Support for Black Lives Matter painted on Ardrey Kell spirit rock, defaced days later
It had taken at least a full day in the hot sun for six people to paint the big spirit rock Thursday in support of the Black Lives Matter movement and George Floyd, said Kayden Hunt, the student body president at Ardrey Kell High.
But on Sunday morning, Hunt woke up to find out that it had been defaced. When she got to the Ballantyne high school with her family, she started crying.
“’I’m not sure how to tell you how I feel, In actuality, I would just say exhausted, broken 100%,” she said.
The names of of those who had died from police brutality had been crossed out in red ink. The raised fist — the symbol of the Black Lives Matter movement — had been crossed out in red paint and “Blue Lives Matter” was written next to it.
In the past couple of years, the south Charlotte high school has dealt with several racist incidents.
Kayden’s father Ken Hunt asked her what she was going to do next. “(He said) this one is not going to break you. We cannot let hate win.”
As a black student body president, one of Kayden’s priorities was to elevate the voices of underrepresented students, said Gabe Schuhl, a student at Ardrey Kell and the student representative on the Charlotte Mecklenburg School Board.
And so three days shy of a graduation that had already been dampened by the coronavirus pandemic, Hunt is focused on repainting the rock.
On Monday, people will gather at the rock to repaint it. Hunt is thinking about whether someone should give a speech.
“The bottom line is that (what happened to the rock is) not reflective of our community, but at the same time it is,” said Ken Hunt.
Challenges surrounding race
In March 2019, a white Ardrey Kell boys basketball player used a racial slur in a Snapchat before the school’s playoff game against West Charlotte High School, which is predominantly black, the Observer reported at the time.
In November, a white athlete sent her black teammate a picture of the girl next to a monkey and a message on Snapchat saying, “U look interesting.” The Observer reported that the same student had previously made a similar comment to another black teammate.
And in May, Ardrey Kell Principle David Switzer apologized for referring to people as “colored folks” during a staff meeting, the Observer reported.
“I think this (latest incident) does reflect a trend that some students who go to Ardrey Kell are not accepting and not as open minded as they should be,” Schuhl said.
Schuhl said he thinks the school’s administration has done a good job being open minded and guiding the conversation around race. This latest incident, he said, reflects that fact that “Ballantyne is a community that is just historically built off of privilege and built off the labor of people they don’t recognize.”
Hate and racism in Ballantyne is not something that’s just concentrated among a few people, but systemic, Kayden Hunt said.
“It’s so hard even just being a black girl in America, but even just being a black girl in Ballantyne,” she said.
“It’s important for our students to learn that taking a stand requires work and resilience,” Ken Hunt said.
Switzer told the Observer on Sunday he rushed to a Lowe’s store to buy spray paint as soon as he heard about the rock being defaced. He said a similar spirit rock at Community House Middle School has also been vandalized.
The vandalism is under investigation by the school district and police, the principal said.
“We don’t condone any of these types of actions. We will make sure that whoever did this will be brought to justice,” he said.
The initial painting of the rock to support Black Lives Matter, he said, “was a beautiful symbolic gesture that they were able to put out there for the whole community as a reminder that what people are fighting for.”
Coming back stronger
The parent teacher student organization had provided funds to paint the rock as a show of solidarity toward the protests over the death of Floyd, Ken Hunt said. Floyd died while a Minnesota police officer had him in a restraint, and that death triggered mass protests around the country and in Charlotte over the past week.
What happened to the rock “was representative of the fact that even in Ballantyne — an isolated community filled with privileged — knew what was going on in support of the Black Lives Matter movement,” said Schuhl.
On one side of the rock, Kayden Hunt and her friends had painted white speech bubbles with phrases like “I Can’t Breathe” and “End Police Brutality.”
Names of people like Amaud Arbery — who was fatally shot in February while jogging — were painted in white and purple letters all across the black surface. On the other side was a massive fist — the symbol of the Black Lives Matter movement.
But by Sunday morning, those names had been crossed out.
In blue paint, “Blue Lives Matter” was written over “Say Their Names.” The speech bubbles had been crossed out and someone wrote “lies” in blue paint. “George Floyd = Home Invader” was even written on the rock.
Aside from the fist drawn on one side, Switzer has covered the defaced rock, Kayden Hunt said. On Monday, it will be covered with new paint and a new design.
“Sometimes it does feel hard to have pride, but we are so much stronger than that,” Kayden said. “We will come back fighting.”
This story was originally published June 7, 2020 at 5:16 PM.
