LaQuanta Hernandez wants to ensure that no child ever experiences what he went through when he was just 13 years old. She is lobbying Congress to pass the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA).
She says her daughter, Jazmine, had to go through therapy after boys at the middle school she attended at the time created and posted racist photos of her on Instagram and TikTok.
“I’m thankful that my daughter didn’t commit suicide , but one of the things that the counselor said was that if she did not have the support she had … the counseling, [and] supportive family behind her … it could have happened,” she told Here and Now.
Hernandez said it all started when a picture of Jazmine circulating on TikTok with her classmates and volleyball team was captioned, “The only Black b***h in school.”
Her parents reported the post to TikTok and the school, and it was eventually taken down. Weeks later, more racist photos started to reappear on Instagram.
“It was a picture of her, and it said the name of her middle school and then the N-word,” Hernandez told the radio outlet about some of the images. “It consisted of her face superimposed on someone burning on a cross with the KKK lined up behind her with the caption, ‘gorilla pack.’ There was another similar picture with her face superimposed on a burning cross with the Caption, ‘filthy monkey burning.’