Pushout (8 page)

Today, Black girls across the country are struggling to make meaning of their status as Black, female, and disproportionately represented in high-poverty, low-performing schools. They use terms like “ghetto” or “ratchet” to describe their condition and are actively engaged in the creation of counternarratives that allow them to move through life with dignity—but it's not easy.

Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron note in
Reproduction in Society, Education and Culture
, “Every power which manages to impose meanings and to impose them as legitimate by concealing the power relations which are the basis of its force, adds its own specifically symbolic force to those power relations.”
⁶⁵
Schools serve a greater social function than simply developing the rote skills of children and adolescents. As Black girls become adolescents, the influence of schools is critical to their socialization. This is especially important given that schools often serve as surrogates for influences that might otherwise be lacking in the lives of economically and socially marginalized children. Coupled with increasingly rampant suspensions and expulsions and a minimal emphasis (in both curriculum and school climate) on cultural competency, trauma sensitivity, or gender responsiveness,
too many of our schools—both those in the community and those operating in penal environments—marginalize Black girls, especially if their curiosity and critical thinking are misconstrued as a challenge to authority.

Asking the Tough Questions

By the time I met fifteen-year-old Faith in a juvenile detention school classroom, I was already aware of how educational and juvenile justice systems routinely fail our girls (a subject explored further in Chapter 4). We were talking about the types of programs that she would like to see implemented in her community when she slumped in her chair and let her fingers trace the perimeter of the desk. Then she asked me an important question.

“You know how they say this is a man's world?” she asked.

I nodded and replied, “Yep.”

“I don't like that,” she said, staring into my eyes.

“Neither do I,” I said softly.

We shared a nervous laugh, but then I asked, “I know why it bothers
me
,” I said. “But why does it bother
you
?”

“Because I feel like . . . it shouldn't be just one person's world. Like, what you mean, it's a man's world? Like, what does a strong girl get out of that? Like, how is this a
man's
world? I just don't get it. I feel like it should be equal, and I don't feel like that's equal. I feel like boys . . . men got more rights than girls, and that shouldn't be right.”

In Faith's eyes—and her words—was a rejection of patriarchy and the idea that she was inferior just because she had been born a Black girl. All around her were signs that she was supposed to adhere to an imposed hierarchy reinforcing that she was less important than adults, less important than boys, less important than kids who came from families with money, and—because of her sexual identity, which she described as gay—less important than heterosexual girls. Faith was fighting not just for her right to
voice her opinions but also to be seen and respected. All while being a Black girl and a ward of the court.

As we talked, I noticed the posters in the classroom. My eyes roved over the letters and posters above the whiteboard until they settled on one in particular, a photograph of President Obama and his family. In that picture, the Obamas look “official”—clustered together, well dressed, and smiling directly into the camera. There they were, a Black family of the highest privilege. Most Black Americans looked upon that photo with great pride, particularly in 2012, when Obama was beginning his second term as president. But at that moment, all I could see was their juxtaposition to Faith and other girls like her who had suffered from a lifetime of neglect and harm—so much so that they had learned to do harmful things to other people. The Obamas' smiles felt inappropriate in an institution that provided so little response to girls with such significant needs. In that juvenile hall, the image and the privilege it represented felt unreal, out of touch, and unfair.

For Faith, whose prominent tattoos displayed a nickname given to her by a deceased loved one, prospects for employment would be complicated and radically different than the young women who smiled down at her from the photograph hanging in that detention center classroom. Even their manifestation of “family” was different from the reality for the girl sitting with me and describing her experience of being expelled from eighth grade for trying to create a family by “making a gang.”

Faith vehemently opposed being treated like she was an inferior human being, and she rejected structures that supported this treatment as legitimate. In her, I recognized a spark that could initiate a vision for making conditions equitable for girls, but it was hidden behind a lot of pain.

I asked her what she felt would improve her experiences in juvenile hall. “They should make this a learning environment to make you understand that [juvenile hall] ain't the place. And I
feel like, they say they making this seem like it ain't the place by making it harder. That just make it
hard
. It don't make it that I don't want to come back here, 'cause half the time, people still come back. . . . I just feel like, you should make it helpful. . . . They don't make it helpful by making it hard on people, 'cause you got it hard out [in the community], too.”

Faith felt that the institutions with which she was most familiar—schools, juvenile detention centers, group homes, and social service agencies—were, individually and collectively, intentionally disruptive to her ability to establish self-worth and to her ability to challenge those whose actions she felt were oppressive.

“If it's a student and teacher, the student's automatically in trouble, 'cause it's the teacher. Like jail, if it's an argument with me and staff, I feel like, I'm going to lose, period. 'Cause I damn near don't have rights no more 'cause I'm in jail. So I feel like, in school, if you get in an argument with a teacher, you damn near lost, 'cause that's her job. You know? I see if the teacher was like beating on you or being like racist or something like that, or homophobic or something like that. But most of the time, over an argument, you out. It's his class. Like, get out! They won automatic. Like I feel like they go off the teacher first, before they go off the child. 'Cause, like, you a child! I don't give a damn about being no child. You still not going to talk to me that way. I feel like, I don't go off 'cause you an adult. I'm a child? I shut up? No. I feel like, I'm human, you human, so I talk just like you talk. If you disrespectful, I'm going to be disrespectful too. . . .

“I'm human. Just a human being, like this whole world . . . and then, I feel like, when you question somebody, it's wrong 'cause [they're] an adult. I feel like, why I can't ask a question? 'cause you an adult? What do ‘adult' mean? Like, that don't mean nothing to me. That's just a word to me. That don't mean nothing to me . . . I'm supposed to shut up and not ask questions? I can ask questions if I want to. That's why I got a mouth. My auntie and my godmama said, if you don't get it, or you don't understand, you ask a
question. And that's what I do, I ask the question. And I always do that. I always question. And then sometimes, teachers get mad off of that. Questioning them about why they doing this in they classroom or why they doing that . . . I don't understand how you get frustrated off of a question if I'm not being disrespectful . . . why you get mad?”

Faith's curiosity was infectious. Why do adults get mad when strong girls ask questions?

“They say I'm disrespectful. That's my label,
disrespectful
, 'cause I always got something to say. . . . [They keep] telling me, ‘Sometimes you got to bite your tongue.' . . . I don't know how to do that, though.”

2

A BLUES FOR BLACK GIRLS WHEN THE “ATTITUDE” IS ENUF

             
Little Sally Walker, sitting in a saucer.

             
Rise, Sally, Rise! Wipe your weeping eyes,

             
Put your hands on your hips, and let your backbone slip . . .

I
n 2007, six-year-old Desre'e Watson was placed in handcuffs by the Avon Park Police Department for having a bad tantrum in her Florida classroom. According to the police, Desre'e was kicking and scratching, which presented a threat to the safety of others in the school, specifically her classmates and her teacher. According to police chief Frank Mercurio, “When there is an outburst of violence, we have a duty to protect and make that school a safe environment for the students, staff and faculty. That's why, at this point, the person was arrested regardless what [
sic
] the age.”
¹

When Desre'e was arrested, she became a symbol of all that was wrong with zero-tolerance policies in the United States. Despite her petite, six-year-old frame, Desre'e was perceived as a threat to public safety. Many were outraged, but most seemed to dismiss it as an isolated incident. Then other incidents began to reach the media.

In 2012, six-year-old Salecia Johnson was arrested in Georgia for throwing books, toys, and wall hangings, amounting to a “tantrum” that was again determined by the school authorities to be an incident worthy of police intervention.
²
Not only was Salecia handcuffed during this “horrifying” incident, she was actually hauled
to the police station, an experience that left the kindergartner—according to her mother, Constance Ruff—waking at night screaming, “They're coming to get me!”
³
This episode was followed by one in 2013 involving eight-year-old Jmiyha Rickman, an autistic child who suffered from depression and separation anxiety.
⁴
Her hands, feet, and waist were restrained when she was arrested in her Illinois elementary school after throwing a “bad tantrum” and allegedly trying to hit a school resource officer.
⁵
Following her removal from campus, Jmiyha—despite her special needs—was held in the police car for almost two hours. And there were others—most of which did not make the nightly news.

Today, Black children are 18 percent of preschool enrollment, but 42 percent of preschool-age children who have had one out-of-school suspension, and 48 percent of preschool-age children who have experienced more than one out-of-school suspension.
⁶
Between 2002 and 2006, per-district suspension rates of Black girls increased by 5.3 percent compared to a 1.7 percent increase for Black boys.
⁷
Among the nation's ten highest-suspending school districts, Black girls with one or more disability experienced the highest suspension rate of all girls.
⁸

The experiences of Desre'e, Salecia, and Jmiyha represent the worst and most egregious applications of punitive school disciplinary practices. However, from coast to coast, Black girls tell stories of being pushed out of school and criminalized for falling asleep, standing up for themselves, asking questions, wearing natural hair, wearing revealing clothing, and in some cases engaging in unruly (although not criminal or delinquent) acts in school—mostly because what constitutes a threat to safety is dangerously subjective when Black children are involved.

What's happening is about more than whether or not girls are sitting in the back of a police car because of a tantrum. This chapter explores the discipline disparities that affect Black girls, and the gaps that are generally fueled by three core issues: the perceived “bad attitude” of Black girls, zero-tolerance policies and other
highly punitive school practices relying on instruments of surveillance that conflate student conflict with criminal activity, and the criminalization of Black girls' appearance, absent any actions or behaviors that threaten the safety of students or teachers on campus.

“They're Not Docile”

I once asked a classroom of college students how they would describe the Black girl “attitude.”

“Neck rolling,” one student yelled out.

“Eye-rolling, finger snapping,” said another student.

“Just ghetto,” said another.

It's infamous, that attitude. Even as you read this—no matter your race, background, or ethnicity—your mind is likely floating toward an image of a brown-skinned young woman with her arms folded, lips pursed, and head poised to swivel as she gives a thorough “eye-reading” and then settles into either an eye roll or a teeth-sucking dismissal. Or maybe you imagined her head tilted, her eyebrows raised, and her hands on her hips (one or two, depending on the circumstance). Or possibly you envisioned her face with a scowl, her lips slightly turned up to show just a few teeth.

Across the country, the student identity of Black girls is often filtered, assessed, and understood through how much “attitude” she gives to others around her. Discussed as if it were as concrete as eye or hair color, the Black girl “attitude” cannot be defined by some set of static traits or actions. For the purposes of this book, the “attitude” is an open inquiry, one that informs not only how adults engage with Black girls but also how these girls identify themselves as young people and as students.

bell hooks explored the attitude as a complicated component of Black femininity, characterized in the public domain as Sapphire, a character on
The Amos 'n' Andy Show
from the 1940s and 1950s.
⁹
In these broadcasts, Sapphire was nagging and combative with her husband, Kingfish. Their relationship reinforced a narrative about Black femininity as dominant, overbearing, and unreasonably
demanding of Black men—an idea that stands directly in opposition to the norms of what White femininity is supposed to be, which is passive, frail, and deferential to men. Both notions are incorrect and harmful exaggerations.

The angry Black woman meme—a neck-rolling, finger-in-your-face, hands-on-hips posturing—is at the center of the public misunderstanding of what it means to be Black and female in America. In schools, this misunderstanding sometimes manifests when girls speak their opinion, especially when it is unsolicited, or if they stand up for themselves when they feel that they have been disrespected by peers or by adults. When relationships between students and teachers are poor, Black girls may exhibit any number of behaviors that openly signal their dissatisfaction, including yelling at or using profanity with the teacher. Marcus, an administrator at a California high school, commented on a scenario in which girls could and do receive a disciplinary referral.

“I get referrals for the simplest reasons,” he said. “For a girl yelling, ‘I don't understand!' a teacher replying, ‘Did you come to school to learn?' earning the retort, ‘You come to school to teach?' . . . You know, our babies can be kind of snappy, so the way [they] say it, you know, it might have an expletive in there somewhere. And I mean, just overall, it's just that . . . The sisters bring a lot of attention to themselves. . . . They're not docile.”

Our babies can be kind of snappy.
By itself, this statement reflects the assumption that Black girls communicate in a way that is biting and provocative. The suggestion that girls' tones must be mediated and their questions made less incisive in order to be tolerated in the classroom is both problematic and sexist. That the comment was made by a well-meaning African American administrator reflects the pervasive and internalized nature of the “angry Black woman” cliché, which serves no one particularly well. Most often in this type of exchange, we're left with a stand-off that leaves both the student and teacher harmed. It usually ends with the removal of the student from the classroom, thus beginning or
continuing a negative school experience that can have lasting effects on her relationship with teachers, her faith in her ability to perform well academically, and her commitment to school. In this case, the young woman was removed from the classroom, but should her learning really be interrupted because of her sarcasm? Because of her “attitude”? Because she is not docile?

Students participate in constructing the school climate from the moment they walk through the door. How they see themselves reflected (or not) in the material and how they experience (or don't) a welcoming reception into their learning environment, both the classroom and the school in general, all influence whether a young woman responds to others in a way that she believes is respectful. Because children co-create their learning environments—they either choose to abide by stated rules or work in ways to circumvent them, discreetly or overtly—they are active players in their own socialization, and in the socialization of teachers. Toss that dynamic in with interpretation and effective communication, and it means teaching is hard work. So is learning.

When the teacher asked, “Did you come here to learn?” it may have been heard as a challenge to the girl's willingness to participate in reproducing that school's social norms, or worse, a challenge to her perceived interest in learning as measured by whatever characteristics that teacher may have been using (the student's chattiness, for example). Her reaction, “Did you come here to teach?” called into question the teacher's effectiveness and commitment to her education. The implications of “Did you come here to learn?” might have triggered a feeling of inadequacy in the girl from her previous experiences in the classroom. Instead of saying, “Did you come here to learn?” the teacher could have phrased it as “Listen, your education is important. How can I help you focus on what we're learning so that you can have your best chance to succeed?” This could have been followed by intervention and accountability processes that do not include a referral to the dean but rather elevate the collective responsibility in the classroom
and the unconditional belief that all students possess an ability to succeed. Of course, that's a reimagining of this incident—but it's not as utopian as it may seem. Schools are modeling this kind of love every day, when they believe that the children they teach are worth it.

At another alternative school in California—let's call it Small Alternative High—a new Black girl was being introduced to the classroom. She had been waiting to be shown to her desk for at least twenty minutes and was growing impatient with the entire process. I quietly watched as she grew more and more upset that staff members at the school were mispronouncing her name. Finally, after another mispronunciation, she became visibly agitated—folding her arms, sucking her teeth, and rolling her eyes. In other words, she was developing what some would perceive as an attitude.

“Y'all wanna call me every name under the sun!” she said, raising her voice.

Two teachers instantly responded to her. One quickly apologized for mispronouncing her name, explaining that her family was from a town in the South with a similarly spelled name, and that her inclination was to pronounce the name as it is pronounced in her hometown. “I'm sorry,” she said after completing her explanation.

Meanwhile, the other teacher repeated, “It's okay . . . we're all human.”

The girl's shoulders began to relax until she finally lowered her arms, nodded, and continued to work toward getting acclimated to her new learning environment. In this instance, teachers demonstrated compassion and effective communication, and were able to defuse a situation that could have become hostile. They saw her agitation and recognized her need to feel respected. She, in turn, responded by accepting their apology.

In some instances, the expressive nature of Black girls appears to fuel student-teacher conflict—particularly an almost instinctual
need to get back at someone when they feel disrespected. Mia talked about this in the context of her own experiences in class.

“Us Black girls, like, if we don't get it, we're going to tell you,” Mia said. “If we don't feel that it's right, we're going to tell you. Where everybody else want to be quiet, it's like, no . . . we're going to speak up, we're going to speak what's on our mind.”

On the other hand, teachers who felt successful with their students attribute their success to connecting with students beyond the classroom. At Small Alternative High, more than sixty students were collected in a large classroom, sitting in front of computers, while three teachers roamed to answer questions and work in small groups as necessary. The school's walls were covered with inspirational quotes from prominent African American historical figures such as Malcolm X and Rosa Parks. Small Alternative High was, in many ways, a laboratory for educating students who have been marginalized by a traditional educational experience, combining individual instruction in an independent-study atmosphere with small-group activities. Students attended school for either a morning session or an afternoon session, depending on their schedules. Such flexibility supported student retention and completion of credits, particularly for students who may have a history of truancy, incarceration, pregnancy, or addiction. Nancy, a lead teacher from this school, observed that given the plethora of issues that affect a student's performance, “the teacher has to teach more than just the curriculum.” She offered, “In my experience, the young ladies that are having trouble and going through the justice system because they've been in trouble, a lot of it is because they didn't feel success in school.” Indeed, education is a critical protective factor in the lives of girls.

“If they had something . . . if their self-esteem was better because they were feeling success, I don't think they would have made those choices that they made,” Nancy continued. “Their biggest academic hurdle is self-esteem . . . [I teach] high school. I've got to talk about what I see as a teacher. Ninth-grade boys are
exuberant. They're full of energy. They're dominating the conversation. They're just ‘out there.' Girls in the ninth grade have a lot more insecurities about puberty and [are preoccupied with the question] ‘Do the boys like me?' You know, there's a whole lot of social things that are happening with boys and girls that are different but that certainly impact each other in the classroom. . . . The boys get most of the attention. The girls are marginalized, which I think affects their self-esteem. . . . To feel more confident, sometimes they'll act out to try to get more attention, but a lot of times it goes in a negative way.”