Why Is Gabby Douglas Being Shaded By The Media?

August 3, 2012 by Roger Ratchet

After clinching the gold medal in the womens’ gymnastics all-around event at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Gabby Douglas has become an overnight sensation.

The cute-as-a-button, humble 16-year-old from Virginia won the hearts and minds of seemingly everyone with her conquest over Russian gymnast Viktoria Komova. Everyone, that is, except the media.

There have been more than a few eyebrow-raising moments surrounding coverage of Gabby’s achievements in London in the past few days. It starts with Express, a metro publication published by The Washington Post.

The paper caught flack for running a photo of the gold medal winning womens’ gymnastics with Gabby facing away from the camera in the background, instead of a shot featuring all five women prominently.

SheSoMajor.com encapsulated some of the outrage people expressed on Twitter from the publication’s decision:

“Hey @ExpressNightOut….Care to explain why you chose to use a picture of the Women’s Team that OMITTED GABBY DOUGLAS? Someone is missing. There isn’t even a mention of Gabby Douglas’ name in the article,” wrote @TheJazzyBelle

This is how Express responded:

Here’s the cover the paper is referring to:

Did you catch that “prominent feature” they were talking about?

There’s Gabby, in the top right, upside down with her face covered and her name not mentioned anywhere. Yes, that’s totally giving Gabby the spotlight she deserves!

Meanwhile, on the official London 2012 site, check out which athlete’s face is missing from the right column:

And here’s a photo that ESPN ran of Gabby on its Facebook page:

Can somebody put a flash on Gabby’s face so we can actually see her? Why is she bathed in shadow like that? Did these photographers not learn a thing about lighting black people?

The last and final insult came last night from NBC itself.

After Gabby emerged victorious from the womens’ all-around event, NBC cut to commercial break. The commercial they aired was for its new show Animal Practice and it featured a monkey goofily doing a gymnastics routine.

You can’t make this kind of fail and shade up.

Check out NBC’s offensive monkey ad below:

Compare Gabby’s treatment to the practically sanctified treatment Saint Michael Phelps is getting. Don’t our black Olympians deserve the same respect and prominence?

Media, we’ve got our eyes on you.

Check yourselves before you wreck yourselves.

Filed: News, News & Gossip, Pure Craziness, Questions We Need Answered, Sports, Sports News, You can't be serious! | Tags: , ,

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  • BZ

    It’s a no brainer, we all know what it is. Not surprising tho. @Biggibenzo

  • bob

    Whats funny is that they probably haven’t realized that Kyla Ross is multi ethnic: black, puerto rican, japanese and hawaiian. But this is so shameful

    • brad

      Kyla is Black, period. All of a sudden, you people want to use terms like multi-ethnic, but, it is on the racist books that if you have one drop of black blood, you don’t get to call yourself white, like being white is somehow a treat (laughable). So, do not try this multi ethnic garbage now. If she’s black, then, she is black, period. Also, puerto rico and hawaii are places not ethnicities. They are places with distinct cultures which both have native people with African dissent. So, she black, black, black and Asian.

    • http://www.hontasfarmer.com/ Hontas Farmer

      That’s not true. The only people who think about such things in my experience are other black people. Sure, at one time laws actually said that, but that ended in most places before 1950. Live in the 21st century.

  • P.O’d Journalist

    I’ve been having the same feelings..Gabby is getting no love from the media and it sickens me as I too am a Journalist. The spotlight always seemed to be on Jordan who might I add didn’t even make it to finals.
    Plus, everyone else’s mother got tons of camera time during the competition, but I could probably count on one hand how many times the camera was on Gabby’s mom.The cherry on top of all of this has to be where even Gabby’s own coaches themselves described her as “average” before the Olympics started. Well, it’s looks like her coaches, her haters, and the color-struck media must all have to eat their words.
    Hey Gabby, tell me how success taste? I’m sure its sweet :)

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000580129865 Nancy Law

    Gabby reminds me of Michele Obama. Both have the same chip on your shoulder attitude. Just because she is black, doesn’t make her some kind of a goddess. It’s a shame that liberals ONLY see people by RACE and are NEVER satisfied on the attention scale. Perhaps they need to take down the Viet Nam memorial and put a statue of her there – even then racist liberals will not be satisfied.

    • Kim

      I don’t think Gabby could care less about the media nor the First Lady Obama. They have proved themselves to be well-accomplished black women. You obviously have a chip on your shoulder about successful black women. Care to share your hang up? Or would you rather attend your pity party solo?

    • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_3MIBBOF455LMFNV6QD56I3AYIA OMG

      Get a grip Nancy…. Imagine BET airs a Commercial about Mitt Romney (a positive ad), then goes to a commercial or what have you, displaying the KKK……..?

  • http://twitter.com/rorymoran Rory Moran

    Caught red hand… Unfortunately, there is a constant scream from the left about racism that is nothing but fiction, however, this appears to be be the real deal media malpractice by the Washington Post. The amazing thing is that their bet was 100% wrong, and the world has now exploded and fallen in love with this joy filled Flying Squirrel Golden Girl. “Glory goes up to God, and the blessings fall down on me.” (Gabby Douglass) certainly is proving to be true. Go get ‘em Squirrel…

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_3MIBBOF455LMFNV6QD56I3AYIA OMG

    It’s little things like this that white people just don’t understand. They try to sneak in a hint of racism every chance they get, and cant understand when black folks get upset. Some brush it off as nothing to it, but it is what it is. So many different tricky techniques. I bet you a racist who saw this laughed their arses off.

  • http://www.hontasfarmer.com/ Hontas Farmer

    The only surprising thing about this is that it came out of America first. I thought for sure this sort of ignorance would come out of Russia, as they have basically no African descended citizenry, and take gymnastics very seriously.

    Stay tuned for the obligatory stories about how “abusive” the process of making an elite gymnast is. Every four years that comes up.

  • Momx2

    I first noticed Gabby being not as welcome as she should have been by her teammates. We were trying to figure out why she seemed to be a step behind them in the pictures as well. We can only speculate at this point. I’m a white mother raising two black daughters who are only 2 & 3 now. We are very sensitive to the racism that still exits today and hope it will be gone in their lifetime. I do take offense when people say ” white” people don’t understand. I may not be able to 100% relate to how a black person feels emotionally, but I do see it happening and completely hate racism. I’m 42 years old and I do believe a majority of my generation that have not been completely taught by their parents to hate, believe black or white, we are the same and deserve the same. It’s going to take blacks and whites to erradicate racism. Gabby is a sensational young lady and she will handle this all with grace. Our family are big fans and can’t wait to see her compete again.

  • Aaron James

    the media is racist too it dont make sense an how Bob Costas said that she would influence only little black girls instead of sayin young girls every where lol

  • http://www.facebook.com/janet.ng.1420 Janet Ng

    If the media really hate or are racist towards Gabby, then they would be demanding her to hand the gold medal to they crying Russian Girl because Komova is white and probably thinks that she deserves more sympathy because she was crying.

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