Following the viral success of a video of her daughter in a dance competition, a mother from Hartford, Connecticut, is speaking out.
As the coach bends in to embrace the other girls on the winning squad, 6-year-old Shaniah, the only Black teammate, is left out of the team hug in the video.
Melissa Breglia, Shaniah’s mother, told NBC Connecticut what transpired. She further disclosed that she later approached the coach in the locker room.
According to Breglia, the Dance Xpressions coach was defensive and insisted she had done nothing wrong.
Breglia was then shown video footage by another parent to prove it wasn’t her imagination. When the coach hugged the other girls, the footage seemed to demonstrate that she deliberately refrained from hugging her daughter.
