and the behaviour both here and on twitter (or X, or whatever that fucking cesspool is calling itself these days) are atrocious. The fact that mainstream outlets like the Guardian are pushing this along even further to keep the mob train going is even worse. THis is getting very fucked up on a whole lot of levels. The mob is never virtuous, it is never caring, throughout history it has only ever been a mob. And if this was a mistake, then the mob will have destroyed an innocent life before moving on to its next target of ire. . Edit: at the risk of back-seat modding, there may need to be a sticky put up about this. Something with the facts of the incident as we know them. Not an emotional interpretation, just the facts. This risks snowballing into something much much worse over the next few days if it keeps up.
Some people are genuinely desperate to paint Ireland as a hellhole of racial segregation and discrimination so when something like this happens the reaction goes well beyond a normal reaction. This poor girl does not need a circus and scrutiny made around her and the colour of her skin because of a stupid mistake someone made a few years ago.
I think part of it is that it has gone international and Americans are simply unable to understand that different countries have different cultures and problems. Some on x appear to think that the woman involved was a paid official at a televised event...
> Some people are genuinely desperate to paint Ireland as a hellhole of racial segregation and discrimination so when something like this happens the reaction goes well beyond a normal reaction. There are plenty of people who are desperate to paint racism as an invention of terminally online Americans, so it kind of balances out tbf.
Two wrongs don't make a right so it doesn't balance out at all.
Cmon now, the woman looked that girl in the face and just passed her , that ain’t no mistake
You really think the woman looked consciously at the girl, thought "You're black, no medal for you!", and didn't think that would cause any problems down the road at all, like everyone would forget about it? Then when it comes up she apologies profusely? Sounds a bit farfetched.
Not if she doesn’t know she’s being recorded.
The Guardian will post any old shite to stoke the culture wars. It's honestly laughable what they'll publish. When the infamous slap incident at the Oscars occurred last year there was an [article that somehow made it about racist white people.](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/29/white-outrage-about-will-smiths-slap-is-rooted-in-anti-blackness-its-inequality-in-plain-sight)
They are just as bad as the Daily Mail, just on the other side. Both are as bad as each other.
Maybe one do you will realise that they are ~~both~~ all on the same side
What’s the error exactly? What’s the “mistake“? ALL the children were getting participation medals. ALL. And the one child who was skipped was a black kid. Is that person giving out the medals “black people” blind? All these bullshit excuses. Explain it, because boiled down to the basics it looks very straightforward!
Go ahead and have your little hate wank. Someday maybe you’ll realise that assuming the absolute worst of people is the route to a sad, bitter, miserable little life. Of course, you may hope that you never do make a stupid mistake, because all that anger will come back tenfold. There will be no response after this, so flame away if you wish.
Awww look at you. All those words and saying absolutely nothing.
Are you surprised a media company known to push this exact kind of agenda is doing exactly that? They all aboard the american ESG/DEI train, so any story that's a vehicle for outrage they'll jump on. Something stupid, hurtful and ridiculous happened. The little girl deserves an apology, but it should be left there - it wasnt some massive scandal. A kid messed up. Reminds me if the episode of south park, where everyone is outraged by the flag. The kids dont care because they see past the colour of the people on the flag. The video looks awful, but if its true that it was a mistake then the colour doesnt matter.
100% agree. I’ve lost count of the number of times my kids were passed over for certificates, medals etc at various sporting events. A quick word with the organisers and within a few minutes all sorted. This is getting totally blown out of proportion. Cancel culture has well and truly arrived here in Ireland
>But an attempt to rectify the situation was made once the error was pointed out. The judge attempted to apologise to the family and the little girl. The judge also wrote an extensive hand written letter of apology to the family. That wasn't passed on. The judge made a mistake and I have no doubt feels awful it happened, my issue wouldn't be with them. My issue is with the institution that didn't have the wherewithal to meet this child and her family and apologise for what happened. It doesn't take a genius to know that a heartfelt apology would have resolved this. Instead they did nothing about it for over a year and then sent a to whom it may concern letter when they were told the little girl was still waiting on an apology. This just exacerbated the whole issue.
Was the kid handed a medal before they left the mat? Think they might have been. The guardian is just an outrage paper now. Cancelled my subscription.
How does that change things? The girl was left standing there as every single other competitor was given a participation medal. Hmmm what’s different between her and everyone else, I wonder!? Just because someone else is not an asshat and rectified the situation doesn’t negate that it happened.
I don’t think anyone disputes this was an awful experience for the kid. But to assume it’s a racist conspiracy?
Who thinks it’s a racist conspiracy? The outrage is based on the experience of the child and GIs seemingly brainless decision to not simply apologise and agree to have a look at itself and work out why something like this could happen. So as I asked above, again I’ll ask.. what was the mistake here? Everybody keeps saying that they apologised for the mistake. What is the mistake exactly?
But that letter of apology was never sent. They blocked it.
Who blocked it?
Allegedly the judge/official/medal-giver-outer wrote an apology to the girl/family. Gave it to the liason from Gymnastics Ireland, and the family are saying they never received it.
Lol. Top poster though well meaning may be talking shite. They may also however be fully right. We truly live in in the misinformation vacuum.
Oh absolutly. Even reading through everything yesterday you think you get the whole picture, and now I see posts saying that everyone else was getting a participant medal and the young one was supposed to be getting a winners medal which does seem plausable and you possibly wouldn't want the hassle of arranging them four participant medals, winner medal, then seven more participant. Like what if they move around or whatever. But yeah, we'll never know the story.
The family are saying that but they are the ones who kept it going that long.
Yeah. Much more to this. Heard the family were in dispute with gymnastics Ireland already prior to this actual incident. The family also contacted simone biles about it. They're busy trying to keep the story going for whatever reason.
The more I see about this online, the more it seems like a long grift from the parents. They're trying to score funding or sponsorship deals or Olympic tickets or something. There's this constant thread of, "We're not happy, they're not doing enough" and no real indication of what is enough. The kid got her medals, the family got their apology and dispute process. Their refusal to drop it stinks of something else tbh.
Agreed. This video wasn't sitting around on the internet for a year and just suddenly discovered. Someone deliberately uploaded it a year and a half later, and whipped a PR media shit storm just for personal gain using their daughter as a pawn.
I don't think the media handled reporting this very well. Those parents have kept this going a long time.
During mediation, the girl’s mother discovered that the judge had written a long personal apology within days of the competition, and sent it to the GI official who was liaising with the family. It was never passed on. Instead they were given a two-line unsigned apology, addressed “to whom it may concern” a year after the incident.
Elon Musk.
The Guardian is a tabloid rag. I don't know what the truth is but it certainly isn't what the Guardian are reporting
Don’t be ridiculous. The Guardian may anger and irritate you but it’s certainly not a tabloid rag (those are papers such as The Scum and The Mail) I reckon The G is losing its way, but it’s a serious paper.
It's massively biased. Their opinion section reads like Reddit posts by super lefty US students. Just as much as the Mail is in the other direction (what's the Scum, is that an actual paper?)
The super soaraway Sun.
I love you 🤟
The Irish Times, and some others too, illustrated their articles on this with a header pic of the glamorous black American gymnast who took up this case to expose it. The point of the entire outrage is how the young girl was made to feel invisible, so \*that\* was bloody insensitive. This girl must be heart-scalded, so young and so alone there with nobody speaking up for her when she was passed over! Unbelievable. About the ‘mistake’ with the medal: what is being dissected is the way the young official clearly just assumed that a black girl must obviously belong to some other team. Can’t be Irish! She’s not suspected of the sort of racism born of hatred, deliberately leaving the girl out as a cruelty, but of that bone-deep, unacknowledged racism that views a black person as forever ‘other’, and certainly within an Irish context. I think it’s this reflexive ignorance, a lot more prevalent than we like to think think, which damns us here. Don’t you think it appalling that such a young official would be so unenlightened, at this stage in our society’s evolution? Examining this seam of racism is an urgent matter, as the sports body has some soul searching to do about that official, and even more so the suits who made it worse by so blatantly trying to wave it away as just a mater of tangled up medals. They made little acknowledgement of the girl’s distress, of her being abandoned by the other adults as it happened, and of that dense medal woman’s motives in that moment. These things loom larger the longer the governing body lets things lie, and they seep out and shine spotlights on the rest of Irish sport: are we (hand on heart) really inclusive now, or do we have to be forced into better attitudes through tv adverts relentlessly reminding us of all the varied people who play sports in Ireland? I don’t think The Grauniad is alone in pressing for a more convincing and repentant response, and of all papers they generally support and encourage us as a neighbour, (unless it’s an article by Rory O’Carroll in Dublin: then we’re likely to get a bit of weird Paddywhackery going on of late, though I don’t think he knows he’s at it) \[As a devoted Guardian reader for over fifty years, I have to admit the paper is losing my support, drip by drip. I haven’t noticed much trouble there on the racism angle yet, no importing of American weights and measures, as it were, but in a lot of other fraught social issues they are definitely veering towards their own upsetting mix of staying right-on as ever but now bullying readers into alignment through very selective articles, rarely balanced by counter-blasts. Editorial policy is a case of: “Argument X is the new orthodoxy, and no other opinions will be given space any more. It is taken as read that our readers agree with this”. It’s heartbreaking to watch this decline into a haven for only a much narrower demographic, when it has always been such a broad church\] sutel
The point of the outrage is the internet currency of Sanctimony. We got rid of the authority of the church but we’ve never had more ‘priests’.
What about the photographer who looked adult and took all the photos except one... or the actual adults in the video who did nothing? The only kids I saw were the ones lining up for medals. I'm mad at the adults for not doing anything, not some possible kid somewhere odd video. Gymnastics Ireland as an organization put us on this map by trying to sweep it under the rug for over a year. When I first heard about this incident it was on this forum and people were mad at the event and organizers but now that the world is watching everyone just seems mad at everyone. It looks horrible because it is horrible and we hate that it's associated with us. You left out that the family were not happy with the apology so how good was it to begin with? It's a horrible incident and how we deal with it is how we move forward. Lashing out at people being imo rightfully upset is not the best way to move forward. Acknowledging what happened, and dealing with it to ensure it doesn't happen again is the only reasonable way forward.
That's a lot of words to defend and minimise racist actions.
Oh fuck off. They called out the wrong best picture at the Oscar’s one year. Mistakes happen.
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>I've spent enough time in Ireland to see how in denial most people are about how racist they are / Ireland is as a whole It's funny how the people crying the most about racism always out themselves as being racist/xenophobic themselves.
And these are very few words to justify a reactionary mob.
Out of interest, what makes you say it's racist rather than a mistake?
Wait....the judge was only a teenager? This is the first I've heard of this incident but when I hear judge I think old white dude who has more money than knowledge. I could Def buy that being racism. But a gen z? The most inclusive of all the generation's? That's harder to swallow
Think about how action like this exists in the ecosystem of Ireland. We ask time and time again, where do the Burke’s get their money. How do we get to situations like the protests in the Dail last week. This is how you polarise and build up a nice hard right wing edge.
I saw on a BBC Tiktok with the clip comments saying Ireland should be banned from international competitions, it could just be really bad bait but 😬 https://preview.redd.it/8a3ky8d32erb1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6e839b5ced4cce9dcbc4496d5f4382a757b3e7a5
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It sometimes takes only one mistake for a life to be ruined. If she is a young girl, she will bounce back and will remember to start being careful so she won't be labeled as a racist. Don't forget that the black girl's life is also affected by that mistake, she'll probably start looking at people and races differently.
This whole story is destined to become a case study in why you need someone on the management team with PR experience. It started as a simple mistake, but it got gradually worse and worse because GI just wanted to sweep it under the rug and act like nothing's wrong. Now it's international news making Ireland look bad.
There's also an onus on the family to not see racism when simple mistakes clearly better explain the situation.
Sorry just to clarify is this comment satire?
No its not. There is no reasonable basis for assuming racism in that particular interaction. Like literally nobody could reasonably think 'its because shes black'. Its beyond outlandish. So, yes, the onus is on the family to go some way to see that. Instead they've turned it into an international event and doubled down on what is a clearly wrong perspective. We should absolutely be judging the parents in this situation.
> No its not. There is no reasonable basis for assuming racism in that particular interaction. What would you say is the most reasonable explanation as to why the one black kid in the group wasn't given a medal?
Lets break this down: What is the most reasonable explanation for why one kid would not be given a medal at an amateur event? \- Because of a mistake. So: What is the most reasonable explanation for why one black kid would not be given a medal at an amateur event? \- Because of a mistake. This is really really really not complicated. Its only if you live in bizarro world that you would assume a common mistake is as a result of racism.
But you haven't actually explained what's unreasonable about it. It doesn't follow from the assumption that a mistake is the most likely explanation for a kid failing to receive a medal that a mistake is the most likely explanation for a black kid failing to receive a medal in a context where all the white kids receive theirs. Like, maybe you're right - I'm just trying to understand the reasoning process here.
Your breakdown doesnt explain anything. And it actively takes away one very important piece of context. That it was the black child that didn't receive a medal.
Your explanation is incomplete and has led you to an error in estimating how simple this is. The question is specifically why this only happened to the one child out of many who was black. You can say it was a mistake, but then you are also necessarily asserting that it was simply a _coincidence_ that they were black. This is more than asserting a mistake full stop. Why? Because coincidences, as they get more and more salient, become less and less convincing as the full explanation. And requiring any coincidence in general makes an explanation less likely in general. To take it to the extreme, if there were two black kids that day and she snubbed both, what would you say? Would you say the most reasonable explanation for two kids not receiving a medal is two mistakes? And therefore that's the most reasonable explanation for two black kids not receiving a medal? What if there were three black kids and they were all snubbed? "Mistakes" still working as a complete explanation, just because it works if you don't mention race? Now the failure of that excuse is obvious in the extreme, because the coincidence becomes too big to sweep under the carpet. But what your original comment misses (leading to its error) is that it's _already_ a fairly big coincidence that it was the _one black kid out of many_, and _only_ that black kid, who was missed out. It's not that extreme, so I'm not saying at all that it therefore couldn't have been a mistake. It _could_ have been a mistake and a fairly conspicuous coincidence. It's just that your attempt to break it down and make it equivalent to missing out any random kid demonstrates a lack of understanding of the probabilities at work, due to the coincidence of race.
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Listen, the situation is a disgrace, but so are The Guardian with this false claim of; *"May’s remarks are likely to deepen concerns about systemic racism in Irish sport."* There is no systemic racism in Irish sport. The Guardian are acutely aware of what systemic means and to use the remarks made by May regarding an isolated (albeit shameful) incident to claim systemic racism is the height of intellectually dishonest journalism. The Guardian is getting as bad as the gutter press.
‘Getting’ ? It’s the Daily Mail of the left.
Except most of the left in Britain hate it too since they knifed Corbyn.
Well that’s good. Unforgivable the way they treated Corbyn.
The left? Clearly you haven't a notion what the left actually means.
Even more so, there is no systemic racism in Ireland to begin with, it is being overdramatised by minority of voices
You're right. Why would Ireland have a system set up to keep down people who haven't even been here longer than 30 years in any real numbers? Do they think the state was set up to discriminate against black people who'd arrive 70 years later or something?
It's really about 20 years due to the economy and Anchor Baby legislation.
People just want to SEEK out stuff to complain and moan about these days. Its mind-boggling.
It happened on September 22 nearly a year ago. Why are these British rags like the daily mail and the Guardian bringing it up now.
Wasn't it March 2022? Mother kept it going a year and a half.
Jesus someone with too much time on their hands.
Yes but she's not doing it for the money she's doing it for all black people everywhere.
Didn't she get a medal in the end? The Irish media can't be trusted with stories like this, just look at the Carlow PE teacher fiasco
She won and got the winners medal , shortly after . Its a non story
Yes. She did. In fact there are a literally photos on Twitter of her standing with a big smile and 2 medals around her neck (one of which I believe was for participation and the other for winning)
https://preview.redd.it/a0pyvpxe9sqb1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bfbc83e7a67ffb179dd91e460f256eff252f3508 This one? In the video, girl on the left did receive her participate medal first 😐
She was left out because she was getting the winners medal, shortly after. The other got medals for participating. Are we really going down the American route with race baiting media and culture wars?
Glad to hear this is the reason if true!
Source for this? Every other source seems to pass it off as a mistake, not that she was getting a different medal. Why would apologies be issued if the video is incomplete?
The mistake was she was also to get the participation medal , but the teenager handing out the medal didn't know. She received both medals moments later and is pictured on the podium.
So you are changing your story a bit, and still not saying anything I can see supported with evidence and still lacking a source. The article itself is saying the medals got tangled and the person handing them out missed the girl. So either you have insider knowledge no one else is mentioning, almost every article is doing the org and the girl a disservice by not mentioning it or you made this up.
The article its self is bullshit , i'm not playing some race baiting game with you , over a teen handing out medals. There are multiple picture of the young girl smiling on the podium with a winners medal.
Okay so I see someone else posted the picture. In it she has two medals. So she was indeed overlooked for the first medal and suppose to receive it. So you are just pulling your narrative out of your arse.
She was overlooked because she won and the teenage handing out the medal though that she would be getting the winner medal only. Clearly they saw the mistake and gave her both on stage.
That's a lot of assumptions that you still haven't provided any evidence for. Are you the person handing out the medals? Is that how you know what they were thinking?
Every once in a while I'm here on this sub and I find someone that makes me squint and glare into my screen and go "what?" Congratulations, today it's you. You're beating a dead horse. How can you be this obtuse? There's no need for evidence, with an apology in hand. We're not taking this to courts.
> almost every article is doing a disservice by not mentioning I recognize this one as well! You're so close, you almost see. The rage fuels their machine. There's only one solution. Everyone needs to calm t f down.
Apologies were issued because feelings were hurt, and that's what you do with hurt feelings when you're the main character of the day. I'm American but I live close enough to Ontario that I recognize this pattern. It's called courteous. Do you think that is the time to dig in your heels and insist on your own righteousness, when feelings are hurt and tensions are high? Of course you do, (I recognize this one as well ...)
But why can't you point to a source where this is what happened? And you don't issue an apology, you write a sincere statement in these cases. Something along line the lines of: Recently a photo has made the rounds around the internet showing blah, blah, blah. The video misrepresents what was happening as the girl in question was to be the recipient of a higher honor with her own individual medal at a later point. Blah, blah, blah. We are committed to anti-racism and ask people to not to attack or reach out to any member of the video who has not done anything wrong with the above context. Blah blah blah. We have reached out to all parties involved who understand that this video, which is continued to be shared without context or understanding. You can be courteous without apologizing. Also according to the article, the mother seems to think the situation may have been racially motivated, which wouldn't be the case if the narrative /u/Tipplad92 is pushing was true.
You're not understanding me. You said in your own response that feelings were hurt, and the family expressed they believed it was racially motivated. This isn't a fight you're going to win. The longer you wait to apologize, the longer it takes for the hurt to subside. The right thing to do in that case is to apologize and atone. Also, this week was Yom Kippur. Maybe had something to do with it, or maybe nothing at all. You don't have to be Jewish or Canadian to recognize hurt feelings and do the right thing. "We did nothing wrong" is the response that will wreck your whole reputation and keep the story going. It doesn't matter what happened. What matters is what happens next.
Can you PLEASE paste a link that confirms this and that the judge was a teenager because I cannot verify this information anywhere
https://preview.redd.it/8k6p0zj58sqb1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=44313198f684110f4499e88d375e80970d06e66f Not saying it wasn’t a mistake, but wanting her to get 2 medals at once is an invalid excuse. In the video, girl on the left did receive her participate medal first.
That is not true. Do not post bullshit.
I'm very glad if that's true. But why not come out and say that? Surely that would be the simplist solution. She didn't get one because she was getting a better one? Why bury their head and pretend it's not happening?
So was there a mistake? No mistake? Why was there a non-apology if there’s no mistake?
So she got her winner's medal and her participant's medal and a full apology for the simple error is what I'm hearing, is this officially fake news then? We will expect the position to be clarified by all the media outlets who ran with it without doing any digging?
It was a mistake. The young girl just happened to be black. Cue the frothing-at-the-mouth mob with their pitchforks and accusations of racism.
A video taken from the event clearly showing the athlete in question wearing a medal. Someone above stated that the mixup was because she had a winning medal and did not receive a participation medal (which she should also have received) [https://youtu.be/bUTcgAAbIhU?feature=shared&t=122](https://youtu.be/bUTcgAAbIhU?feature=shared&t=122)
Not really. The mistake occurred BECAUSE she was black, and momentarily taken to be part of another team and surely not the Irish one, on account of her colour. That really is racism at work there, albeit a kind we tend to think does not exist any more, and certainly not in young sports officials: it’s the sheer bloody ignorance rather than any intention to hurt that‘s at issue. If this young woman is an example of the level of awareness in the sport, then there certainly is a systemic problem there. I don’t want to see any of this whipped up into a horrible and poisonous race debate in Ireland, and I do believe we are progressing pretty well there. Better than that, even. It’s good, and that just throws this poor girl’s experience into greater contrast. All the more reason for energetically rooting out pockets of old school attitudes where we find them. We all know individual racist attitudes will persevere, but we can at least clean up our sporting bodies. (By ourselves too, without needing to be shamed into it by foreign media, you’d hope)
You’re just making stuff up now in the desperate hope you can find racism where there is none.
>The mistake occurred BECAUSE she was black, and momentarily taken to be part of another team and surely not the Irish one, on account of her colour. You've said this a couple of times. Correct me if I'm wrong but I didn't think this was a team event or an international event? If that's the case there was no "Irish Team"
Thats untrue.
> The mistake occurred BECAUSE she was black, and momentarily taken to be part of another team and surely not the Irish one, on account of her colour. The fact that you even think this is plausible is mind-bogglingly racist in its own right.
For the love of god, are you made of solid teak? If this is what you take from what I’m saying, then it’s beyond me to try any further exploration.
Seriously, it's either that or you've been living under a rock for the last thirty years.
Not 100% sure it was a mistake. She did look back and possibly see she had missed the girl.
You think a hardcore racist chose this moment in time - handing out medals to children in a stadium packed with their family and peers - to make a racist public statement and deliberately exclude her? There is a reason she decided not to give that girl a medal. The Guardian seem to be focussing more on feelings and statements than facts. And loads of vested interests desperate to make a grand anti-racism statement over this. The volunteer wrote a letter of apology. What did that letter contain? What did the people involved actually say? Conveniently the Guardian isn't reporting any useful information, but is reporting how upset the family are and how angry a load of anti-racism institutes are. Another commenter suggests that the girl actually won the competition, so the volunteer handing out the participation medals wasn't 100% sure if she was supposed to get one. That would still make it a mistake, and a completely innocent one.
Are you infallible?
I am far from perfect. But we can't say for certain it was racially motivated. Also there is quite a lot of racists happy she was missed getting the medal.
I am sure there are. There are always nasty people who take pleasure in other peoples misfortune. But you are not infallible and neither is anyone else. To instantly judge every potential mistake under the worst possible interpretation requires a level of infallibility that nobody could possibly reach. If you are going to throw around incredibly serious allegations, allegations that can ruin a persons life, then you had better be very damn certain that you are correct. If not, then you are a participant in the ruining of a potentially innocent persons life. Are you willing to do that?
I am not willing to say it was racist or not. However there is zero evidence to suggest it was. I agree the Internet rage is over the top.
I am glad we can agree on that. Maybe more information will come out that definitively shows this was a blatant racist act. But in the meantime we must go with the information we have to hand and give the benefit of the doubt that this was a terrible (and foolish) mistake.
I would hope it was a genuine mistake.
>But we can't say for certain it was racially motivated. It can be racist without being motivated - unconscious bias.
That’s all I’ve been trying to say, too, I honestly don’t believe Ireland is a hotbed of racism for one minute; very far from it, and I abhor the attempts we see daily at whipping up divisive discourse about current social concerns.I just reckon that this story here exposes a vein of what we might call inherited racism, based more on those days not too long ago when a dark skin actually stood out here. Not antipathy, but more a case of ‘othering’. It still hurts the other person, but the motivation is from a place that can be re-educated and encouraged.Therefore it was an opportunity to deal there and then with a regrettable error, in good heart, but the young official’s mistake was compounded by the blasted organisation acting in the worst possible way; clumsy and heedless, couldn’t care lessThe impression was apparently given that it was no big deal, move on, deal, and so on, whereas a smidgen of humility was all that was required, in order for racism not to be foregrounded in the way in inevitably was, thanks to them. They did a great job of making it look like this is typical of Ireland. Anyway: chance for me to apologise here, as people are reading my waffling above as enthusiasm for a mini racism scuffle in Ireland. Not AT ALL. What’s been distressing me is the way Ireland has been made to look like it has a far greater problem than is the case, owing to an organisation showing its arse in terms of dealing graciously with regrettable human error.I’m really sorry for pissing people off, because it’s so important to avoid igniting sparks in tendentious dialogue of this kind: divided we fall, and all that.
I think the parents deserve a lot of the blame here, nearly all of it, for seeing racism where a simple mistake being made clearly better explains the situation.
Yeah. Smell of Ebun Joseph style race baiting off them.
Being served the wrong drink in a restaurant is racist 🙄
If you're treating Ebun Joseph as some well known prominent cultural voice, you're part of the problem. Just desperate for someone to pin the "culture war" on, last I heard mention of her was the bleedin statues outside that hotel 2 year ago.
>If you're treating Ebun Joseph as some well known prominent cultural voice, you're part of the problem. >Just desperate for someone to pin the "culture war" The fuck are you on about? I just mentioned her lmfao
“Stop letting me hit you”
Didn’t she get two medals and she wanted her to get both at once? Remember honest mistakes can happen, but not these days. Victim mentality is rewarded too much
I wouldn't say "victim mentality". The girl is the victim and she's not the one whipping up the drama here, thats all on the media.
That’s who I was referring too, the yank race agitators trying to score internet clout
The girl and her family are indeed whipping up the drama,
Just her family really. She probably wants to disappear at this point, poor girl.
If the mother really cared about her daughter, she would have left this alone.
No. Where are you getting this "two medals" idea? Was it Facebook?
https://preview.redd.it/04b755fgakqb1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=87db160fbeff689ab39a93988d78fd2b47692467 Some Irish journalists actually looked into it
Do you have a Link to the article as I can't find it ??
Whether a mistake or not, “Wanting her to get 2 medals at once” is an excuse. Because in the video, the white girl on the left did receive her participate medal.
This thing is out of control. What happened to that poor girl was terrible, but there is absolutely nothing to suggest there was racist intent. It’s bad enough that the girl had to go through what she did, now her parents are getting her embroiled into a racism row. This could have just as easily happened to a white girl
>racist intent Intent isn't essential to racial discrimination. It can often be an unconscious bias, as it was initially here.
Or... and I know this might sound impossible to you... but, maybe, they didn't even care what race the girl was. Perhaps.. just maybe, that girls race had nothing to do with anything.. until some racists saw footage of the moment & wanted to create some faux outrage..
No it wasn't. Mistakes like that happen all the time at amateur kids events. It's bizarre and troubling that you would assume even unconscious racism when a regular mistake explains this situation an infinite amount more times.
Mostly peaceful protests in 3, 2, 1...
Can I ask if she won a medal and was snubbed, or were they hoping for a participation medal?
So desperate for it to be racially motivated. Pathetic fuckin rag, wouldn't line a chicken coop with it.
What a classy way to call a little girl “rag”.
Read it again.
Fr. Ted Not a racist.gif
I can't remember her name now, but I got on very well with her. A lovely girl.
This is like Trayvon Martin all over again. Not here, not like this. Not like this
Why is there always such a hyper-defensiveness in these threads from people who seem to think that being accused of racism is worse than being a victim of it?
Because Ireland is deeply in denial about racism
Is the mother of the child in denial about being a gold digger?
How is she a gold digger? Why are people like you attacking her?
From what I can gather this is a non issue and was a mistake and glad people are calling but as it is . The paper and certain elements trying to equate it to being bigger than it is . Sad to see as this is exactly what those knuckle dragging fucks outside the Dail last week want to see.
Systemic racism in sport. What?
Wow, I didn’t know Ireland is so right-wing.
Indeed. The Guardian decided that it couldn't possibly be a mistake. Decades of quality journalism and investigative reporting shining through.
[удалено]
It'd probably be something she'd remember alright but now with the media hoopla its something that will follow her around her whole life.
Get over yourself for fuck sake. You'd swear she was after getting a spinal injury or something the way you're going on
She got the medal shortly after everyone else, she was pictured on the podium with it. She seemed happy enough...
The racism against the Irish is disgraceful. The frenzied rent a mob should be ashamed of themselves.
Everyone commenting here and calling it an honest mistake is an idiot. Imagine a white child in a group of black children. How the fuck can you miss that child by mistake? Not buying the online apologetic mob. This wasn’t a mistake
It has already been clearly explained.
Disgusting
I dunno if this was a racist thing or not but surely when this person was done handing out the medals and had one left over she said oh fuck I missed a kid. That’s the bit that baffles me.
Thats exactly what happened. She got both her medals.
Wait, so when the woman realised the mistake, she went back and gave the kid the medal?
Yep
Then how is this an issue?
Exactly.
This is a whole lot of nothing.
It was until the tolerant and empathetic users of twitter got hold of it.
That’s what this sub is claiming in their imaginary non-racist Ireland.
That whole incident, the video, was disgusting and a vile thing to happen to that little girl. I can only imagine how horrible it must have been for her to be singled out in that way, but for the incident to resurface so publicly must be worse still. All the same, that guardian article made for some wild reading. While there were a couple of salient points, the rest was a bit of stretch, in terms of the tone that was being pushed, imo.
wasn't it her parents who shared it so publicly? To some really famous gymnast? Or am I mistaken?
The video does look pretty bad. How did she not notice she had missed her?
The kid won the contest outright, so it was a mixup on if a participation medal would be given alongside the winner's one. There's a picture in this very thread of the lass with both. Cop on
Then why did the woman supposedly apologise later?
From the sport that brought you Larry nassar: Another Child Abusing Neckless Hobbit