Girl, 12, Nearly Disqualified from Swimming Competition for Wearing Black Lives Matter Swimsuit

• 12-Year-old Leidy Gallona was temporarily disqualified from a Wisconsin swim meet for wearing a Black Lives Matter suit
• Gallona's disqualification was soon reversed after a candid intervention from her mother Sarah Lyons to reinstate her in the race
• According to Lyon, her daughter is very passionate about social justice since she has been through a lot at a young age

A 12-year-old swimmer, Leidy Gallona, was nearly disqualified from pool competition for wearing a Black Lives Matter swimsuit.

Daily Mail reported that it took the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to step in and force officials to reverse their decision.

Honouring death of Amir Locke

Sarah Lyons said her daughter wore the swimsuit in the wake of Amir Locke's death and because the Black Lives Matter movement is important to her as a black woman.

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According to the event organisers, the bathing suit went against USA Swimming's policy that bans political language.

Gallona gets second chance

Gallona would have been allowed to change into another suit but her disqualification was soon reversed by the officials.

Sponsors of the event quickly overturned her disqualification and banned the volunteer race official who disqualified the young athlete.

A post showing Leidy in her statement swimsuit has since gone viral with celebrities calling to encourage the young athlete.

"So so so special": Vogue breaks with tradition, features 9 dark-skinned models on cover

In more news about black women empowerment, Briefly News previously reported that British Vogue broke its tradition and featured nine dark-skinned models with African heritage on the cover of its latest issue.

Historically, the world of fashion has been dominated by light-skinned models and has been under the spotlight ever since the Black Lives Matter movement campaigned against the murder of George Floyd.

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Diversity has increased in the fashion industry with 43% of models who walked the catwalk during 2021 were women of colour according to The Guardian. Social media users were quick to praise the magazine for increasing its representation.

However, not everyone was impressed with the magazine cover. The Daily Mail had some fierce criticism of the cover. The newspaper labelled it as one of the "worst vogue covers ever" and listed a number of concerns with the photograph.

Source: Briefly News