Little Rashad Hunter, an honor roll student at Greenwood Elementary School in Bessemer, Alabama, was facing suspension from his school because of a part in his hair.

Keisha Rembert, Rashad’s mother, told Birmingham’s WBRC FOX 6 NEWS that her son called her to tell her that he was being suspended from school. His mother had the following to say:

He was walking with his head down, when I saw him he was like teary-eyed at first because he doesn’t want to be suspended for no part in his head. I told him, ‘Don’t hold your head down…continue to make these A’s and B’s because that part is nothing.

Although the school has opted not to suspend the child, this marks another example of the many demoralizing tactics that schools will use against Black children, particularly Black boys.

B. Clark