The Untold Stories of Black Girls

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.