An aunt named Janell Franklin took to her Facebook page to vent out her anger about what happened to her niece at Buna High School.
Janell described that her niece, who goes to Buna High School and is part of the cheerleading squad there.
From what Janell described, during one of the performances, all the other cheerleaders were out there doing their routine together beneath American Flag, but her niece, the only Black girl on the team, was made to stand off to the side by herself the entire time, completely separated from everyone else.
It made her blood boil every time she looked at it, because it felt so wrong to have her niece isolated like that during something that was supposed to bring the team together as one.
Also, nobody made space for her to be part of what was supposed to be a team effort.
And to make things even more upsetting, her mom wasn’t able to be at the event that day, so there was no one close by to immediately step up and say something right then and there.
Janell didn’t hold back and said if someone who knew her and her niece and saw what was happening and stayed quiet, she better not find out who they are.
She went on to say that if she had been present, things would have turned out very differently. If not, she would have stopped the game right then, probably shut down the rest of the season too, and made sure the cheer coach faced some serious accountability for letting it happen.
Let alone Janell, the girl’s mother, Chas Renfro, shared something more than what happened during the performance.
The mother pointed out that this whole mess of true bullying and separation really took root during a patriotic cheer routine right there on the field, a place where generations of their family had played and made memories before.
It felt like dehumanizing her daughter in the very spot that should’ve been full of pride and inclusion.
She went further, explaining how staff even threatened her daughter at one point, and when the girl spoke up, saying she felt unsafe, someone in charge just walked away for a meeting and completely brushed off those feelings and her need for safety.
When Chas Renfro finally approached the head person in charge to talk about all of it, the only response she got back was something along the lines of the girl saying she was sorry, as if that fixed everything.
The mother feels strongly that protecting employees over a child’s well-being is completely backward and shows these folks might be in the wrong line of work altogether.
She ended by saying that if anyone looks at that photo or hears about what the school did to try to erase her daughter from the history there and sees nothing wrong with it, then they are part of the bigger problem.
