Keaton James' GoFundMe Page Pulled After Family's Alleged Racist Past Emerges
Care

Keaton James' GoFundMe Page Pulled After Family's Alleged Racist Past Emerges

Over the weekend, a Tennessee woman's video of her child, Keaton James, emotionally describing being bullied at school went viral. In the video, Keaton tearfully tells his mother and the camera about how kids at school make fun of his appearance, tell him he has no friends, and throw food at him.

"Just out of curiosity, why do they bully?" Keaton says. "What's the point of it? Why do they find joy in taking innocent people and finding a way to be mean to them? It's not okay."

The original video had racked up 22 million views, and soon celebrities and professional athletes took notice, lending their support to the bullied child.

A GoFundMe page called "Stand Up For Keaton" had already pulled in nearly $60,000 in donations, but the man who started it has since put it on hold. Complicating the saccharine sweet story of a bullied child gaining the public's valiant support is the resurfacing of photos of his family holding up Confederate flags and a Facebook post by his mother, Kimberly Jones, published two weeks after Charlottesville in which she tells people to "stop crying" about racism and slavery, TMZ reports.

What. a. mess.

As an alternative, people have started pointing to the stories of other children who've killed themselves after being bullied in school as places people can send their good intentions (and money). The story of Ashawnty Davis, a Colorado fifth grader who hung herself after classmates shared a video of her in a fight on the social media app Musical.ly, has gained more traction as a result:

Rihanna also shared the story of California middle schooler Rosalie Avila who also took her own life last week after being bullied by classmates.

Images via Twitter