A Mississippi mother claims she, her teenage son, and his friends were fired from their job at a Mississippi Burger King after a social media post she made proudly showing off the boys for taking the summer gig and staying away from street violence went viral.
Manager Shakayla Dixon hired her 15-year-old son, Corderrion Valentine, and his four friends at the Clinton, Miss., fast food joint to help them earn extra money and keep them off the streets until school started in the fall, WLBT reported.
“I felt like it was a good thing because we could have really been out doing violence or shooting or killing, but we went out and worked,” Valentine told the outlet.
Dixon, thrilled over hiring the boys, publically praised the boys joining her team in a Facebook post.
The proud mother’s post showed Valentine and his friends posing in front of the store and working in the restaurant’s kitchen.
The post generated over 90,000 likes, and captured actor Nick Cannon’s attention, commending the teens’ hard work and for “staying out of trouble.”
“Now this is the wave! Staying out of trouble, and getting the bag the right way! This is how it’s done kings,” Cannon captioned the Instagram post.
However, Dixon received a phone call from the restaurant’s area manager and district leader soon after the picture went viral.
“She said we don’t want to turn something good into something bad, but we have some concerns,” the mother said.
“The concerns she had were the fact that Corderrion is my son and how much money they were getting paid.”
Dixon claimed that her former manager told her that “a minor is supposed to get paid differently” than adults, which she said was never brought to her attention before.
“My things were when it came down to policy. I feel like policy wasn’t in play in the beginning,” she told the outlet.
The mother and the four teens were then fired from their jobs at Burger King.
It is not disclosed how much the teens earned from the gig.
Valentine, who said he always strives to be a positive role model for his peers and wanted to be an example of how hard work can pay off, shared that losing the job has been difficult.
“I felt like it was a fun experience to get you ready for the real world,” he told the outlet.
Nevertheless, the 15-year-old still believes that the overall message of him and his friends taking on the summer job will show others in his generation that they don’t need to be on the streets getting into trouble.
“I hope that it portrayed a lot of people to do things good and stop the violence,” the teen shared.
Clinton is located in Hinds County, Miss., and is about 8 miles outside Jackson — a city where the violent crime rate is 2.469 per 1,000 residents during a standard year, according to crimegrade.org.
According to the statistics, a crime occurs in Clinton on average every six and a half hours.
