White Headmaster Forces Black Sixth Grader To Apologize The 'African' Way

A white Catholic school headmaster is likely to pay hefty dividends after his disciplinary action on an African child has stoked suspicions of racial abuse.

Things turned awry when a Hempstead mom Trisha Paul found that Trayson, her sixth grader, was subjected to humiliation on the pretext of a regular punishment. According to a NY Daily News report, the boy was asked to kneel and apologize for apparently crass behavior, after headmaster John Holian ordered him to plead the “the African way”.

“Once he started mentioning this African family, that’s when it just clicked,” said Paul. “Like, this is not normal procedure. I felt there was no relevance at all. Is he generalizing that everyone who is Black is African? That’s when I realized something is not right with this situation,” she added, suggesting how the family believes that their son was treated differently owing to his race.

The incident occurred in the end of February, when Trayson’s English teacher reprimanded him about working on the wrong assignment, ripped up the paper, and dragged him to Holian’s office. The headmaster began to act in a rather inhuman way and ordered the boy to apologize “the African” way.

“My son was humiliated, hurt, embarrassed, sad, and confused,” Paul added citing, “He reads about things happening because of your skin color. To experience it... he’s just trying to process it in his 11-year-old brain.”

While Holian has refuted racism claims and stated that it’s very unlikely for something of that sort to happen in a school like theirs where the vast majority are apparently students of color, the representative of the Marianist Brothers, the religious chapter that runs the school failed to revert to the outlets that approached them for their version of the incident.

The controversy has led to Holian being relieved from his duties at present and will continue to be placed on leave until the investigations are completed.

“I want to assure you that St. Martin’s neither condones nor accepts the actions of our headmaster,” wrote acting headmaster James Conway in the email, a copy of which was procured by a media outlet, The News. The statement further read: “The incident does not reflect our long, established values or the established protocols regarding student-related issues.”

Paul alleged that the treatment came as a shocker to her, as she genuinely believed the school was going to shape Trayson up for the better. She further revealed that she shelled out $15,000-a-year for admitting her son to a Catholic school last October.

“I did my research,” said Paul, who works in a hospital. “I placed him where I thought he was in a safe, a warm and loving environment where I thought he would learn.”

What triggered the act of retaliation from Paul's end was Holian's nonchalance to the whole incident. Furthermore, Holian revealed in the March 4 meeting that he’d learned about the kneeling practice from the Nigerian father of a former student. “This father came in and said, ‘you’re going to apologize to this teacher the African way, and you’re going to get down on your knees and apologize.’ I’ve never seen that before,” Holian explained.

The headmaster said he then felt it’s an appropriate form of discipline for kids of any race.

Paul, who has hired a lawyer, said that Holian being placed on leave and investigating the matter is a “step in the right direction” for the school, but doesn’t go far enough.

“What else can happen where it doesn’t occur again to any other African-American or Haitian-American students there?”