Last week a six-year-old girl was kicked out of her daycare center, simply for wearing a shirt that represented the Black Lives Matter Movement.
Kindergartner Journei Brockman wore a BLM shirt on June 25, to the Kids Learning Center in Russellville, Arkansas. Her mother, Deval, had received a phone call from the school stating that they did not consent to the shirt’s message and that they would “prefer it if you didn’t send her to school in it again. ”
Ms. Deval reported this incident to the state, where she was told that her daughter could continue to wear her shirt so long as it didn’t have any profanity on it.
The following day, she sent her daughter to school in a shirt that had a symbol of a raised fist on it, but when she went to pick her daughter up she was told that the shirt was encouraging racism and that she was no longer welcomed at that daycare.
Ms. Deval’s response was that “If I’m supporting something. I’m going to wear it, my child is going to wear it, to help say that our voice needs to be heard.”
Staff members of the daycare suggested to her that she “reevaluate” her parenting; to this, she responded stating that she plans to continue to teach her daughter about true equality.
The daycare director, Patricia Brown, released a statement that stated “We feel a childcare environment is not a place for a parent’s political views to be addressed or played out, regardless of race.”
Ms. Deval stated clearly that the Black Lives Matter Movement was not about politics and also stated that “It’s not political, it’s everyday life, it’s all over the news. Right is right and wrong is wrong.”
