A nine-year-old African American girl in Alabama hanged herself after being subjected to racist bullying for a year at her elementary school by black schoolmates for befriending a white boy and his family.
Not being able to cope with the racist taunts, including calls her to “kill yourself” at her elementary school in Demopolis, Alabama, McKenzie Adams was allegedly driven to commit suicide at her home in the town of Linden
Reverse racism?
Jasmine Adams indicated that a group of her daughters’ schoolmates did not like her daughter – and the fact that a white family friend drove her and their white son to school on a daily basis.
The fourth grader reportedly experienced bullying over this interracial friendship with her white classmate and his family.
“Some of the student bullies would say to her, ‘Why you riding with white people? You’re black, you’re ugly. You should just die,” Adams told WIAT-TV.
McKenzie’s aunt, Eddwina Harris, said the harassment included fellow students’ vitriolic calls to her niece to kill herself.
“She was being bullied the entire school year, with words such as ‘kill yourself,’ ‘you think you’re white because you ride with that white boy,’ ‘you ugly,’ ‘black [expletive],’ ‘just die,’” Harris told the Tuscaloosa News. “It’s an emotional roller-coaster.”
Harris wants this to be a learning situation so that other families in the area do not have to experience the heartache she and her family are experiencing at the hands of racism in Alabama public schools.
“God has blessed me to help others with my platform, and now it’s time to help,” she added. “There are so many voiceless kids. God is opening great doors for justice for my niece.”
Call for help not heeded
Bullying was a problem that McKenzie’s family tried to address at the elementary school in her hometown before experiencing more at the new school in which she enrolled.
[Editor’s Note: Article written by Michael F. Haverluck and originally published at One News Now]
