Vanessa Gyan at She So Major flagged a story that makes me want to yell at somebody.
Express Night Out, a WaPo publication, conveniently left out Gabby Douglas from its coverage of the women’s gymnastics team gold medal win yesterday. The article, a PDF copy of which can be found here, fails to mention Gabby at all. No photo, no mention — nothing:
We were all so proud of 16-year-old Gabby Douglas as she lead the United States Women’s Gymnastics team to win gold yesterday [July 31] during the London Olympics.
Tweets, headlines, text messages! Everyone was beyond excited for this young woman of color who dominated her sport. The sport she has loved for many years.This morning [August 1], I was baffled by the mention of Douglas being omitted from, The Washington Post publication, The Express Night Out, that was printed this morning congratulating Team USA on their incredible win.
A picture of Express Night Out’s article was tweeted and Gabby’s name was not mentioned and the publication chose to use a picture that did NOT include Gabby. Oh wait, Gabby was in the picture but in the background.
Jordyn Wieber, Aly Raisman, Kyla Ross and McKayla Maroney are photographed and praised but why not Gabby?
Someone explain to me how this isn’t blatant discrimination. Please.
UPDATE: Gabby, or rather, an unnamed black girl doing a backbend, is featured in the upper right hand corner of the cover. So, perhaps it is not as egregious as I thought, but that doesn’t explain why the team picture chosen is of Gabby’s back, nor does it explain why she is not named in the article or on the cover. So, no, I will not delete this thread.
[full post here]