What would you do?
According to the DailyMail, a Southern California mother is demanding answers after a student allegedly whipped a jump rope at her fifth-grade daughter and called her a “slave.”
Jasmine Harris says her ten-year-old daughter was recently attacked with an offensive, racially-charged comment while at lunch with her friends.
According to the Santiago Elementary school mom, a young white boy snapped a jump rope towards her child – Paris Barnes – and demanded she “get back to work, you slave.”
Harris is now leading demonstrations outside the Santa Ana school to bring awareness and attempt to have officials take the necessary action.
“They’re sweeping it underneath the rug,” she told ABC 7 Los Angeles after the disturbing incident.
Barnes (Harris’ ten-year-old daughter) also spoke with the Southern California TV station and said she’s still reeling from the incident.
“It was very disrespectful, and I just felt really hurt inside,” she said.
The mother, on her part, took the fight to social media and blasted the school administration and the staff at the Santa Ana Unified School District. And while she might be all but ready to pull her daughter from the district, Harris wants answers on whether the young boy will face any repercussions for his actions (she’s yet to receive any).
“I want the little boy to get expelled. I want them to do something about this,” she informed ABC 7.
The mom and a group of other parents, including Jessica Garcia and Maria Gomez, were among about a dozen protestors on Monday, expressing dissatisfaction with how the school handles bullying of any kind.
“I don’t think it’s fair that so many parents are going through the same thing,” said Garcia.
“They see that it’s so many kids involved, and there’s nothing being done about it,” she continued.
Gomez agreed with Garcia and Harris, telling ABC 7: “There’s clearly a [systemic] issue that no one is paying attention to.”
Harris says because of the slow and inadequate response from the district and school officials; she has now taken the case to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office. She hopes the fifth-grader will be charged with a hate crime and attempted assault on a minor.
In a statement to ABC 7, Santa Ana Unified School District Superintendent Jerry Almendarez said he and his staff are working on sitting down with the families involved and making both parties a part of a solution, pointing to a formal investigation underway.
“My heart goes out to Paris, to the young lady, and I just want to make sure that she gets the support that the student needs, but also making sure that we also provide the support so this doesn’t happen again,” he said.
For now, Barnes says she’s uncomfortable going back to school.
“I’m not really comfortable going back to school because I don’t know if he’ll (the young white boy) do it again and because no one really like said if he was going to be in that much trouble…” the young lady said.
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