http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/03/23/471267584/the-untold-stories-of-black-girls
I’m sure no one has forgotten the video taken at Spring Valley High School in Columbia,
S.C., that went viral last fall when a school safety officer flips a desk to
the floor with a girl seated in it, then flings her across the floor. The
student is African-American; the officer is white. The officer was fired based
on the fallout surrounding the video, but Monique Morris, a scholar, author and
activist, was concerned about what else happens when the cameras are turned
off.
According to recent research black girls
are punished at school at rates that are even more disproportionate than those
experienced by black boys. They are suspended six times more often than white
girls. Morris calls this "a story untold," and she sets out to tell
it in her new book, Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in
Schools.
"When girls are labeled disruptive and suspended for being
'defiant' for asking questions, when this is seen not as a demonstration of
critical thinking but an affront to teacher authority ... girls begin to feel
that the emphasis is on how they look, what they're wearing, how they speak,
how loud they speak, rather than whether they're learning," say Morris. While
researching and reading reviews on the book, the girls were repeatedly saying,
'If you just put me out of school that doesn't solve the problem."
Therefore, the school systems need to do a better job at having fair rules and
a safe environment that protect all students regardless of race and gender.
