Black Girl Genius: Bobbi Wilson Shares Her Story on GMA

When we create a safe space for our children to experience life, we don’t expect them to be met with things that limit their imagination and safety to explore their world. Monique Joseph from Caldwell, NJ, mother of a nine-year old Black girl, Bobbi Wilson, knew the importance of protecting her child and incited a call to action against the threat against her daughter’s innocence. Last Fall, The family’s White neighbor called the police on Bobbi to question her for using a homemade spotted lanternfly repellant to try and save the trees in her neighborhood.

As you can imagine this was not only traumatizing for Bobbi, but for her mother as well. In the past few years, there have been multiple incidents of law enforcement being called on African Americans while engaging in everyday activities. While more light has been given to these stories recently, African Americans have known this injustice for centuries. Bobbi’s story, is unfortunately one of many, that sits at the intersection of the adultification bias and racism that disproportionately impacts Black youth.

WhitPR was contacted by Monique Joseph in November following the incident amid growing interest from the media as she shed light on the negative effects of the discrimination and trauma caused to her young daughter. Monique desired to turn this experience into a positive outcome and needed WhitPR to help amplify their narrative.

WhitPR took on the project pro bono with the goal of helping the mother of two express their truth. WhitPR was tasked with generating local and national media attention around Wilson and Joseph’s experience with racial profiling and highlighting Bobbi’s want to help her community. WhitPR secured media placements with Good Morning America, ABC Digital, FOX Soul, CBS News, NewsNation, News 12, NJ Spotlight, Tamron Hall, MSNBC, and CNN. The news coverage generated 12.4 thousand media impressions and 778 thousand coverage views. Yale School of Public Health honored Bobbi’s work as she donated her collection of lanternflies and placed them in the database of Yale’s Peabody Museum, where she will be recognized as the donor scientist.