South Cook News

A Frankfort mother and founder of an anti-bullying nonprofit insists that her September 2020 Facebook rant against white women is supported by the “data and evidence,” and should not be considered bullying.

“The data shows that my comments hold for all white people,” Stephanie Pearson-Davis elaborated for South Cook News. “And I also know it from my own personal experience.”

In the post, Davis wrote: “Having a black husband does not make you anti-racist. You just like B.A.D. You don’t get to use the n-word and act like we’re sista girls because you have Black children and sleep with a Black man. Also, I don’t do sista girl with white people. Soooooo….

Stop Bullying

She continued later in the post:  “White women…y’all are a problem. Culturally speaking yall are problematic AF.”

Davis started her 501 (c) (3) “It Could Be Your Kid” over a year ago, motivated she said by her daughter’s bullying at Chelsea Intermediate in District 157-C. But a September 2019 Patch report said that Davis herself wrote on her own Facebook page that after the district investigated “no bullying was found.”

Davis told South Cook News that she “vehemently disagrees with the district’s findings.”

The district did not respond to South Cook News questions about what the investigation discovered, but did tell the Patch that the “administration investigates any bullying complaints in accordance with the Board of Education's anti-bullying policy and collaborates with staff, parents and students to develop a supportive educational environment.”

As far as funding, Davis said her nonprofit is supported by the same places that support other nonprofits. She declined to be more specific.

A posting advertising the group’s literacy program, “Sweet Reads,” said that funding is provided in whole or in part by the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority and the Cook County Southland Juvenile Justice Council, which last year received over $2 million in funding from dollars earmarked for COVID relief. Its executive director is Jaclin Davis, who in 2013 was paid $83,500 by the Community Violence Prevention Program. In 2014, the Illinois House overwhelmingly approved an audit of the program.  Davis’s husband, State Rep. Will Davis (D-Homewood), voted “no” on approval.

In 2012, Will Davis also voted against an audit of Gov. Pat Quinn’s Neighborhood Recovery Initiative. The Sun-Times reported that his wife, Jaclin, was paid more than $137,000 in salary by the Initiative -- “a separate but related grant program was folded amid questions about spending and oversight.”

“A scathing audit of that program was released in February, and federal and state prosecutors are now investigating the NRI program,” the article said.

For her part, Davis declined to say how much she pays herself through her nonprofit.

“You’ll know when it becomes public,” she said.

According to the group’s website, the anti-bullying program covers kids in Thorton, Breme, Bloom and Rich Townships, but not those in Davis's own community.

“I can do whatever I liked with my nonprofit and don’t owe you [a reporter] or anyone else in the community an explanation,” she said when asked why her own community was skipped over.

Davis’s husband, Bruce, is running for Frankfort Township trustee.