North Carolina Middle School Art Assignment Has Parents Upset Over Sexual Imagery
Parents are upset after finding out sixth-graders in a North Carolina school were told to study an image featuring a sexually explicit act as part of an art assignment.
The principal of Kennedy Middle School spoke out after the parents caused tons of commotion. He stated that teachers only post vetted images and links onto digital learning platforms for its students.
“It was brought to my attention that there were some inappropriate artist images that were inadvertently included in a 6th grade art lesson while the teacher is on maternity leave,” Principal Kevin Sudimack shared in a statement. “I worked with the art teacher to have the pictures removed from the CANVAS platform.”
Parent Samantha Davis expressed to WSOC that she was “shocked” to see the artwork as part of her daughter’s curriculum.
“I understand the topic being appropriate for college and adults,” she said. “I don’t find this artist and what she depicts as something age-appropriate for middle school kids to see.”
“To just pull it is nice, that’s great — but it shouldn’t have been there in the first place,” Davis added.
The artwork was created by Kara Walker, which is titled, “Gone: An Historical Romance of a Civil War as It Occurred b’tween the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart.”
RELATED:11-Year-Old Texas Middle School Student Suspended For Having A Braid In His Hair
“This work is based on purposeful misreadings of historical texts like ‘Gone With the Wind.’ I wanted to ensure that there would always be this like punch-in-the-gut feeling of culpability in white washing or wishing away the unseemly, icky part of the story, of any story,” Walker told the Museum of Modern Art. “But specifically the story that I want to talk about always comes back to an American mythology that involves race, slavery—a sadomasochistic construct that underlies the American history narrative.”