Video of the event in March 2022 shows a judge handing out medals for participation to a line of young gymnasts, but ignoring the only black girl. A photographer, coach and other officials fail to intervene. A mediation settlement reached with the family involved the judge taking anti-racism training.
You know how racism flourishes? By everybody shutting their brain off and joining a hate mob.
What is 100% obvious about this? You can clearly see her engaging with the kid, fumbling with the medals, get slightly distracted by something and skipping her. Then the kids look a little confused. Woman hands out more medals until she runs out of metals and has to pick up some more. Meanwhile a photographer jumps in who doesn’t seem to have noticed the mistake either. She returns with more medals and starts handing them out, right to left this time. The video ends before she even finished handing out medals. So for all I know she might have handed her one a few seconds later, it’s simply not in the video (Edit: slightly more complete video).
If I’d be a racist I’d say some nasty words to the kid to get a reaction out of her, not just let her stand around looking mildly confused of what’s going on.
Chapter “To Err Is Human” (page 105) in The Design of EverydayThings is worth a read on the topic of mind slips. And Points of view is worth a watch on the topic of “how much can I tell from a couple of seconds video”.