RAS TOO STR8

RASTA EXPELLED FOR BEING STRAIGHT? – Man claims classmates made advances at him

Crystal Harrison, Star Writer
A 35-year-old rastafarian male student is claiming that he was expelled from his school because he is heterosexual.

Vavadean Dennis recently told THE STAR that in a class of about 24 male students, he was pressured by a group in the class who constantly made sexual advances at him.

“About 20 times dem mek sexual advances at me and a tell me seh I must change my heterosexual ways. I got expelled because dem call me into a meeting and they didn’t even ask me anything, dem just start attacking me saying that mi come fi mash down di school.”

THE STAR understands that Dennis who is pursuing a certificate in plumbing at a Kingston training institute, had several confrontations with administrators at the school.

However, it climaxed last Thursday as he was called in a meeting and told to apologise to his teacher for some recent disrespectful remarks; failing to apologise, Dennis was given a one-week suspension.

compromising position

“Just because me tell dem seh mi nuh want nuh man feel me up, di teacher run me out of the class. When I am in class doing my work, there is a group of guys who try to get me in a compromising position. There was this one time, this 18-year-old youth tried to come up between my legs and so I had to create a scene in the class and all of a sudden mi hear dem a seh mi refer to my teacher as ‘teacher bwoy’.”

He further stated, “sometimes you will look over one side of the classroom and you will see some of the boys exposing them private parts. There was this other time, this next male student was wheezing in my ears, dem even threaten me saying that dem ago hurt me and I want to know if the teachers dem never hear that.”

“I was expelled. Dem call me inna a meeting saying that they are giving me an ultimatum and that I should apologise to the teacher and to the class but I don’t do anything, and I don’t see dem doing anything about these boys who are making sexual advances at me.”

In the meantime, when contact was made with the coordinator at the school, she told us that Dennis was not expelled, instead he was asked to apologise to his teacher and given one-week suspension.

“Dennis is a student who can manage his schoolwork, however, the only problem we have with him is that he is extremely homophobic. Once you are a part of any school you have to interact with other students, and if a male student even walk too close to him, it is a problem and he starts to behave boisterous. It is not the first time a rastafarian has enrolled in the school, but this is the first time we have had complaints about homosexuals causing trouble at our school. We have no evidence of what Dennis is complaining about.

She further lamented, “He needs help, we have tried with him. We are here to help and offer training; but we cannot offer more than what we were equipped to offer. He needs some psychiatric help.”