Principal responds publicly to critic
Character of slain student questioned
Booker T. Washington Principal Alisha ColemanKiner spoke out Tuesday in defense of the high school senior who was shot and killed Downtown Sunday morning.
Coleman-Kiner posted a response on her Facebook page to an email she received questioning the school’s decision to allow Myneishia Johnson’s infant son to walk across the stage and accept her diploma during Saturday’s graduation.
Johnson, 18, was walking with friends on Second Street across from the Flying Saucer around 12:30 a.m. Sunday when a man in a car drove by and fired at them, police said. The bullets struck Johnson and her two friends. She died at the scene while a 19-yearold and 23-year-old were taken to Regional Medical Center. Police don’t believe Johnson was the target. Kwasi Corbin, 19, has been arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the shooting.
To honor Johnson, her 1-year-old son, Kylan Johnson, will cross the graduation stage with his grandmother and accept her diploma.
This prompted an email to Coleman-Kiner questioning Johnson’s character.
The email, purportedly from someone named Kelly Griffin, said “The death of any young person is tragic. But to allow someone else to walk across the stage to accept her diploma is one thing but then give it to her young infant is another . ... you’re acknowledging and celebrating this young child whose mother was tragically killed when in all fairness probably should have been home taking care of that young infant who now has no mother and quite frankly don’t know who the father is.”
Coleman-Kiner respond-
ed, criticizing the email’s grammar and assumptions about Johnson’s personal life.
“... who told you that no one knew who the father is? Where were you when he couldn’t stand under the grief on Sunday at the candlelight vigil?” she wrote.
Her response was multiple paragraphs long, rebutting several points made in the email.
“Stereotyping, as a persuasive device, is an ineffective use of propa- ganda that allows the person using the device to draw lines around groups of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ people.”
Natoria Brooks, a friend of Myneishia’s younger sister, Jasmine Johnson, supported the principal’s action.
“She did her job as the principal,” Brooks said. “That’s what she was supposed to do, stand up for Myneishia.”
Brooks said they weren’t just friends at BTW, but also a family.
“Ms. Kiner wasn’t just a principal to us, she was a mother to us when we were in school,” Brooks said.
“She did the right thing to stand up for her student, her child, because we was her kids,” Brooks added. “She treated us like we were her own kids.”
Requests for comment from the sender of the email were not returned. Coleman-Kiner also didn’t respond to attempts to speak with her. Terri Johnson, Myneishia’s mother, was distraught and couldn’t talk.
Reporter Sydney Neely contributed to this story.