Mother of 9-year-old who died by suicide blames racist bullying for her daughter's death
A 9-year-old died by suicide in Alabama, and her mother is blaming bullying.
McKenzie Adams, a fourth-grade student in Demopolis, Ala., died on Dec. 3, Birmingham news station WIAT reports.
The girl’s mother, Jasmine Adams, says she can point to multiple occasions on which her daughter was bullied that could have pushed the little girl over the edge. “She told me that this one particular child was writing her nasty notes in class,” Adams told WIAT. “Things you wouldn’t think a 9-year-old should know. And for my baby to tell me some of the things they had said to her, I was like, ‘Where are they learning this from?'”
Adams also believes that race played a part in her daughter’s suffering. “Part of it could have been because she rode to school with a white family,” she said. “And a lot of it was race, some of the student bullies would say to her, ‘Why you riding with white people? You’re black. You’re ugly. You should just die.’”
McKenzie’s aunt, Eddwina Harris, elaborated on the bullying her niece had experienced. “She was being bullied the entire school year, with words such as ‘Kill yourself,’ ‘You think you’re white because you ride with that white boy,’ ‘You ugly,’ ‘Black bitch,’ ‘Just die,’” she told Tuscaloosa News.
McKenzie attended U.S. Jones Elementary School in Demopolis.
“Certainly, our hearts [go] out to the family and friends of McKenzie and her fellow students as well as her teachers,” school officials said in a statement provided to WIAT. “Demopolis school system has provided grief counselors and crisis counselors at the school since this and ministers and youth ministers have been at the campus since the date of this incident.”
Demopolis City Schools attorney Alex Braswell said the case is being investigated, WIAT reports.
But Adams feels that the school could have done better. “I just felt that our trust was in them that they would do the right thing,” she told WIAT. “And it feels like to me it wasn’t.”
This wasn’t even the first school at which McKenzie had experienced bullying. According to the Tuscaloosa News, McKenzie transferred to U.S. Jones Elementary School after her mother and grandmother complained to the State Board of Education that she was being bullied at her other elementary school in Linden.
And McKenzie tried to put a stop to it at her new school. The student told her teachers and her assistant principal she had been bullied multiple times, according to WIAT.
A friend of the family has started selling buttons featuring McKenzie’s face on Facebook. One of the buttons says, “Gone to Soon,” and the other says, “Stop Bullying.” The buttons are $7, with the proceeds going to the Kenzie Foundation, according to the Facebook post.
“Just seeing my baby laying there and not being able to say nothing to me is what’s gonna really do it,” Adams said to WIAT, through tears. “That was my angel.”
If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, call 911, or call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741.
Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:
9-year-old commits suicide after coming out as gay to his classmates
High school football player arrested in death of pregnant classmate
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