Thread: 8 yr. old paints face black to represent Martin Luther King and gets suspended from school

Originally Posted by Vuld Edone

Okay, let's say the principal was justified to send the kid home because he ignored him. Okay. But that still doesn't justify asking the kid to remove his face paint. Yes, the parents were looking for a conflict here, but that still doesn't answer if the kid was allowed to have paint on his face. If there was no explicit policy against that, then anyway I look at it the principal could have defended the family against those claiming to be offended. At a risk, obviously, but he could.
Let's try not to be offended at our turn by something so trivial.

There is no possible way to make up a policy against every single situation that could possibly arise in the unforseeable future. That's why administrators have authority to make minute by minute decisions in situtations that are not already clearly defined. He may have been overly cautious in asking the child to remove the face paint... but I for one prefer that if an error is made, it is made on the side of caution. I do have to question the motives of the parents though. They should have known that many people do take offense to black face, and explained to him that he did not have to paint his face to pretend to be his hero. The fact that they let him (or possibly even encouraged him) to do so and then actually REFUSED the instruction to remove it, could seem to indicate they were actually trying to stir up controversy.

Originally Posted by CommonPaine

there's just not enough information available. of course the principal would be wrong to suspend a student just for ignoring a
request, but we don't know if it was a request, or an actual school rule. Once that gets sorted out, we can determine if the child/parents were in the wrong or not.

Personally though, rules aside, i think its a perfectly innocent thing to do. In fact, im amazed at how inspired this kid must have been, in order to go to the trouble of making a costume and painting his face. He must have known at least that he'd receive weird looks from his peers the next day, but i like to think that he was excited enough that he didnt care. Kids like this will make up a generation where racism isnt an issue anymore

This was wax museum day at the school--that there were no "written" rules for the day--the kids were just asked to represent one of their American hero's. A 8 yr. old white boy chooses Martin Luther King--and all hell breaks lose when he paints his face black. Now I wonder how many would be screaming if he had tried to represent Martin Luther King with a white face?