Jordan McDowell: I was there taking a brand new course, which involved exploring pueblo lands and learning about Native American culture. We were there for about 2 weeks so I went to Allsup’s to get snacks and drinks — things that would last me for the rest of the time that I would be there. Once I got in, I walked around for nine minutes and after nine minutes one of the store clerks stopped me and said I was looking “sneaky” and “suspicious.” I told her there were other people in the store who were there just as long as me. And I asked, “Why aren’t you telling anybody else that?” Then another store clerk, who was watching me the whole time I was in there, came around and just started watching as we continued to talk back and forth.  And that store clerk tells me, “you need to go, you need to go.”  So I asked her, “Why do I need to go?” And she said, “Ok, you know what, I’m just calling the police.” And that’s when she told the dispatcher she wanted me out because I was “arrogant.” Because I was “black”.

 

 

Jordan McDowell: They came, but they said “well, we weren’t going to come, we weren’t taking this seriously.  This was just on the way, so we just stopped by and you came up to us,” which I did. As the car pulled up in the parking lot and parked, I walked up to the police car myself.

 

 

Jordan McDowell: The appropriate response for me would be just not coming in the first place because for me it was a traumatic experience — not just dealing with racism but getting the police called on me and thinking, “Okay they’re really coming and going to remove me from this store for being black.” I think just not responding to racial profiling instances would be the best bet.

 

 

Jordan McDowell: Oh yes, most definitely. I did a interview for the university I go to in New Orleans and that’s one of the reasons I gave for why I’m so willing to speak up and speak out. I was always taught that my voice is the the most powerful thing that I have and nobody can take it from me. I have to speak up because there are people like Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice who were racially profiled and didn’t live to tell their side of the story.  I have to tell my side of the story and I have to let the public know that not only is this not okay, it never will be okay.

 

 

Jordan McDowell: It really opened my eyes up to the world. I mean I always knew it, but this incident really showed me there’s still a lot of racism in this country.  It’s one thing to see it and it’s another thing to actually deal with it and go through it. I think for the rest of my life this experience is going to be with me.

 

 

Jordan McDowell: I want to see that this type of situation doesn’t happen ever again to African Americans where they go into a store and walk out feeling the way I felt, really questioning did I do something wrong?  You should never question if being African American in this country is wrong. You should never be made to feel like you did something wrong because of your skin color. I want this to be a stepping stone for people to understand this will never be tolerated and it’s never right.  And for all African Americans out there going through this, your voice is the most powerful thing that you have and just like me you have to use it. 

When the girl affirmed that she did like her braids, Ms. Eastin replaced her box cutter with a pair of scissors, grabbed one of the girl’s braids and cut three inches off the end, scattering the hair on the desk in front of her.

 

“We couldn’t believe what just happened,” said McKenzie. “She cut it really slowly. She had thick hair so you could hear the scissors cutting through every strand. Everybody was looking around at each other like, ‘Was that real? Did that really just happen?’”

 

Ms. Eastin left the girl to sweep up her hair from the desk with her hands while holding back tears and continued administering quizzes as if nothing was amiss, calling on students and distributing treats and dog food. As she called upon students, if they were dressed in a costume, she would inquire what they were dressed as. When she came to McKenzie, she shined the light on her face and, seeing her makeup, asked, “What are you supposed to be? A bloody Indian?”

 

“I was just in shock,” said McKenzie. “You could hear the whole class gasp, and they all looked at me waiting for my reaction.”

 

Ms. Eastin, registering the students’ shock, asked “What? She’s bloody and she’s an…,” stopping short of finishing her sentence, allowing her racist comments to linger.

 

After the class was dismissed, McKenzie sought out the other Native American student whose hair Ms. Eastin cut to see if she was okay, but she had already fled to the bathroom to cry.

 

News of the incident quickly spread to the school’s Native American student club sponsor, who gathered McKenzie and the second student to report the teacher’s actions to the school administration. After hearing McKenzie’s account of what transpired, the principal placed Ms. Eastin on administrative leave while they investigated her actions.

 

McKenzie’s mother Shannon was incredulous when the principal called her to inform her about the incident.

 

“This is still happening in this day and age?,” said Shannon. “It was unbelievable. I had thought we had surpassed that. You know, this is my baby. We thought she was going to graduate without incident. To hear this about a teacher treating a child like this, it was maddening.”

 

This incident was especially painful given the historical and cultural context of the teacher’s actions. In most Native American cultures, hair is considered sacred and non consensual cutting of hair is an especially humiliating violation. Through much of the 20th century, the U.S. government routinely tore Native children away from their parents and placed them in boarding schools where their hair was cut as part of a campaign of forced assimilation and cultural erasure. It was doubly painful when a large portion of McKenzie’s classmates and community demonstrated a stunning level of ignorance of these issues, failing to recognize the seriousness of Eastin’s racist remarks and physical assault. In the ensuing weeks, McKenzie and other Native students were bombarded on social media with angry messages from their peers.

 

“There was a whole bunch of backlash,” said McKenzie. “A lot of the people I knew since middle school were calling me, saying ‘Why did you have to speak out over such a little bit of hair, just because she called you a name?’ It was a lot of loss of trust and friendship at that time. I felt really isolated, like everyone was talking about me.”

 

Despite the backlash, McKenzie didn’t allow herself to be deterred from standing up for herself and other Native students. Drawing strength from her family, community, and spiritual tradition, she and her mother stood face to face with the administration and school board to demand a formal apology from the teacher, a safety plan for her and the other affected student, and an enhanced school curriculum that better covers Native American culture and history. In open meetings before the school board, local community members packed the room to express their support and outrage, echoing the Johnsons’ demands for improved cultural competency training for Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) staff.

 

Strong feelings from the community were driven in part by the fact that the incident at Cibola High School was not isolated, but rather part of a pattern of systemic racism in the district spanning decades. In one especially egregious incident from the previous year, two Volcano Vista High School students racially harassed their African American classmates by posting a doctored photo to social media that superimposed Ku Klux Klan hoods over a photo of everyone in the class but the African American students.

 

A concerned family member of another Native American student at Cibola reached out to the ACLU of New Mexico and made the connection with the Johnson family. After learning more details about the incident, the ACLU of New Mexico offered to represent them. The ACLU of New Mexico organized a meeting with the Johnsons, along with other community members concerned with how Native Americans and other students of color have been treated by APS. The group  raised a number of concerns including APS’ failure to properly recognize Native American Heritage Month and ensure that teachers do not assign reading materials with derogatory references to Native Americans without contextualizing them within the nation’s history of racism or violent displacement of Native Americans.

 

In response to the community’s concerns, the ACLU of New Mexico sent a letter to the APS superintendent demanding that, in addition to taking immediate action by issuing a formal apology and creating a safety plan for McKenzie and the other native student involved, APS implement new policies and procedures to ensure that students can attend school in a safe environment where they are treated with dignity and respect, free from all forms of violence and discrimination. Furthermore, the ACLU of New Mexico demanded that APS implement broader recognition of Native American Heritage Month, cultural competency training for all APS administrators, teachers, and staff, and antioppression curricula for middle school and high school students addressing the harm of racism.

 

“New Mexico is home to 23 Native American tribes, all of which remain a vibrant part of our state’s culture, economy, and collective spirit,” said ACLU of New Mexico Legal Director Leon Howard. “The City of Albuquerque is bounded by two pueblos to its north and south, and our schools are built upon Native land. We absolutely must ensure that Native American students not only feel safe at school, but are confident that their culture, history, and personal dignity are valued and respected by the schools they attend.“

 

Shortly following the ACLU’s letter and the public protests at school board meetings, APS announced that it had “severed” its relationship with Ms. Eastin, but allowed her to remain on the school’s payroll to exhaust her paid leave before retiring. By the time of this article’s publication, the ACLU of New Mexico will have also filed a legal complaint with the New Mexico Human Rights Bureau asking for a determination that public school students are protected from discrimination under the New Mexico Human Rights Act.

 

“These incidents not only prevent students from receiving an equal education; they’re dehumanizing and life altering,” said Howard. “They send a message to students of color that their lives don’t matter and that their schools will not protect them. We’re fighting to establish a clear precedent that our state antidiscrimination protections extend to students in public schools. We’re putting schools everywhere in our state on notice that they have an obligation to create safe and equitable learning environments for Native students and other students of color.”