The Ridiculous - and Sexist - Reason This Little Boy Was Sent Home From School

[freshwest]

August 31, 2014 By Kristina Bravo

Five-year-old Malachi Wilson couldn’t wait for his first day of kindergarten all summer in Seminole, Texas. But last week his school sent home because his hair was too long.

According to Malachi’s parents, who are part of the Navajo Nation, cutting his hair is against their religion.

“Our hair is sacred to us, it make us who we are,” April Wilson, Malachi’s mom, told KOB 4...

Schools lately have been beefing up disciplinary actions toward young students. Last year, Mississippi police escorted a five-year-old boy out of school because his shoes were the wrong color: http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/01/18/cops-nab-five-year-old-wearing-wrong-color-shoes-school In Oklahoma, a school superintendent recently came under fire for asking female high school students to bend over to check the length of their shorts:http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/08/25/school-checks-girls-skirt-length-telling-them-bend-over

The school claimed he was not admitted because the proper paperwork had not been supplied, but he was admitted by the end of the day. But he can't get his first day back nor will he forget being treated as the Other.

More at the link:

http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/08/31/ridiculous-and-sexist-reason-little-boy-was-sent-home-school

[Shrike47]

1. Racist AND violation of his First Amendment rights, in one swoop! A few bucks will change hands.

[Cha]

2. Ohhh, I hate stuff like this, fresh.. trying make kids conform. :( thank you.

[sheshe2]

3. Why the hell is it that the Christian Right

regurgitates their religious crap on all of us, yet another is denied their beliefs.

According to Malachi’s parents, who are part of the Navajo Nation, cutting his hair is against their religion.

“Our hair is sacred to us, it make us who we are,” April Wilson, Malachi’s mom, told KOB 4...

He's a child in kindergarten and he will never get that first day of school back. What the hell are we trying to teach our children! For the love of the goddess, he is not just like you GET OVER IT!

This breaks my heart, freshwest. It really does.

[tjl148]

17. What does the religious right have to do with this article?

It sounds to me like this has more to do with bureaucratic BS then anything else. Rules is rules and can't do anything without paperwork. And people suffer because of it. I hate it.

[sheshe2]

22. It has to do with one's so called "religion"

when they rule our courts and rule women's rights and tell men to be men and women to be women. That is the religious right. They are hell bent on telling us what to believe.

Yet, from the OP.

According to Malachi’s parents, who are part of the Navajo Nation, cutting his hair is against their religion.

“Our hair is sacred to us, it make us who we are,” April Wilson, Malachi’s mom, told KOB 4...

Sexist? Damn straight!

So

Their religion is denied. Why is one persons religious rights allowed to stand and yet another is denied?

BTW

Rules is rules and can't do anything without paperwork. And people suffer because of it.

Mom had the paperwork and then she got more. And if you read below, she was already told she would have problems with the school.

http://nativenewsonline.net/currents/five-year-old-navajo-boy-denied-admission-first-day-school-hair-long/

“I ENROLLED HIM BACK IN JUNE SO I THOUGHT WE WERE ALL SET FOR MALACHI TO ATTEND SCHOOL ON MONDAY,” WILSON SAID. “I CHECKED THE ‘NATIVE AMERICAN’ BOX ON THE ENROLLMENT FORM. PEOPLE TOLD ME I WAS GOING TO HAVE PROBLEMS WITH THE PEOPLE AT THE SCHOOL.”

After Malachi and his mother left the school, Wilson called the Navajo Nation to assist in the documentation process. She also called a member of the American Indian Movement, who called the school district’s superintendant.

By mid-afternoon, the school called Wilson to inform her that Malachi could attend school the next day if she was willing to sign an exemption form with a brief explanation why Malachi wears his hair long.

“The principal asked me if I could pull his hair back and even tuck it into his shirt to hide it,” said Wilson. “I braid it all the time, so that was not a problem to keep it confined. But, I would not agree to have him put his hair down his shirt collar.

*************************************************

So...

I guess a boy has to look like a boy and a girl has to look like a girl according to someones warped standards.

Remember this?

Little Girl Taken Out Of Christian School After Told She's Too Much Like A Boy

Timberlake, VA - Sports, sneakers, and short hair; it's what makes eight year old Sunnie Kahle unique. It's also what had her removed from Timberlake Christian School. Her grandparents pulled the plug on her time there after they said she was no longer welcome.

http://www.wset.com/story/25061872/little-girl-taken-out-of-christian-school-after-told-shes-too-much-like-a-boy

So...Malachi wears his hair long. Guess that means he looks like a girl. And
Sunnie wears her hair short and was kicked out of school for dressing like a boy.

[tjl148]

24. You are correct with your post in other situations.

My point was only that there is no mention of "religious right" in the article but plenty of bureaucratic crap. So why bring the religious right into the discussion if that wasn't the problem here? You end up not addressing the real problem.
Nice shirt Sunnie is wearing. Anyone wearing a Pittsburgh shirt would be welcome in my school (if I had one). If you are going to beat up on the rr, that is the school to do it to. What happened to compassion and love?

[freshwest]

34. Yes, authoritarian religion should not be ruling in the schools.

[tooeyeten]

4. Sexism? Racism in Texas

Whoda thunk it? And what about the religious intolerance?

[daleanime]

5. obey, obey, obey.....

[Tuesday Afternoon]

6. stupid. just plain stupid and mean.

[Triana]

7. Child abuse. n/t

[ReRe]

8. A child's first day in school...

... is one of the most important days of his/her life. And that teacher knew that. If she didn't, where in the hell did she get her teaching degree? She did him a terrible wrong.

And since when do schools have "hair length" policies?

[tblue37]

27. It is also an emotionally important day for his parents.

In our society, it is a major rite of passage, equivalent to the rituals and ceremonies that cultures all over the world, all through time, have used to mark a child's transition from infancy and total attachment to mother and hearth to integration into the tribe as a whole.

To deny this little boy's mother the complex, mingled pain and joy of this moment is as nasty as it would be to deny her (and the child, too, of course) the uninterrupted and uncontaminated experience of his or her wedding day or the birth of his or her first child.

Those moments are an important part of a human being's psychological progress through life. We need those markers to help us accept the reality that such progress also means deep loss, because all of our passage through life is through loss and toward death.

This milestone is the one that marks the mother's acceptance that her baby is forever gone. The proper use of rituals, and epecially the "tribe's" full participation in the rite of passage and full acceptance of the child, is an essential element, because it is what creates the joy that is strong enough to enable the mother to deal with the attendant loss and the grief that necessarily accompanies it.

This stupid school has caused a wound that is deeper than it appears to be. At this symbolically significant moment in the life of both the child and his mother, the bigoted bureaucrats have rejected the child as a full member of the tribe. They will, obviously, be forced to accept him by law, but that surface acceptance will never carry the weight of genuine ntegration into the larger social group, so the mother's loss of her baby will not be effectively mitigated by the pride and joy that the rite of passage is supposed to generate. Instead, it will be exacerbated by her fear that her child has left her protection without havng found the protection he is supposed to gain from the tribe as a whole.

[ReRe]

30. Thank you so much for extending what I said.

Enough emphasis cannot be made about how important that first day is and also how important that first teacher is. I wonder if they gave the child a different teacher? If not, they should have. That teacher (and the entire school system) failed that child on his very first day of school in his life! As for the paperwork, who the eff cares about paperwork? Paperwork can be solved in the days ahead.

[sheshe2]

9. Kick!

[el_bryanto]

10. I wish that were surprising

I wish we were past the need to "civilize" Native Americans.

Bryant

[littlemissmartypants]

11. Childism, sexism...

Bigotry. Hate. And the first day of school. Sad.

[littlemissmartypants]

12. Power and Control.

Abuse.

[jwirr]

13. This just shocks me. I am so used to living among people who follow this tradition that I couldn't

believe that anyone (especially an educated school official) would not understand. This cruelty has got to be deliberate. Is this a public school?

[unionthug777]

14. shameful !!!

but then again, us native americans are "uncivilized"

took my son to our state fair years ago. he wanted to go on the ferris wheel, so we got in line..minding our own business...a man in front of us with his daughter, turns around and says " que pasa amigo?" I just looked him in the eye and politely told him "my son and I are native americans" the look on his face was priceless.

[freshwest]

23. Europeans should have learned from natives, was always my opinion. We'd all have been better off.

[ismnotwasm]

15. That's disgusting

They knew exactly what they were doing.

[Tiger58]

16. freshwest

Would a "Mohawk" haircut been more appropriate ...

[sheshe2]

18. I found this too, freshwest.

http://nativenewsonline.net/currents/five-year-old-navajo-boy-denied-admission-first-day-school-hair-long/

“I ENROLLED HIM BACK IN JUNE SO I THOUGHT WE WERE ALL SET FOR MALACHI TO ATTEND SCHOOL ON MONDAY,” WILSON SAID. “I CHECKED THE ‘NATIVE AMERICAN’ BOX ON THE ENROLLMENT FORM. PEOPLE TOLD ME I WAS GOING TO HAVE PROBLEMS WITH THE PEOPLE AT THE SCHOOL.”

After Malachi and his mother left the school, Wilson called the Navajo Nation to assist in the documentation process. She also called a member of the American Indian Movement, who called the school district’s superintendant.

By mid-afternoon, the school called Wilson to inform her that Malachi could attend school the next day if she was willing to sign an exemption form with a brief explanation why Malachi wears his hair long.

“The principal asked me if I could pull his hair back and even tuck it into his shirt to hide it,” said Wilson. “I braid it all the time, so that was not a problem to keep it confined. But, I would not agree to have him put his hair down his shirt collar.”

[BlueJazz]

19. There's this:

"The Seminole Independent School District said that it was only following procedure, noting that proper documentation of religious or spiritual beliefs was required for exceptions. After F.J. Young Elementary turned Malachi away, his mother contacted the Navajo Nation."

“When [the American Indian movement] contacted the superintendent,” Wilson said, “they had told them that they were going to accept Malachi into school.”


I am sure that a high percentage of the teachers and parents are disappointed in what happened also.
I hope the principle players in this story felt they were just following procedure and not racist...or mean.

[tblue37]

28. Are girls allowed to wear long hair? If so, then the school's rules for hair length

on boys are not legal, since they would discrminate on the basis of gender--unless, of course it is a private school, but even then I think some civil rights limits might pertain.

[BlueJazz]

31. That's very true. Believe me, I think the whole Hair Thing there is ridiculous. I was (kinda')..

...speaking for a teacher friend of mine that tells me every time I see her: "I'm so sick and tired of having to enforce some nut bag's definition of dress and morality".

I can understand when a person is backed against the wall of stupidity.

[HoosierCowboy]

20. Wait until Texas...

...has to enroll a Hasidim child.

[mountain grammy]

21. I have in laws who live in Seminole

Been there. Ugh.

[Omaha Steve]

25. I am 1/4 Cherokee

From 2008

[SummerSnow]

26. Whats wrong with these people...

They have a Native American image on their school board website...with long hair


hypocrites.


http://www.seminoleisd.net/

[mercuryblues]

32. exactly

You would think a school district named Seminole would be aware of NA religious beliefs. This can't be the first kid to go through the school with long hair.

[Kalidurga]

29. This is terrible

I think it makes it even worse if they have to claim religious grounds for his hair being long. What if he was a boy who just likes to have long hair? It's ridiculous to have to defend one's preference that doesn't hurt another person. I am not talking about another person being offended and taking that as an injury. I mean if it is literally not physically endangering anyone, then it should be allowed.

[freshwest]

35. I agree fully with that stance as well. It's bigger than religion. They narrowly defined his sex.

[mercuryblues]

33. Incredibly sexist

and ignorant.

My youngest at 10 years old decided to grow his hair for Locks of Love. No hair cuts for 2 years. Never once did the school say or contact me about his hair being too long. He hated having it pulled back so I never did.
It makes me wonder just what this school's real reasons were.