Native American Boy
Pulled From Class Over Mohawk Hairstyle
"To ostracize
him like that -- that's stuff from the '50s."
Talk about keeping
the culture, I love this young man!
Wonder how many
adults wear some type of religious trinket to let people know their beliefs?
The Seneca Nation
(Tribe) are relations of my people and we, tah and I, have been too many
gathering and powwows on their grounds for years.
If you, see a native
person in New England and/or New York and they are stating that they are of a
tribe in the area only they do not have this young brave Kobe's hairstyle, you
should ask why?
Just to hear the
answer?
Don't get me wrong,
the style in today's world is not mandatory because of the lack of forest.
I prefer not too now
because we are retired to Florida and I would be spending time and time again
explaining however, I am not in New England.
All of our ancestors
had Kobe Sandens hairstyle or something very close to it because the land was
bush and tree popular!
It was said many
times by our first visitors to the area that one could walk from one side of
the state or states on tree tops.
A young Native
American student in Utah is back in class after school staff sent him to the
office claiming his Mohawk hairstyle violated school policy.
“They wanted Kobe to
come home until we cut his hair,” Gary Sanden, the father of 7-year-old Jakobe
Sanden, told
the Salt Lake Tribune. “That’s who he is. That’s part of his culture.”
Gary Sanden is a
member of the Seneca Nation and his wife, Teyawwna Sanden, is a member of the
Kaibab Band of Paiutes Indians, Fox
13 reported.
Their son was kicked
out of his second-grade class at Arrowhead Elementary School in the city of
Santa Clara on Monday after showing up sporting the haircut he got the previous
Friday. Administrators called Jakobe's parents to tell them the boy's hairstyle
violated school policy and he needed to change it, Gary Sanden told
The Washington Post.
The school’s online handbook does
not mention any specific hairstyles, The Post pointed out, but simply states
that “extremes in body piercings, hair styles and hair colors may be considered
a distraction or disruption.”
“We had the students
that weren’t used to it,” Arrowhead Principal Susan Harrah told Fox 13. “They
had called that out. So the teacher brought the student to my attention.”
School officials
initially asked Teyawwna Sanden to pick up her son and change his hair, Gary
Sanden told
news station WFAA. Both parents offered to bring in their tribal
membership cards to prove their heritage, but the school said they needed
documentation from a tribal leader.
The couple got
Seneca Nation Councillor William Canella to write to the superintendent.
“It is common for
Seneca boys to wear a Mohawk because after years of discrimination and
oppression, they are proud to share who they are," Canella wrote.
The boy was never
sent home or suspended, Assistant Principal Rex Wilkey told the Washington
Post. Principal Harrah told the Tribune she felt the school handled the manner
respectfully and efficiently, noting, “It took about a half hour of my time.”
But Gary Sanden said
the school's handling of the situation felt discriminatory and having Jakobe
spend part of the day in the principal’s office over his hairstyle was bad
enough.
"To ostracize
him like that -- that's stuff from the '50s,” Sanden told the Tribune.
Contact
the author of this article at Hilary.Hanson@huffingtonpost.com.
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