Johnson defended the order as an effort to protect the children in the photos. She said administrators hadn’t heard from parents but from others around the country, “and there were a lot of questions like, ‘Why is racism being taught?’� She said that, from Grambling’s perspective, the subject and manner in which it was taught would not have been geared toward this age group. Johnson said the school’s principal did not approve the lesson plan.

The Gramblinite reported that teachers explained the symbolism of a noose and let students carry shackles and chains, also symbols of oppression. The children that day also held their own march for equality at the school, with some carrying signs supporting Black teens — known as the Jena Six — charged in the beating of a White student at Jena High School last year.

Billy Sibley, assistant professor of developmental psychology at Southern University in Baton Rouge, said children as young as the kindergartners and first graders probably would not be traumatized by having a noose around the neck unless they had seen someone injured or killed that way. With nothing in the children’s lives to connect to nooses, “it may have seemed like a game or something.�

Sibley said children that age are too young to understand racism, however it is explained — and, in most cases, even if they experience it, Sibley said.

“To them, at this point, it’s just another child being mean at them. But the reasons behind it, I don’t think they would be able to fully understand it at this point.�

--Associated Press

There are currently 0 comments on this story.
Click here to post a comment