A mom in Texas decided to use her artistic skills to make a social statement about the danger for kids in school with so many school shootings in the past decade.
Cassie Arnold is an arts educator. She created School Uniform (Bulletproof Dress), a piece of art that her middle child actually wore for a social media photo that is getting a lot of attention. She did it for that reason, to raise awareness of what parents go through, not feeling entirely convinced that their children are safe in classrooms.
Here’s what she said in a Yahoo Life story.
“My daughter was in kindergarten last year and she knew that her place in ‘lockdown drills’ was by the toilet in the classroom bathroom, and that she had to wait till the administrators banged on the doors, and that she had to be quiet. She wasn’t fazed by it. She was just like, well, this is what we do.”
It took Arnold three weeks to create the dress, made out of Kevlar, the material found in bulletproof vests. She says she’s not trying to freak people out and make the idea of wearing bulletproof clothing normal, but she does hope to start a civil conversation about gun safety in schools. And she’s using art to do it.
The last straw for Arnold was the shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 children and two teachers dead.
“The biggest hope is that we can keep the conversation going. The dress can create a conversation — not just a nonpartisan conversation — and allow us to come to an equal playing field. We need to protect our babies.”
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