One daycare in Miami, FL is facing fire after one instructor planned a Black History Month activity where the children’s faces were painted black to portray African American characters. This was done without the parents’ permission.
According to CNN, a mother, whose child attended the Studio Kids Little River preschool, was outraged when she saw the pictures of her 1-year-old daughter with darkened skin. On Feb. 3, a school staffer posted the images on the school’s messaging app with the message, “Black history month.”
A mother in Miami says she was shocked and outraged after the staff at her children’s day care shared photos with parents of students in blackface as part of Black History Month. https://t.co/dW2LRZo3sD pic.twitter.com/LbqgxUviNG
— CNN (@CNN) February 15, 2023
“You’re a certified, established institution, you should know better. I mean, ignorance on – about racism in 2023 is no longer ignorant, in my opinion,” Courtney Politis said.
Patricia Vitale, the preschool’s owner and director, declined to comment on the incident publicly, but extended an apology to the community in a mass email to the daycare’s stakeholders, “We have not intended to offend anyone, and we’re very sorry about any inconvenience.”
“We wanted to let all the parents know that we met on Friday afternoon with all the teachers and staff. We went over several ethical and multicultural education points. I will teach the team a class covering all the necessary topics regarding US history and multicultural education … you may rest assured this will never happen again,” she double-backed three days later to say.
Politis has since pulled her children from the school.
“The bottom line is we can’t trust them with our children all apologies aside,” she said. “I thought we would have more time before these sorts of things or racism or microaggressions would have to be experienced by our children. So, the fact that you can’t, I feel like I can’t protect my children from what’s happening is probably the most disappointing and upsetting of all of this.”