MOTHER: I’M NOT TAKING THIS

“She told me that I can’t be an air hostess because of my hair.” Kalifa Logan wants to be an air hostess but when she told this to the principal of St Charles High School, Sister Adrianna Noel asked her if she wanted to do it “with that hair.” This was told to Newsday upon visiting Kalifa Logan and her mother at their La Horquetta home yesterday. When Logan heard she was assigned to St Charles’ High School, Tunapuna, she was happy, only to find out that she was being denied her place at the school because of her dreadlocks. Now, Logan spends her days at home with her mother, wondering when, if at all she will be assigned to another school. When Logan left her former primary school, the La Horquetta North Government School, she left with an award in good conduct.

Logan’s mother, Lynette Marshall, cannot understand how her daughter could leave primary school with good conduct and without even having one day in secondary school, has been labelled as a disciplinary problem. “They didn’t even give my daughter a day. That is what is upsetting me.” Marshall however, refuses to accept the treatment she and her daughter are receiving. “I am not going to sit down and take it.” These were Marshall’s fighting words, as she said that to date the Ministry of Education has not yet contacted her about a transfer for her daughter. When Newsday asked her whether it was true that her daughter was due to start at Five Rivers Junior Secondary School on Friday, it was the first time Marshall was hearing such a thing.

Marshall remained adamant that her daughter will not attend any Junior Secondary School. “I am not taking my daughter from a five year school and sending her to a Junior Secondary.” Marshall also wondered whether Five Rivers Junior Secondary School was the only school that accepted Rastafarians. “In the whole of TT, the only school that is taking Rastafarian is Five Rivers? Well I going to break the neck of that. This is disrespectful. It is degrading. One school?” For Kalifa this is the first time that she is experiencing this discrimination. According to her mother, she does not know that she is being discriminated against. Instead Kalifa thinks that maybe the principal is old, and her thinking might not be as fast as that of a younger person’s. After all the attention Kalifa is getting from her plight, she says she does no longer wants to attend St Charles. Instead, she would prefer to attend El Dorado Secondary.

Kalifa told her mother that if she was rejected in the beginning, then there could be nothing good about her in the end. While Kalifa awaits her transfer however, her mother now has to dig deep in her pockets to send her daughter  to lessons. However, St Charles High School is still in possession of Kalifa’s $400 registration fee. “You don’t need my child in your school but you holding on to Rasta $400.” In fact, refunds from school uniforms purchased came only after the school administration re-sold the uniforms that Marshall had purchased for her daughter. Marshall insists, “I am not giving up.” She even went so far as to say that “Every living Rasta with dread or without dread is going to stand behind me.” She added that there were community leaders who had offered her their full support. In fact, MP for the area, Camille Robinson Regis, who was out of the country said that she needed to speak with the family directly, but added that anything that affects her constituents, she is concerned about.