Mercury News Refers to Simone Manuel as Just "African-American" in Headline About Her Win

Impact

Simone Manuel was trending on social media on Thursday night for making history as the first black woman to win an Olympic gold medal in swimming, but a popular online news site in Silicon Valley didn't think she was worth naming.

The Mercury News, based in San Jose, California, published an article on their Olympic coverage with the headline "Olympics: Michael Phelps shares historic night with African-American." 

Manuel, an NCAA champion and Stanford University swimmer, won the gold medal in the 100-meter freestyle while tying with Canada's Penny Oleksiak. On the same night, Michael Phelps broke a 2,000-year-old record for most individual Olympic medals by cinching his 22nd medal in the 200-meter individual medley.

The Mercury News ended up apologizing for the headline through a tweet and changed it to "Stanford's Simone Manuel and Michael Phelps make history."

Also, for the haters who still refuse to see how this is racist and insulting, just imagine if their headline was this instead: "Olympics: White man shares historic night with Simone Manuel."

Hopefully, you get it now.