Op-Ed: Kelaia Turner Should Have Been Protected

For Kelaia Turner’s tormentors – her middle school classmates – it was not enough that they bullied her to the point that she turned to suicide for a solution.

Even after learning the impact of their taunting of the then 12-year-old – her hanging herself in 2023 and being dead for eight minutes before paramedics could revive her – they wanted her to suffer even more.

So, one of them visited Kelaia in the hospital for the sole purpose of taking a photo of her in the ICU to mock and spread lies about her injuries on social media.

This is according to a lawsuit filed by Ty Turner, the now 14-year-old’s mother, who claims that her daughter was subjected to physical and verbal abuse from classmates at the Dr. Phinnize J. Fisher Middle School in Greenville, South Carolina.

“They used to teach us, ‘Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never harm me,’ “ Ty told WFY44. “Unfortunately, words do hurt.”

According to Ty’s suit, the bullying began in 2021 when Kelaia started wearing her natural hair to school when classmates would refer to her as “roach” and told her she looked “like a man.”

What makes this all the more menacing is that Kelaia’s teacher, Olivia Bennett, allegedly did not correct her students when they did this. Instead, she egged Kelaia’s bullies on.

When one of the bullies would ask Bennett “Where’s the roach?” she would acknowledge Kelaia.

The insults continued as a result of that sort of tacit encouragement and intensified even after Kelaia’s mom spoke to school officials.

Kelaia’s parents were promised that Kelaia would be moved to a new class, but that didn’t make her time at school any better.

The following year, Kelaia ended up getting into a fight with one of her bullies but only Kelaia was suspended from school.

Then some months later in May 2022, she was targeted again by classmates with the playing of an offensive YouTube video called “The Black People Song.”

Once again, instead of the teacher, John Teer, correcting the students, he allegedly let the song play freely.

“Defendant Teer allowed the song to be played without any comment on its offensiveness, nor any reprimand to or discussion with the student who played it,” per the complaint.

Later in the year, those bullies poured water on Kelaia’s clothes and threw them in the trash.

Kelaia’s parents say throughout this entire ordeal, they consistently complained to the district only for them to fail to take any measures to stop the bullying.

These are the conditions that led to Kelaia sadly concluding that her only answer was to try and take her life.

“She was cool to the touch, blood was coming out of her nose,” her mother recalled of her daughter’s body following the suicide attempt. “She had fully committed to what it was that she was attempting to do, and she was gone for eight whole minutes.”

Though Kelaia managed to survive, she experienced severe brain damage, remained in a coma for weeks, and was left with no control over her body.

She cannot speak. She needs a fetal tube. She is now totally dependent on her parents.

Kelaia’s life is forever changed, but her mother says she believes that one day she will be restored.

In the meantime, the lawsuit seeks damages to cover Kelaia’s medical bills, psychiatric expenses, special education needs, parents’ lost wages, life care expenses, disability care, injury to her psyche and emotional state, and loss of enjoyment of life.

In a statement to People, Greenville County Schools spokesman Tim Waller said that the district extends its “heartfelt sympathies” to Kelaia and her family yet denied responsibility.

“The school and district administrations investigated and addressed each of the reported incidents in accordance with policy and law,” Waller says. “No parent concerns or reports of bullying were ignored, and all were directly addressed with the student’s mother. We firmly deny the allegations made in the lawsuit that bullying and parent concerns at Fisher Middle School were not addressed. In order to maintain the integrity of the litigation process, it would be inappropriate for us to further elaborate on the details of the case.”

I was not there to witness any of what has been alleged, but I have written enough about Black students who have attempted suicide for 15 years to glean a few things.

One, whether it’s widely acknowledged or not, it is hard to deny that society has gotten crueler – something attributable to many factors, but most assuredly, social media.

That unfortunately extends to children, some of whom are now proving to be no less depraved than any other troll looking to go viral at the expense of someone else’s misery.

Two, racism is as vibrant in America as ever, and in school districts where white folks are well over 60% of the population, I am inclined to be suspicious of such strong denials of detailed accusations of racism.

If those teachers and school administrators had down their jobs, Kelaia would not have spent 101 days in the hospital, including 31 in the ICU.

By the casual callousness of the district’s statement alone, I hope Kelaia’s family gets every single dollar they seek and then some.

Whatever policies and laws the school district claims to have followed are outdated and failed Kelaia Turner.

The answer is not to continue to fail her by leaving her parents with a GoFundMe fundraiser to cover the consequences.

They need to make it right – and they need to do better about protecting other students like her.

Michael Arceneaux is a New York Times bestselling author whose most recent book, “I Finally Bought Some Jordans,” was published in March.

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