CLAIM: A Fairfax County schoolteacher informed a student's mother that her black child was singled out by other students as likely to be deported if Donald Trump were elected.
TRUE
EXAMPLE: [Collected via e-mail, March 2016]
Is the post about students pointing out "immigrants" who will be sent "home" when Trump becomes president based in fact? It is posted on Shaun King's public Facebook age:
https://www.facebook.com/shaunking/ with the comment: America. 2016. The mainstreaming of bigotry trickling down to children. It is supposedly a repost from Evelyn Momplaisir, but her public page does not show the post. Can you verify this happened?
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There's a Twitter screengrab making the rounds. You've probably seen it - a Fairfax county mother named Evelyn Momplaisir who was shocked because her son is encountering racist remarks from school bullies. To wit: once President, Trump will kick your family out of the country.
I hate to be put in the position of devil's advocate on this, but preliminary searches are unearthing a few suspicious details. And let's face it - even with the best of intentions, we have ALL been fooled by online stories before.
Can anyone actually validate this?
Twitter shows that Evelyn Momplaisir doesn't have an account. (True, it could have been deleted or made private for some reason.)
There's been no legitimate news coverage on this that I can find. Seems to me this is the kind of a story that the "liberal media" would KILL themselves to ferret out.
There is an Evelyn Momplaisir on Facebook. She is black and has a school-age son. But her occupation is a Fairfax County Public Schools TEACHER. In addition, Momplaisir received some nationwide attention 6 years ago when the Today show ran some sort of fluff piece on her wedding. (I have no idea how that would tie in here - it's just an unusual side note.)
You guys know me. I have nothing good to say about any part of Donald Trump. But I pride myself on fairness - I'm not going to take this potshot if it's not warranted. Lord knows there's enough legitimate stuff to say about the man without resorting to untrue viral crap.
I hope I'm wrong. And at the same time, I hope I'm not.
But can anyone confirm anything about this story?
The screenshot lacked a specific date, and King didn't specify how he came to discover the claim. Momplaisir's Facebook post wasn't the first shared by a mother fearful of her child's well-being — a similar story made the rounds in December 2015.
We spoke with representatives of Fairfax County Public Schools, who were unfamiliar with Momplaisir's claim, but told us they would investigate the allegation.
We also contacted Momplaisir on Facebook to ask about the status update. As the reader e-mail indicated, the post was either deleted or its privacy settings changed to make it viewable to Facebook friends only by 7 March 2016, and King's screenshot displayed a post that was at one point public. It's possible that following the wider exposure received after King shared the post, Momplaisir changed its settings so as not to be on the receiving end of angry and hateful messages, or to protect the privacy of her young child.
On 7 March 2016, the Washington Post reported that Fairfax County schools confirmed the claim:
Fairfax County school officials confirmed the account. “The teacher has spoken with the students, and communicated with parents of the class, regarding appropriate classroom decorum,” John Torre, a spokesman for the school system. “FCPS works to create an environment that is conducive to learning and where everyone is treated with respect.”