An Alabama mom is enraged and searching for answers after her son came home from school with make up arranged on his face to paint the picture of a real life bullet wound on his head.
#TheGrio reports Amonn Jackson, 7 is a student at Phillip’s Academy in Birmingham. As part of his school’s drama class Amonn was painted with special effects makeup as part of a lesson plan.
Sources have indicated that Amonn’s mother Zakiya Milhouse believes the make up was racially targeted at her son and also insensitive to African American culture. Milhouse shared a photo of her son on Facebook with the fake bullet wound and a caption that read, “ “So they did this in drama class and my boy said the teacher said it’s like he got shot. I don’t like that s*** ! I don’t care if it’s Halloween or NOT ! A bullet hole in the head.”
Milhouse tells local news officials that the realism of the make up made her even more upset that the school faculty thought this would be acceptable.
“This actually happens to our Black young men. If you saw it in person, it looked real,” Milhouse states. She then admitted that she did sign a permission slip for her son to participate in the drama class festivities including to wear make up. However she states that she never imagined school faculty members would allow such a thing.
“I had to fill out a permission form to give them permission. A bullet wound – that’s too much.”
The school’s Principal called Milhouse directly and apologized upon behalf of the incident.
“He said this was unacceptable,” Milhouse recalled, but says that while the drama teacher who created the fake bullet wound also apologized, he didn’t initially see anything wrong with his actions.”
“He didn’t think it was a real big deal,” she continued. “He said he did paint on different kids, such as black eyes. He said was going to take it out of his lesson plan.”
The Birmingham City Schools has also issued a public statement on behalf of the ordeal, “The teacher also stated that the only aim in teaching makeup techniques is to help students appreciate and understand the technical elements of performing arts.”
“As a culturally responsive school system, Birmingham City Schools takes issues like this very seriously and does not condone the graphic nature of this lesson on special effects.”
“We regret any issues and perceptions this incident may have caused, and this portion of the lesson will be removed from the unit.”