A Snapchat video shows the cruel moment when a young boy walked up behind a teenage girl at a Tennessee high school and yanked her wig off her head, causing her pain and humiliation. Now the girl’s mother is standing up and speaking out.
The incident was recorded at Franklin High School. The Snapchat video, captioned “Weave snatchin,” shows the teen boy sneak up behind the girl before snagging the girl’s wig and running off.
Now, as News Channel 5 reports, both the girl and her mother are looking for justice.
“I was so angry. They all got together and just planned to humiliate her, and that was funny to them,” Myckelle Williams, the mother of Lauren “LuLu” Williams, told the news station.
Williams took to Facebook to express her fury at the incident, and also to draw attention to teen suicides and bullying.
“Yesterday I received a call from my youngest daughter screaming and crying on the phone, for me to come and get her from school,” Williams wrote in the post. “Apparently, some boys had taken a $5 BET about pulling her wig off in front of everyone.”
According to the mother, Lauren has scalp conditions that cause severe dryness and lead to hair breakage and loss. Wigs helped give the young girl confidence, and that was ripped away from her in the incident.
Because of how the wig was secured, the 16-year-old lost chunks of her hair in the painful incident. To add insult on top of injury, as she attempted to retreat to the bathroom to comfort herself, another teen followed her into the bathroom, even recording her over the stall as she cried and asked them to return her wig.
“My hair is, like, my one place where I can feel safe, and I loved having wigs to express myself,” Lauren explained to WSMV-TV. “When they tore that off me, I felt basically naked and I felt so insecure myself and just terrible.”
Lauren’s mother said that as a result of the incident, Lauren had to be taken to the hospital for abrasions and whiplash.
“The teen suicide rate has now DOUBLED and bullying has played a HUGE Role,” Williams wrote toward the end of her post. “If you have a teen in this situation, continue to uplift them and let them know that they are strong and beautiful and can own their insecurities and take control rather than being controlled.”
Officials with the Williamson County Schools released a statement after the incident, stating that, alongside school discipline, they intend to prosecute those responsible “to the fullest extent of the law.”
Williams, however, is not too convinced, stating that to date, the students responsible have received only suspension. The outraged mother, of course, wants more to be done.
As for Lauren, the bullies may have knocked her down once, but she wasn’t going to let them keep her there. She took matters into her own hands and decided to take back her power by shaving her head.
“My hair was one of my biggest insecurities, so I felt like he had taken my power and I wanted it back,” she told News Channel 5. “When I walk around with a bald head, he’ll know that he didn’t do anything but give me more power to speak out to other people.”