2-year-old black girl cuffed by white child for Rosa Parks reenactment at Florida day care
A Florida day care is under fire after a 2-year-old black girl was photographed being handcuffed and fingerprinted by a white child pretending to be a cop as part of a Rosa Parks reenactment.
The NAACP called for the state to investigate the Building Brains Academy in Saint Cloud, where the child was “subject to an alarming act of simulation, where she was handcuffed and fingerprinted by a white peer.”
The girl’s parents told Fox 35 they learned about the incident when images were sent to them in the school’s app.
“Her hands restrained behind her back as if she was being taken into custody,” the incensed couple told the outlet of their daughter, who they believe is the only black child at the day care.
“Then the next image was her hands being placed on a table as if she was being booked,” added the parents, who asked not to be identified.
“The look on her face alone, it was horrific.”
Images of the girl appearing to be fingerprinted were obtained by WESH, which said it was declining to publish them.
“I was just like, ‘There’s no way they’re doing this in a 2-year-old classroom,'” the girl’s dad told the outlet. “It was our daughter who had her hands restrained behind her back by another child wearing a police vest,” he said.
“What I keep reliving in my mind is the look on our daughter’s face.”
The couple quickly pulled their daughter out of the center, where the mother said she spoke with the director.
The mom said the teacher is “a sweetheart,” instead blaming the facility for its curriculum.
“There are a million ways to teach about Rosa Parks that are age-appropriate and doesn’t come from a child’s expense,” the mom said of Parks, who is known as “the first lady of civil rights” after her arrest in Alabama in 1955 for refusing to give her bus seat to a white passenger.
The day care claimed that “the photographs shared do not offer a complete or accurate representation of the full lesson about the importance of equal rights.”
“One of the classes in our multicultural school was learning about the legacy of Rosa Parks and the importance of treating each other with respect and equality,” the school said in a statement.
“In the spirit of the moment, the class spontaneously decided to act out the elements of Ms. Parks’ story, including her arrest for refusing to give up her seat at the front of the bus,” it said.
The statement said the “school believes in and teaches the importance of equality, of standing up for our rights, and of speaking up when we see something isn’t right.
“We teach these lessons not to celebrate the wrongdoings of others in the past, but to encourage our children to prevent such actions in the future.
“We deeply regret the assumption that our teachers, our leadership, or our administration would in any way choose to make a child feel uncomfortable or negatively singled out,” it added.
The day care said it has “advised all of our faculty that any deviations from the approved curriculum, no matter how slight or unplanned, must first be approved by school administration. We will continue ensuring our students are exposed to a curriculum that celebrates equality and diversity.”
The couple noted to Fox 35 that “there’s so many ways to teach the Rosa Parks story.”
The father told WESH that “restraining is restraining. You know our daughter’s hands were behind her back. The child that was restraining our daughter was in a police uniform.”
The parents reached out to the NAACP and asked for the curriculum to be changed.
The civil rights group is asking for the “immediate cessation of such activities within the curriculum at Building Brains Academy.”
It also said it would be “exploring all legal avenues to address this grave matter and ensure such incidents are not repeated.”
The NAACP said it contacted the Department of Children and Families about the incident. The agency did not immediately respond to the news outlets’ requests for comment.
