Local police are investigating after a family complained about their young daughter receiving a Black doll with beads fashioned around its neck resembling a noose during a Mardi Gras parade in St. Louis, Mississippi.
According to CNN, the incident occurred over the weekend at the Krewe of Nereids parade.
Nicole Fairconeture’s 12-year-old daughter was reportedly called up to a Black float wearing a New Orleans Saint jerseys—usually a sign that she was sure to get something special, a “good throw.”
Instead, the man who called out to her handed her the doll. Fairconeture’s daughter took the “gift” without looking closely at what she had been given. As she started to run back to her family, the man allegedly called out to her, “That’s you.”
That was when the young girl took a better look at the item, realizing that it was a stuffed Black mammy doll, with beads fashioned as a noose.
“She hung it from her finger and she felt degraded. She felt attacked. She didn’t even want to stay at the parade. She was ready to go,” Fairconeture told CNN.
The Bay St. Louis Police confirmed earlier this week that they were looking into the incident, alongside the Waveland Police Department, as well as the Krewe of Nereids, which was cooperating with law enforcement.
“The Krewe of Nereids was shocked to hear of the incident of a racially offensive item being thrown from one of the truck floats which followed the Nereids’ parade on Sunday. These floats are not part of, nor in anyway affiliated with Nereids, other than parading on the same day. These floats are independently owned and operated, and the riders on these floats are not members of Nereids,” the organization said in a statement denouncing the incident. “The Nereids organization does not condone or agree with this behavior and has never approved of or supported any offensive conduct in the past, nor will such offensive conduct and racially divisive acts be tolerated or excused now or at any time in the future.”
