A Virginia school is under fire after it was revealed that a group of white boys pinned down their Black classmate and cut off her locs as they mocked her as “nappy” and “ugly.”
According to WUSA 9, the disturbing incident reportedly took place Monday, at Immanuel Christian School, a private K-12 academy where Vice President Mike Pence’s wife is a teacher.
“They kept laughing and calling me names,” 12-year-old Amari Allen recalled as tears streamed down her face. “They called me ugly, said I shouldn’t have been born. They called me an attention-seeker.”
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The straight-A student said she was on the playground preparing to go down a slide when the trio of 6th grade boys launched into the racially charged attacked her. She claims one of them grabbed her and put his hand over her mouth while an accomplice held her down. That’s when third attacker pulled out a pair of scissors and began cutting off chunks of her medium-length locs while calling her names and chastising her for being nappy.
“They ran off laughing, and I was just sitting there,” Allen said.
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The frightened child didn’t tell her family about the attack until Wednesday, when her grandmother noticed that her hair looked different.
“It’s very painful,” said her grandmother, Cynthia Allen. “I want to see them dismissed from the school. I want to see something done.”
“We take seriously the emotional and physical well-being of all of our students, and have a zero-tolerance policy for any kind of bullying or abuse,” said Head of School Stephen Danish. “We’re deeply disturbed by the allegations being made, and are in communication with the family of the alleged victim to gather information and provide whatever support we can.”
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While the school issued a statement stating that the academy has a zero-tolerance policy for bullying, Allen says these same three boys had targeted her previously, taking away her lunch and calling her names. And this latest attack lasted approximately five minutes with no interference from faculty.
Allen’s family met with school officials Thursday but said no one has given them any real clarity on what actions will be taken against the boys. And when they went to officials with the latest allegations, FOX 5 D.C. reports the Christian school “asked them not to post about incident on social media and asked them to pray about this so it can be handled the ‘Godly way.’”