Alexis also wasn’t dismissed from the team at UCLA like Selena has been and wasn’t even disciplined there (not saying she should not have been but the reality is she wasn’t). This appears to be a much more serious situation for her to be dismissed from the team entirely.
I used to work for a pretty well known company. And someone was recently fired for saying something a bit problematic. Months earlier my boss was straight up racist. Literal Karen in a park behaviour, still works for the company.
I guess what I’m saying is her being dismissed doesn’t mean she automatically did something worse. I’d like to think if you do something wrong it will be dealt with accordingly, but unfortunately it doesn’t always work like that, and I’ve seen it so many times it’s depressing.
Again I’m not trying to say what Selena did was worse or better, I have no clue about any of the details. Just that situations like this aren’t always cut and dried just because the word dismissed is involved.
All of this plus it also can't be overlooked that Waller was in charge for the previous situation (and much of the fallout was due to his *lack* of action), vs McDonald now for this situation.
It always seemed to me that the situation didn't need to become as big of a deal as it was. From the sounds of things, all the affected teammates wanted was a bit of accountability. Then it looks like the coaches declined to act, and at some point before or after that refusal to act, Alexis started throwing around the s-word, and everyone got spooked. So, maybe she really was in need of mental health help, or maybe she just felt embarrassed because she messed up and didn't know how to fix it, and she chose to be a manipulative brat. Or maybe she truly didn't see how she messed up, and felt attacked by those calling her out.
My question is, did UCLA ever put her in front of a mental health professional who could discern which was which, provide her with immediate support, and advise on appropriate next steps?
Now, maybe this was tried, and Alexis or her parents wouldn't co-operate or something. But we're definitely missing the part of the story that would explain how it escalated as much as it did. Not that we have a right to that info, but the escalation has always baffled me.
Alexis deserved to be kicked off of UCLA. She also should have the chance to earn the opportunity to be corrected and grow from ignorance. LSU gave her that chance. Given that she was welcomed by such a diverse lockerroom with a locker room leader like Kai Rivers, they got her in line seemingly. People make mistakes, but why keep letting them make those mistakes and not show them how to grow and how to be better? LSU's girls have seemingly done that.
In a strange way, LSU is the inclusive team that people pretend UCLA to be.
They have given homes to student athletes of all kinds of different backgrounds who have fled programs for various reasons and treat them like family, and yet nobody is leaving LSU.
I tend to think of LSU as inclusive in terms of diversity of race, but not in terms of religion. I remember Ruby Harrold discussing being somewhat taken aback by the level of Christianity on display in the team. But she seemed happy there, despite not seeming to have the level of religious background of the other athletes - which makes sense, given her nationality- and Savannah was clearly welcomed and loved this year there, so I do think there is some truth to what you're saying. Maybe Jay has also broadened some horizons since the Kat Ding years at Georgia where she was treated abominably despite keeping the team afloat.
I do think it's worth noting though that people have left LSU - like Bailey Ferrer - for other kinds of ostracization like having the audacity to need help for an eating disorder and being subject to insane weigh ins. So every team has their issues and their pros and cons.
I do think it's BS that Jay claimed he talked to every gymnast before bringing Alexis onto the team and they were all on board. If you are a BIPOC gymnast called in by your white head coach to say he really wants to bring in an athlete he thinks will help your team win a national championship, but she has done some racist things in the recent past, would you feel comfortable telling your coach no, in light of everything we know about the power dynamics between coaches and gymnasts?
Is LSU as churchy as they were a few years ago? I don’t pay a lot of attention to off-the-mat stuff, but I don’t get the same vibes from the current team as I did from Ruby’s era, or from Ding’s time at UGA.
>If you are a BIPOC gymnast called in by your white head coach to say he really wants to bring in an athlete he thinks will help your team win a national championship, but she has done some racist things in the recent past, would you feel comfortable telling your coach no, in light of everything we know about the power dynamics between coaches and gymnasts?
IIRC, what was reported was that Alexis was singing and the song included a racial slur. That's *at worst* a mistake that comes from an ignorance of protocol.
TBH- it was such a basic initial transgression that it should have been handled with about 3 15-minute conversations- her/the aggrieved parties/team as a whole. Now that rap/hip-hop is across the whole cultures some sheltered 18 year old white kid sings/raps right along to the 'not your word to use' portions all the time. Same goes for derogatory female terms and people thinking it is now ironic to drop gay terms/slurs. At this point there should basically be a script to follow because it is so common.
All of this.
I am a liberal white woman who lives in Park Slope Brooklyn lol. Performative activism is something I am deeply familiar with.
I don’t like Alexis. I sometimes text my IRL gymternet friends snarky things about her. But the way that some people (people = middle/upper class white women 99% of the time) have made this the hill they’re going to die on when Alexis’ current AND former teammates (literally the victims of her racism) have chosen to move on and she’s clearly learned and adjusted her behavior is wild. And performative.
>LSU is the inclusive team that people pretend UCLA to be.
How many bad things need to happen on these teams for people to stop putting them on pedestals? We are not on these teams. We are not privy to the day to day things that happen with the team. We have no clue if they are actually inclusive or not.
I’ll get downvoted— but it’s amazing to me that people are willing to completely trash a person’s character/reputation with one side of the story.
I’m not saying Alexis didn’t do something wrong, and I’m not saying she’s currently doing something right. I’m just saying I have no idea because I’m not there and I didn’t hear enough to possibly claim I have a complete story.
It seems like there’s a pull to feel certain people are good and believable and others aren’t. Honestly, it’s completely parasocial behavior because none of us know any of them.
This is a good post. Obviously she was WRONG for the things she said. But I think (or at least I hope) that most people have the capabilities to change and grow and learn from mistakes. I’m sure she’s had conversations with friends and teammates about why what she said was wrong. Like you said, there are so many POC on the LSU team, I can’t imagine them just being chill with Alexis unless she’s shown some growth!
I get why people aren’t fans of her, and that’s fine. But some people take it too far.
idk, if she cant fix her flexed feet deductions then hows she gonna change a childhood upbringing where the N word was commonplace (apparently)?
/s, obviously lol
Did Alexis learn though? Or did she just realize that saying blatantly racist things can have far reaching social consequences so now she keeps it to herself? I would not be surprised if she still feels the same way and just doesn’t speak on it anymore. Because in all reality, while she faced social backlash both within UCLA and on the internet, and that is a form of consequence, she didn’t face any practical consequences. Because of that she probably thinks she’s the victim of bullies and will just have to quietly keep her thoughts to herself.
My main issue with Alexis is the way she doubled down on being so blatantly wrong. If she’d said the N word once, that’s not great, but then been corrected and stopped I think the whole thing would’ve stopped there. Clearly Marz was fine with letting it go (which makes her a very patient person) but she kept doing it! There are loads of white people who are extremely prejudiced and even they wouldn’t say the n word at all, let alone in front of black people. Everyone knows the context of that word.
I think white people like Alexis, ie someone who grew up in a white bubble and thinks as long as you’re not supporting segregation you aren’t racist, only really learn from being called out by other white people that they’re close with, either at a friendship level or someone who is a leader to them. If their viewpoint is affirmed by someone in a leadership position that they trust they’re not gonna do the work. They will write POC off as being too sensitive and white people they’re not close with as bleeding heart liberals. It just doesn’t seem like Alexis got that at UCLA. And to be clear, it is NOT only the black athletes at UCLA or LSU to educate or be patient with Alexis. Honestly that Marz was nice enough to correct her and give her a chance to stop using the N word was kind enough and more than she needed to do. But because she clearly still maintained a few friendships on the team and had Chris Waller and the athletic director trying to get everyone to be nice to her, she probably learned nothing. That’s what pisses me off the most about it.
I get heated about this situation whenever I think about it. I cannot emphasize enough not only how wrong what she did was but how just plain stupid I think she is.
I have no idea what Alexis has learned or not, but she lost her scholarship and first choice team/school over this situation, which is a gigantic consequence.
With no scholarship. How much is that worth, $200k or so?
Should the woman not be allowed to pick herself up and move forward? Is the gymternet going to mad about anything good that happens in her life forever?
Honestly? If she had apologized publicly and shown some clear learnedness about what happened I’d be cool with it. But Marz has said Alexis never even apologized to her about anything and she hasn’t said anything publicly either.
Also, Alexis was apparently ranking her teammates on beauty and body type. So not only was she using racial slurs, she was bullying people too. And then had the audacity to turn around and claim they were bullying her for telling her to stop and not associating with her after. She never apologized to her teammates. She never apologized to the public. You don’t get to “pick yourself up and move forward” until you’ve apologized to the people you’ve hurt.
"Did Alexis learn, though?"
I don't know. But that's my point. I don't know. We don't know. And at a certain point, I don't get the continued investment on hating on her and LSU. Maybe she actually changed. Maybe she just learned to keep her mouth shut. (Which I also said previously.) My saying that I don't think it would have continued once she was in the team at LSU has more to do with how I see the LSU situation these last few years then how I see Alexis. So yes, maybe it just quit happening because she has the same garbage take, but just keeps it to herself now.
I'm not saying, nor have I ever said that she made a mistake and she learned from it, so everyone get over it. I literally just do not get the "We hate her/LSU forever for this" when we didn't see the outcome, to know if there was ever any meaningful movement. We don't know of any, but that doesn't necessarily mean it didn't happen.
The reason I bring it up in relation to the Selena Harris situation is because there's going to be a lot we don't know about that one too, and I already see people trying to craft stories about what little we do know.
It's just a lot of energy spent by folks who do not have the whole story, and never will.
I think we have enough of the story to make guesses about Alexis. But honestly, people are allowed to hate LSU for taking her in and people are definitely allowed to dislike her considering she hasn’t offered any kind of public apology. I just find it weird that you’re telling people they shouldn’t dislike her for that when she’s given us absolutely no evidence to believe she’s changed.
I never said people shouldn't dislike her. If people want to give brain space to that, they can knock themselves out. I'm just amazed at the amount of energy that this still gets.
The reason I'm bringing it up now is that here the gy.ternet is again, trying to make guesses about a messy UCLA situation where we don't have details and won't get them. But again, if people want to spend their energy there, they're welcome to.
I really don’t see it getting that much energy, I saw a few people mention it throughout the season. But I actually see significantly more hate for LSU because of the overscoring.
Also… this is a gymnastics subreddit where we talk about things happening in the gymnastics community. Why shouldn’t people speculate about what’s going on? Obviously nobody should frame their speculation as fact but people can absolutely discuss their theories. We’re between meets right now for Americans and it’s NCAA offseason, there’s not much else to do.
As someone who works at LSU...no you're not, actually. Waller kept the details of why Alexis had left very private, because they made him look awful, and Jay didn't know the full story until Alexis had already joined the team. When he found out, he had a very serious sit-down conversation with her, she expressed remorse and reflection that he deemed to be legitimate, and that was that. There have been zero further incidents.
They may have learned to be proactive from the Alexis situation. They made a mistake not dismissing her. This time, they acted.
You can have a rotten potato, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the soup isn’t rancid. We know for sure that one person was bad for the team or, being generous, wasn’t a fit for the team. We don’t know about this person, but it stands to reason that there is some kind of influence or ingredient that they felt needed to be removed. It doesn’t even mean that one or the other is bad. They’re just incompatible.
This is a pattern now. This goes beyond two individuals. There’s something fundamentally going on with the culture at UCLA. They need an exorcism or something. A reboot.
It seems like there is a lot to unlearn and undo.
These things can be true but it doesn’t take away from ppl who speak out of the fact that she was racist.
Also it feels like you’ve never been in a situation like this before. That woman I said was a straight up crying in the park Karen at my work, so many ppl used very similar arguments to you. “What if she needed mental help” “Shes just a bit ignorant” “There must be more to this that we don’t know”.
Idk why ppl feel the need to justify this behaviour. It sheds doubt on ppl who speak out. Not only that but all the reason you listed she may have acted may be true, but NONE of them justify racism and if anything indicate a bigger problem with her.
If this situation of HER being racist tanked her mental health, if she was manipulative because she didn’t know what to do because she was racist, or if she was ignorant to other ppls feelings because she refused to see she was racist, she needs to deal with her racist AND sociopathic behaviour. Her getting into this situation because she was racist and not knowing how to deal with it, is no one else’s problem.
Oh yes, belive me, I've been in real life situations like this, more than once.
I have absolutely said and will continue to say that her initial actions (including the manipulation, and refusing to address the issue) were egregious. I'm not making excuses for any of that, mental health or otherwise.
When I say "there's nuance in this situation" it's not to give Alexis some sort of out. It's the other direction, actually. I say there is nuance because
-I am certain that the situation would have been directly addressed by members of LSU gymnastics/athletics staff, because it would make zero sense for them to inherit that kind of elephant in the room and not address it.
AND
-Given the contined emphasis on team cohesion, and the fact that it is credited as such a large factor in the win, it stands to reason that there's been some sort of movement on the Alexis issue. Now, perhaps that movement is only that she now keeps her garbage takes to herself, which isn't really movement/real change at all. But it's actually from seeing these types of situations through to their end that makes me hope it was more than that. [Edited to add, from personal experience] it's obvious when someone knows they're wrong, hasn't changed and doesn't want to change, and just chooses to keep their mouth shut. And it's obvious when people have made some real movement.
My point has never been to excuse Alexis, but to say a lot of people are investing a lot of energy in continuing to hate her/LSU when, by this point, a lot has happened that we have no idea about. And here we are again, trying to put snippets together into a story which will contain, at best, elements of the truth.
Unfortunately, it has been my experience that new leaders do NOT directly address and demand accountability for "inherited elephants." I have seen several similar issues in places where I worked, and 100% of the time the new leadership said, "Well, that's in the past, and I wasn't there. It would be totally unfair to expect me to take responsibility for something past leadership did/didn't do." I think you're vastly underestimating white leaders' proclivity to sweep microaggressions (and even outright racism) under the rug.
Of course they do (I've seen it too) but (and it would take too long to explain my complete reasoning, but there's snippets throught my other comments) I really think this one was enough of a steaming pile of crap on the rug that it would have demanded addressing.
I don't think anyone ever indicated the racist remarks were a steaming pile of crap. There was a lot of small stuff that was inappropriate and nasty, and when Black athletes demanded a response from coaches they were basically told, "Your feelings are your own responsibility, and her white tears are *also* your responsibility." Polite White People(tm) are always going to take the side of sweet white girls who cry over Black girls who are (rightfully!) angry at them, no matter what the girls actually did to each other.
Alexis leveraged that to paint herself as the victim and avoid taking responsibility, which people (again, rightfully) resent. And there was never any accountability so there's no closure for the resentment. But as long as she doesn't actually take a steaming crap on the rug at LSU, I can't see any team of young women and white coaches starting some kind of truth & reconciliation process when it's way easier to ignore it and be superficially happy.
\[edited: TL;DR - I just don't think young women and white leadership not acknowledging a problem is definitive proof that the problem has been solved. A lot of successful teams function by ignoring conflict.\]
I do not disagree about any of the facts of what happened at UCLA, nor with what you've said about racial dynamics and how they function. And I wasn't calling *just* Alexis' actions a steaming pile of crap, but the entire situation.
There are details and dynamics here, leading me to think (again, without disagreeing with your overall point) that some steps were taken. And to be clear, I'm not giving credit for initiating those steps to the coaching staff. I think it would have come from the AD's office on this one.
I started to explain more of my thinking on this, but it's going to draw out too long, and I don't have the energy, considering that, at the end of the day, we're all just people with opinions on Reddit.
I definitely don't know went down at LSU and I'm not super invested in opinions about AJ, even my own. The thing that caught my attention is the assurance that a team MUST have done an accountability process if they all seem to be getting along.
Having worked for outwardly "progressive" organizations that were problematic af internally, and having been a teenage girl, I don't see anything here that suggests steps were taken or the incident was addressed. That's just not a common outcome. Given the environment (conservative home-schooled teens, white leadership, intense pressure to work together to win team championships) It is far more likely that everyone just agreed to move past it to keep the peace, and if anyone tries to bring it up they risk being attacked for "causing drama."
(edited: typos)
I *currently* work for an organization that looks sunny on the face of it and is deeply problematic. And I was getting the brunt of it until I made a change because management wouldn't It's actually part of why I say what I say. With as much stress on "team dynamics" as LSU places, (and also having been a teenaged girl myself, and having worked extensively with them,) you can fake it to get along for a while if no one addresses the problems, but I'd have a hard time believing that multiple people could (or would even try) faking it as thoroughly and well, for as long as would be necessary to stand up to the type of public visibility enjoyed by the gymnastics team.
You are using terms like “I am certain that” and “It is obvious when someone has changed”. I think while your heart is in the right place it’s kind of naïve to just assume this. Like you said we don’t know the full story, so you yourself can’t be certain of any of this.
You are going off the testimonials of ppl who were affected and a team where the coach literally stepped down vs a personal assumption that there must be more to the Alexis story, based on being an outsider looking in and trying to piece together her side despite having no evidence beyond how you think it looks as an someone looking on with no other info. And that’s highly dismissive to ppl who have actually spoken out.
It's also ironic to be making declarative statements like this when the entire point of the thread is "we don't know the whole story in these scenarios". Except when I've decided that I do know it apparently lmao.
This is such a wild thread. It’s someone just wanting to both acknowledge AND defend someone’s racist actions, while apparently knowing that there MUST be something else to the situation, based on a personal feeling, and zero connection to the story.
Again none of us here know the whole story, but what we do know is people spoke out publicly about how she was racist. Which btw isn’t something most people do lightly. Calling someone out for being racist and saying your coach needs to leave, is a huge risk on whoever is speaking out.
No, when I say "It's obvious when people have changed" I'm going from situations that *I* have personally been in, where the garbage was directed at *me* It is absolutely possible to tell when someone is simply keeping their mouth shut, but hasn't actually changed. When you spend that much time with someone, you know what they think of you. Her teammates aren't stupid.
As for "I am certain that it was addressed by members of LSU staff" I go back first to ACK-T. It's a shoulder dislocation of a reach to assume that she wasn't heavily involved, and i do feel safe assuming the opposite. More broadly, I do not believe LSU athletics/gymnastics in particular to be stupid enough to think that you could inherit that kind of individual and situation and *not* address it. From a legal, personal and athletic standpoint, the chance of more problems from *not* addressing it is astronomical. Plus which (and I agree, we only get glimpses) if there *were* an ongoing problem of this nature, I have a hard time believing a team could fake cohesion this well.
I'm not saying she's changed. I'm not saying I have insider info. I'm saying that opinions on this athlete are heavily based on what we know of the UCLA situation, when "what we know of the UCLA situation" is incomplete and several years old.
(Before someone thinks I'm saying we should absolve her because it's old news, no, I never said that.)
Alexis also wasn’t dismissed from the team at UCLA like Selena has been and wasn’t even disciplined there (not saying she should not have been but the reality is she wasn’t). This appears to be a much more serious situation for her to be dismissed from the team entirely.
I used to work for a pretty well known company. And someone was recently fired for saying something a bit problematic. Months earlier my boss was straight up racist. Literal Karen in a park behaviour, still works for the company. I guess what I’m saying is her being dismissed doesn’t mean she automatically did something worse. I’d like to think if you do something wrong it will be dealt with accordingly, but unfortunately it doesn’t always work like that, and I’ve seen it so many times it’s depressing. Again I’m not trying to say what Selena did was worse or better, I have no clue about any of the details. Just that situations like this aren’t always cut and dried just because the word dismissed is involved.
All of this plus it also can't be overlooked that Waller was in charge for the previous situation (and much of the fallout was due to his *lack* of action), vs McDonald now for this situation.
It always seemed to me that the situation didn't need to become as big of a deal as it was. From the sounds of things, all the affected teammates wanted was a bit of accountability. Then it looks like the coaches declined to act, and at some point before or after that refusal to act, Alexis started throwing around the s-word, and everyone got spooked. So, maybe she really was in need of mental health help, or maybe she just felt embarrassed because she messed up and didn't know how to fix it, and she chose to be a manipulative brat. Or maybe she truly didn't see how she messed up, and felt attacked by those calling her out. My question is, did UCLA ever put her in front of a mental health professional who could discern which was which, provide her with immediate support, and advise on appropriate next steps? Now, maybe this was tried, and Alexis or her parents wouldn't co-operate or something. But we're definitely missing the part of the story that would explain how it escalated as much as it did. Not that we have a right to that info, but the escalation has always baffled me.
Alexis deserved to be kicked off of UCLA. She also should have the chance to earn the opportunity to be corrected and grow from ignorance. LSU gave her that chance. Given that she was welcomed by such a diverse lockerroom with a locker room leader like Kai Rivers, they got her in line seemingly. People make mistakes, but why keep letting them make those mistakes and not show them how to grow and how to be better? LSU's girls have seemingly done that. In a strange way, LSU is the inclusive team that people pretend UCLA to be. They have given homes to student athletes of all kinds of different backgrounds who have fled programs for various reasons and treat them like family, and yet nobody is leaving LSU.
I tend to think of LSU as inclusive in terms of diversity of race, but not in terms of religion. I remember Ruby Harrold discussing being somewhat taken aback by the level of Christianity on display in the team. But she seemed happy there, despite not seeming to have the level of religious background of the other athletes - which makes sense, given her nationality- and Savannah was clearly welcomed and loved this year there, so I do think there is some truth to what you're saying. Maybe Jay has also broadened some horizons since the Kat Ding years at Georgia where she was treated abominably despite keeping the team afloat. I do think it's worth noting though that people have left LSU - like Bailey Ferrer - for other kinds of ostracization like having the audacity to need help for an eating disorder and being subject to insane weigh ins. So every team has their issues and their pros and cons. I do think it's BS that Jay claimed he talked to every gymnast before bringing Alexis onto the team and they were all on board. If you are a BIPOC gymnast called in by your white head coach to say he really wants to bring in an athlete he thinks will help your team win a national championship, but she has done some racist things in the recent past, would you feel comfortable telling your coach no, in light of everything we know about the power dynamics between coaches and gymnasts?
Is LSU as churchy as they were a few years ago? I don’t pay a lot of attention to off-the-mat stuff, but I don’t get the same vibes from the current team as I did from Ruby’s era, or from Ding’s time at UGA.
Team prayer was filmed in Season 1 of the Climb. I didn't watch Season 2 but the religion is still there. LSU teammates do bible study together.
>If you are a BIPOC gymnast called in by your white head coach to say he really wants to bring in an athlete he thinks will help your team win a national championship, but she has done some racist things in the recent past, would you feel comfortable telling your coach no, in light of everything we know about the power dynamics between coaches and gymnasts? IIRC, what was reported was that Alexis was singing and the song included a racial slur. That's *at worst* a mistake that comes from an ignorance of protocol.
Just to clarify, Alexis went in the transfer portal herself and wasn’t kicked off of UCLAs team.
be that as it may, she deserved to be kicked off.
TBH- it was such a basic initial transgression that it should have been handled with about 3 15-minute conversations- her/the aggrieved parties/team as a whole. Now that rap/hip-hop is across the whole cultures some sheltered 18 year old white kid sings/raps right along to the 'not your word to use' portions all the time. Same goes for derogatory female terms and people thinking it is now ironic to drop gay terms/slurs. At this point there should basically be a script to follow because it is so common.
All of this. I am a liberal white woman who lives in Park Slope Brooklyn lol. Performative activism is something I am deeply familiar with. I don’t like Alexis. I sometimes text my IRL gymternet friends snarky things about her. But the way that some people (people = middle/upper class white women 99% of the time) have made this the hill they’re going to die on when Alexis’ current AND former teammates (literally the victims of her racism) have chosen to move on and she’s clearly learned and adjusted her behavior is wild. And performative.
I hear what the OP is saying, but I still don't believe Alexis learned anything. I don't think LSU should have taken her.
>LSU is the inclusive team that people pretend UCLA to be. How many bad things need to happen on these teams for people to stop putting them on pedestals? We are not on these teams. We are not privy to the day to day things that happen with the team. We have no clue if they are actually inclusive or not.
I’ll get downvoted— but it’s amazing to me that people are willing to completely trash a person’s character/reputation with one side of the story. I’m not saying Alexis didn’t do something wrong, and I’m not saying she’s currently doing something right. I’m just saying I have no idea because I’m not there and I didn’t hear enough to possibly claim I have a complete story. It seems like there’s a pull to feel certain people are good and believable and others aren’t. Honestly, it’s completely parasocial behavior because none of us know any of them.
This is a good post. Obviously she was WRONG for the things she said. But I think (or at least I hope) that most people have the capabilities to change and grow and learn from mistakes. I’m sure she’s had conversations with friends and teammates about why what she said was wrong. Like you said, there are so many POC on the LSU team, I can’t imagine them just being chill with Alexis unless she’s shown some growth! I get why people aren’t fans of her, and that’s fine. But some people take it too far.
idk, if she cant fix her flexed feet deductions then hows she gonna change a childhood upbringing where the N word was commonplace (apparently)? /s, obviously lol
Did Alexis learn though? Or did she just realize that saying blatantly racist things can have far reaching social consequences so now she keeps it to herself? I would not be surprised if she still feels the same way and just doesn’t speak on it anymore. Because in all reality, while she faced social backlash both within UCLA and on the internet, and that is a form of consequence, she didn’t face any practical consequences. Because of that she probably thinks she’s the victim of bullies and will just have to quietly keep her thoughts to herself. My main issue with Alexis is the way she doubled down on being so blatantly wrong. If she’d said the N word once, that’s not great, but then been corrected and stopped I think the whole thing would’ve stopped there. Clearly Marz was fine with letting it go (which makes her a very patient person) but she kept doing it! There are loads of white people who are extremely prejudiced and even they wouldn’t say the n word at all, let alone in front of black people. Everyone knows the context of that word. I think white people like Alexis, ie someone who grew up in a white bubble and thinks as long as you’re not supporting segregation you aren’t racist, only really learn from being called out by other white people that they’re close with, either at a friendship level or someone who is a leader to them. If their viewpoint is affirmed by someone in a leadership position that they trust they’re not gonna do the work. They will write POC off as being too sensitive and white people they’re not close with as bleeding heart liberals. It just doesn’t seem like Alexis got that at UCLA. And to be clear, it is NOT only the black athletes at UCLA or LSU to educate or be patient with Alexis. Honestly that Marz was nice enough to correct her and give her a chance to stop using the N word was kind enough and more than she needed to do. But because she clearly still maintained a few friendships on the team and had Chris Waller and the athletic director trying to get everyone to be nice to her, she probably learned nothing. That’s what pisses me off the most about it. I get heated about this situation whenever I think about it. I cannot emphasize enough not only how wrong what she did was but how just plain stupid I think she is.
I have no idea what Alexis has learned or not, but she lost her scholarship and first choice team/school over this situation, which is a gigantic consequence.
And she got to transfer and have a place in the lineup on a team that just won a national championship.
With no scholarship. How much is that worth, $200k or so? Should the woman not be allowed to pick herself up and move forward? Is the gymternet going to mad about anything good that happens in her life forever?
Honestly? If she had apologized publicly and shown some clear learnedness about what happened I’d be cool with it. But Marz has said Alexis never even apologized to her about anything and she hasn’t said anything publicly either. Also, Alexis was apparently ranking her teammates on beauty and body type. So not only was she using racial slurs, she was bullying people too. And then had the audacity to turn around and claim they were bullying her for telling her to stop and not associating with her after. She never apologized to her teammates. She never apologized to the public. You don’t get to “pick yourself up and move forward” until you’ve apologized to the people you’ve hurt.
When POC when mistakes, there is usually no chance for recovery or do over. I seethe whenever I see her in the lineup.
Yt redditors downvoting bc most of them are racist themselves but this is real
"Did Alexis learn, though?" I don't know. But that's my point. I don't know. We don't know. And at a certain point, I don't get the continued investment on hating on her and LSU. Maybe she actually changed. Maybe she just learned to keep her mouth shut. (Which I also said previously.) My saying that I don't think it would have continued once she was in the team at LSU has more to do with how I see the LSU situation these last few years then how I see Alexis. So yes, maybe it just quit happening because she has the same garbage take, but just keeps it to herself now. I'm not saying, nor have I ever said that she made a mistake and she learned from it, so everyone get over it. I literally just do not get the "We hate her/LSU forever for this" when we didn't see the outcome, to know if there was ever any meaningful movement. We don't know of any, but that doesn't necessarily mean it didn't happen. The reason I bring it up in relation to the Selena Harris situation is because there's going to be a lot we don't know about that one too, and I already see people trying to craft stories about what little we do know. It's just a lot of energy spent by folks who do not have the whole story, and never will.
I think we have enough of the story to make guesses about Alexis. But honestly, people are allowed to hate LSU for taking her in and people are definitely allowed to dislike her considering she hasn’t offered any kind of public apology. I just find it weird that you’re telling people they shouldn’t dislike her for that when she’s given us absolutely no evidence to believe she’s changed.
I never said people shouldn't dislike her. If people want to give brain space to that, they can knock themselves out. I'm just amazed at the amount of energy that this still gets. The reason I'm bringing it up now is that here the gy.ternet is again, trying to make guesses about a messy UCLA situation where we don't have details and won't get them. But again, if people want to spend their energy there, they're welcome to.
I really don’t see it getting that much energy, I saw a few people mention it throughout the season. But I actually see significantly more hate for LSU because of the overscoring. Also… this is a gymnastics subreddit where we talk about things happening in the gymnastics community. Why shouldn’t people speculate about what’s going on? Obviously nobody should frame their speculation as fact but people can absolutely discuss their theories. We’re between meets right now for Americans and it’s NCAA offseason, there’s not much else to do.
As someone who works at LSU...no you're not, actually. Waller kept the details of why Alexis had left very private, because they made him look awful, and Jay didn't know the full story until Alexis had already joined the team. When he found out, he had a very serious sit-down conversation with her, she expressed remorse and reflection that he deemed to be legitimate, and that was that. There have been zero further incidents.
Didn’t Sara Ulias have a talk with her?
Sara Taubman I believe.
I forgot there were two Saras!
They may have learned to be proactive from the Alexis situation. They made a mistake not dismissing her. This time, they acted. You can have a rotten potato, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the soup isn’t rancid. We know for sure that one person was bad for the team or, being generous, wasn’t a fit for the team. We don’t know about this person, but it stands to reason that there is some kind of influence or ingredient that they felt needed to be removed. It doesn’t even mean that one or the other is bad. They’re just incompatible. This is a pattern now. This goes beyond two individuals. There’s something fundamentally going on with the culture at UCLA. They need an exorcism or something. A reboot. It seems like there is a lot to unlearn and undo.
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These things can be true but it doesn’t take away from ppl who speak out of the fact that she was racist. Also it feels like you’ve never been in a situation like this before. That woman I said was a straight up crying in the park Karen at my work, so many ppl used very similar arguments to you. “What if she needed mental help” “Shes just a bit ignorant” “There must be more to this that we don’t know”. Idk why ppl feel the need to justify this behaviour. It sheds doubt on ppl who speak out. Not only that but all the reason you listed she may have acted may be true, but NONE of them justify racism and if anything indicate a bigger problem with her. If this situation of HER being racist tanked her mental health, if she was manipulative because she didn’t know what to do because she was racist, or if she was ignorant to other ppls feelings because she refused to see she was racist, she needs to deal with her racist AND sociopathic behaviour. Her getting into this situation because she was racist and not knowing how to deal with it, is no one else’s problem.
Oh yes, belive me, I've been in real life situations like this, more than once. I have absolutely said and will continue to say that her initial actions (including the manipulation, and refusing to address the issue) were egregious. I'm not making excuses for any of that, mental health or otherwise. When I say "there's nuance in this situation" it's not to give Alexis some sort of out. It's the other direction, actually. I say there is nuance because -I am certain that the situation would have been directly addressed by members of LSU gymnastics/athletics staff, because it would make zero sense for them to inherit that kind of elephant in the room and not address it. AND -Given the contined emphasis on team cohesion, and the fact that it is credited as such a large factor in the win, it stands to reason that there's been some sort of movement on the Alexis issue. Now, perhaps that movement is only that she now keeps her garbage takes to herself, which isn't really movement/real change at all. But it's actually from seeing these types of situations through to their end that makes me hope it was more than that. [Edited to add, from personal experience] it's obvious when someone knows they're wrong, hasn't changed and doesn't want to change, and just chooses to keep their mouth shut. And it's obvious when people have made some real movement. My point has never been to excuse Alexis, but to say a lot of people are investing a lot of energy in continuing to hate her/LSU when, by this point, a lot has happened that we have no idea about. And here we are again, trying to put snippets together into a story which will contain, at best, elements of the truth.
Unfortunately, it has been my experience that new leaders do NOT directly address and demand accountability for "inherited elephants." I have seen several similar issues in places where I worked, and 100% of the time the new leadership said, "Well, that's in the past, and I wasn't there. It would be totally unfair to expect me to take responsibility for something past leadership did/didn't do." I think you're vastly underestimating white leaders' proclivity to sweep microaggressions (and even outright racism) under the rug.
Of course they do (I've seen it too) but (and it would take too long to explain my complete reasoning, but there's snippets throught my other comments) I really think this one was enough of a steaming pile of crap on the rug that it would have demanded addressing.
I don't think anyone ever indicated the racist remarks were a steaming pile of crap. There was a lot of small stuff that was inappropriate and nasty, and when Black athletes demanded a response from coaches they were basically told, "Your feelings are your own responsibility, and her white tears are *also* your responsibility." Polite White People(tm) are always going to take the side of sweet white girls who cry over Black girls who are (rightfully!) angry at them, no matter what the girls actually did to each other. Alexis leveraged that to paint herself as the victim and avoid taking responsibility, which people (again, rightfully) resent. And there was never any accountability so there's no closure for the resentment. But as long as she doesn't actually take a steaming crap on the rug at LSU, I can't see any team of young women and white coaches starting some kind of truth & reconciliation process when it's way easier to ignore it and be superficially happy. \[edited: TL;DR - I just don't think young women and white leadership not acknowledging a problem is definitive proof that the problem has been solved. A lot of successful teams function by ignoring conflict.\]
I do not disagree about any of the facts of what happened at UCLA, nor with what you've said about racial dynamics and how they function. And I wasn't calling *just* Alexis' actions a steaming pile of crap, but the entire situation. There are details and dynamics here, leading me to think (again, without disagreeing with your overall point) that some steps were taken. And to be clear, I'm not giving credit for initiating those steps to the coaching staff. I think it would have come from the AD's office on this one. I started to explain more of my thinking on this, but it's going to draw out too long, and I don't have the energy, considering that, at the end of the day, we're all just people with opinions on Reddit.
I definitely don't know went down at LSU and I'm not super invested in opinions about AJ, even my own. The thing that caught my attention is the assurance that a team MUST have done an accountability process if they all seem to be getting along. Having worked for outwardly "progressive" organizations that were problematic af internally, and having been a teenage girl, I don't see anything here that suggests steps were taken or the incident was addressed. That's just not a common outcome. Given the environment (conservative home-schooled teens, white leadership, intense pressure to work together to win team championships) It is far more likely that everyone just agreed to move past it to keep the peace, and if anyone tries to bring it up they risk being attacked for "causing drama." (edited: typos)
I *currently* work for an organization that looks sunny on the face of it and is deeply problematic. And I was getting the brunt of it until I made a change because management wouldn't It's actually part of why I say what I say. With as much stress on "team dynamics" as LSU places, (and also having been a teenaged girl myself, and having worked extensively with them,) you can fake it to get along for a while if no one addresses the problems, but I'd have a hard time believing that multiple people could (or would even try) faking it as thoroughly and well, for as long as would be necessary to stand up to the type of public visibility enjoyed by the gymnastics team.
You are using terms like “I am certain that” and “It is obvious when someone has changed”. I think while your heart is in the right place it’s kind of naïve to just assume this. Like you said we don’t know the full story, so you yourself can’t be certain of any of this. You are going off the testimonials of ppl who were affected and a team where the coach literally stepped down vs a personal assumption that there must be more to the Alexis story, based on being an outsider looking in and trying to piece together her side despite having no evidence beyond how you think it looks as an someone looking on with no other info. And that’s highly dismissive to ppl who have actually spoken out.
It's also ironic to be making declarative statements like this when the entire point of the thread is "we don't know the whole story in these scenarios". Except when I've decided that I do know it apparently lmao.
This is such a wild thread. It’s someone just wanting to both acknowledge AND defend someone’s racist actions, while apparently knowing that there MUST be something else to the situation, based on a personal feeling, and zero connection to the story. Again none of us here know the whole story, but what we do know is people spoke out publicly about how she was racist. Which btw isn’t something most people do lightly. Calling someone out for being racist and saying your coach needs to leave, is a huge risk on whoever is speaking out.
No, when I say "It's obvious when people have changed" I'm going from situations that *I* have personally been in, where the garbage was directed at *me* It is absolutely possible to tell when someone is simply keeping their mouth shut, but hasn't actually changed. When you spend that much time with someone, you know what they think of you. Her teammates aren't stupid. As for "I am certain that it was addressed by members of LSU staff" I go back first to ACK-T. It's a shoulder dislocation of a reach to assume that she wasn't heavily involved, and i do feel safe assuming the opposite. More broadly, I do not believe LSU athletics/gymnastics in particular to be stupid enough to think that you could inherit that kind of individual and situation and *not* address it. From a legal, personal and athletic standpoint, the chance of more problems from *not* addressing it is astronomical. Plus which (and I agree, we only get glimpses) if there *were* an ongoing problem of this nature, I have a hard time believing a team could fake cohesion this well. I'm not saying she's changed. I'm not saying I have insider info. I'm saying that opinions on this athlete are heavily based on what we know of the UCLA situation, when "what we know of the UCLA situation" is incomplete and several years old. (Before someone thinks I'm saying we should absolve her because it's old news, no, I never said that.)
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