Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in SchoolsFifteen-year-old Diamond stopped going to school the day 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. Just 16 percent of female students, Black girls make up more than one-third 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, 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 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
| 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 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 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 oppression parents pathways PBIS percent person policies Positive Behavioral Interventions poverty programs punishment punitive pushout question race racial relationships Research response Restorative Justice restorative practices school discipline school-based sex trafficking sexually exploited social stuff suspension talk teach teacher things tion triggered U.S. Census Bureau U.S. Department understand victimization W.E.B. Du Bois wear women and girls young women youth