The NAACP is urging the Florida Department of Children and Families to investigate a daycare where a Black toddler was allegedly handcuffed during a lesson about Rosa Parks.
In a letter, the NAACP said a two-year-old student at Building Brains Academy was the “subject to an alarming act of simulation, where she was handcuffed and fingerprinted by a white peer,” per Fox35.
Parents of the toddler said they found out about the incident through photos sent to them in the school’s app.
“Her hands restrained behind her back as if she was being taken into custody. Then the next image was her hands being placed on a table as if she was being booked, and the look on her face alone, it was horrific,” the parents said.
In a statement, the daycare claimed that the photos weren’t an accurate representation of what occurred during the lesson.
“Unfortunately, the photographs shared do not offer a complete or accurate representation of the full lesson about the importance of equal rights,” the statement reads. “Our 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.”
“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. 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,” the statement added.
In response, the toddler’s parents said: “There’s so many ways to teach the Rosa Parks story.”
In its letter, the NAACP requested “immediate cessation of such activities within the curriculum at Building Brains Academy,” noting that the organization would be “exploring all legal avenues to address this grave matter and ensure such incidents are not repeated.”
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