Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in SchoolsOn the day fifteen-year-old Diamond from the Bay Area stopped going to school, she was expelled for lashing out at peers who constantly harassed and teased her for something everyone on the staff had missed: she was being trafficked for sex. After months on the run, she was arrested and sent to a detention center for violating a court order to attend school. Black girls represent 17 percent of female students but almost half of all girls with a school-related arrest. The first trade book to tell these untold stories,Pushout exposes a world of confined potential and supports the growing movement to address the policies, practices, and cultural illiteracy that push countless students out of school and into unhealthy, unstable, and often unsafe futures. For four years Monique W. Morris, the author of Black Stats, chronicled the experiences of black girls across the country whose intricate lives are misunderstood, highly judged—by teachers, administrators, and the justice system—and degraded by the very institutions charged with helping them flourish. Morris also shows how, despite obstacles, stigmas, stereotypes, and despair, black girls still find ways to breathe remarkable dignity into their lives in classrooms, juvenile facilities, and beyond. |
Contents
INTRODUCTION | 1 |
1 STRUGGLING TO SURVIVE | 16 |
2A BLUES FOR BLACK GIRLS WHEN THE ATTITUDE IS ENUF | 56 |
3 JEZEBEL IN THE CLASSROOM | 96 |
4 LEARNING ON LOCKDOWN | 135 |
5 REPAIRING RELATIONSHIPS REBUILDING CONNECTIONS | 170 |
EPILOGUE | 195 |
APPENDIX A GIRLS WE GOT YOU | 198 |
Resources and Programs for African American Girls | 220 |
APPENDIX B ALTERNATIVES TO PUNISHMENT | 222 |
METHODOLOGY | 243 |
ACKNOWL EDGMENTS | 247 |
NOTES | 250 |
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Common terms and phrases
academic adults African American ain’t asked Black female Black femininity Black girls Black women boys California Center Chicago Chicago Public Schools classroom Claudette Colvin color criminal legal system culturally competent delinquency Department of Education develop didn’t district dress code engage exclusionary discipline experience feel fight gender ghetto go to school harm high school human trafficking hypersexual Ibid identity impact important incarceration institutions Jennifer Juanita juvenile court school juvenile hall kids law enforcement learning environment Leila look Nala narratives National norms okay opportunity parents pathways PBIS percent person Positive Behavioral Interventions programs punishment punitive pushout race racial relationships Research response Restorative Justice restorative practices school discipline school-based sex trafficking sexually exploited social stuff suspension talk teach teacher there’s they’re things tion triggered U.S. Department understand W.E.B. Du Bois wear what’s White women and girls y’all you’re young women youth