Sing a Rhythm, Dance a Blues: Education for the Liberation of Black and Brown Girls

by Monique W. Morris

Overview

A groundbreaking and visionary call to action on educating and supporting girls of color, from the highly acclaimed author of Pushout

"Monique Morris is a personal shero of mine and a respected expert in this space."
—Ayanna Pressley, U.S. congresswoman and the first woman of color elected to Boston's city council

Wise Black women have known for centuries that the blues have been a platform for truth-telling, an underground musical railroad to survival, and an essential form of resistance, healing, and learning. In this “powerful call to action” (Rethinking Schools), leading advocate Monique W. Morris invokes the spirit of the blues to articulate a radically healing and empowering pedagogy for Black and Brown girls. Morris describes with candor and love what it looks like to meet the complex needs of girls on the margins.

Sing a Rhythm, Dance a Blues is a “vital, generous, and sensitively reasoned argument for how we might transform American schools to better educate Black and Brown girls” (San Francisco Chronicle). Morris brings together research and real life in this chorus of interviews, case studies, and the testimonies of remarkable people who work successfully with girls of color. The result is this radiant guide to moving away from punishment, trauma, and discrimination toward safety, justice, and genuine community in our schools.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620977262
Publisher:	New Press, The
Publication date:	08/02/2022
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	626,775
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Monique W. Morris, president/CEO of Grantmakers for Girls of Color and co-founder of the National Black Women’s Justice Institute, is the author of several books, including Pushout; Black Stats; Sing a Rhythm, Dance a Blues; and Charisma’s Turn (all from The New Press). Her work has been featured by NPR, the New York Times, MSNBC, Essence, The Atlantic, TED, the Washington Post, Education Week, and others. She lives in New York.

Table of Contents

Foreword Bettina L. Love xiii

Prelude 1

Introduction 3

Interlude: "You Have to Be Compassionate" 13

Track 1 Fit to Wear a Crown 17

Interlude: "They Are Survivors" 39

Track 2 God Bless the Child That's Got Her Own 43

Interlude: "I Want a Badass Girl" 83

Track 3 Cell Bound Blues 87

Interlude: "Are We Actually Trying to Be Here for Young People?" 107

Track 4 Nobody Knows My Name 111

Interlude: "Dance Is My Spirit Language" 139

Track 5 Shake Hands with the Devil, Make Him Crawl in the Sand 143

Interlude: "Listen to Them" 163

Track 6 "Today I'm with You … Ain't That Some Love" 165

Coda 179

Acknowledgments 183

Notes 187

Editorial Reviews

07/08/2019

Morris (Pushout), president and founder of the National Black Women’s Justice Institute, condenses decades of experience into a diagnosis and a prescription for an educational system she identifies as failing black and brown girls . Pointing to the prevalence of police in schools and recounting incidents of mistreatment, she argues that “punitive learning environments... have emerged in response to the prevailing racialized gender bias that criminalizes girls of color”; as one school resource officer tells her, “they are often perceived as... violent. If a girl of color challenges authority, it is deemed unacceptable.” Morris skillfully argues that, instead, schools need to create a healing environment where young people are still held to account: she proposes in-school rather than outright suspensions, in rooms with homework stations and couches; “encouragement to engage in advocacy and activism as part of their healing process”; restorative justice practices; mentorship that empowers young women to change their lives; and systemic oversight of schools that protects students’ rights. She gives detailed examples of alternatives to the current system that she has seen firsthand, for example the older black hall monitors in one school, lovingly referred to as “the grandmothers,” who render police presence unnecessary. This is a carefully crafted, heartfelt, solution-oriented source for educators and policy makers. Agent: Marie Brown, Marie Brown Associates. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Sing a Rhythm, Dance a Blues:
“A passionate manifesto.”
—Ms.

“A powerful call to action for educators, parents, administrators, and policymakers to reimagine what schools could look like when Black and Brown girls are placed at the center of conversation. . . . Morris makes a strong case for building relationships inside and outside of schools that recognize and celebrate the beauty and humanity of Black and Brown girls’ experiences.”
—Rethinking Schools

"Sing a Rhythm, Dance a Blues is a vital, generous and sensitively reasoned argument for how we might transform American schools to better educate black and brown girls. Nobody paying attention could honestly deny that we desperately need a kinder approach. Educators would be well-advised to consider Morris' humane strategies."
—San Francisco Chronicle Datebook

“A carefully crafted, heartfelt, solution-oriented source.”
—Publishers Weekly

"Sing a Rhythm, Dance a Blues is a brilliant and beautiful book. Drawing on rigorous scholarly analysis and deep engagement with the narratives of educational stakeholders, Morris articulates a lucid and audacious freedom dream for Black girls. Like an African rhythm, the book speaks to our souls and our feet, daring us to reimagine the world and demanding that we radically reshape our policy and practice. Like the blues, Morris's writing is compelling, honest, and raw, but brimming with hope. Anyone interested in the lives of Black girls must read, recommend, share, study, and teach this text!"
—Marc Lamont Hill, BET correspondent and author of Nobody

"Black girls are not often at the center of the stories we read. Monique Morris's work is a wonderful exception. Her passionate book explains how the real world—specifically schools—ignores, misreads, and mistreats us. This much-needed book is so important because it shows how Black and brown girls, with the help of the teachers and people who love them, can write new stories that replace the fiction about our worth, our abilities, and ourselves."
—Marley Dias, founder of #1000BlackGirlBooks and author of Marley Dias Gets It Done: And So Can You!

"Not many, if any, books detail how to uplift and heal Black and Brown girls in real time in ways that are loving, focused on thriving, and practical, but Monique W. Morris has done it. Through rich and vivid storytelling backed by data and research, Morris gives us a pedagogical road map to our own humanity as educators by way of empowering Black and Brown girls. Each chapter helps the reader find their song, so they can sing a rhythm for our girls."
—Bettina L. Love, author of We Want to Do More Than Survive

"Morris is a force and a light, and this book invigorates the soul. It should be required reading for all teachers and it's essential reading for anyone working to create a world where girls and women are truly liberated and loved."
—Susan Burton, founder of A New Way of Life and author of Becoming Ms. Burton

"With Pushout, Monique Morris brought the world to its knees and widened our eyes to see how systems have been designed to wrong our most vulnerable and brilliant young people. In Sing a Rhythm, Dance a Blues, she takes us on a deeper journey and offers us a way to reimagine schools and a path towards real solutions."
—Christopher Emdin, author of For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood

"This beautiful book fills me with hope that our schools and our society can learn to nurture the tremendous untapped potential of Black and Brown girls. Through compelling and powerful stories, Dr. Morris shows how to support girls facing huge challenges to succeed as students, as artists, or as activists—and at loving themselves."
—Naomi Wadler, activist and advocate for gun control

"Monique Morris's vision for our girls is powerfully expansive. She's an inspiration to me and to all of us working to unleash their infinite potential."
—Beverly Bond, celebrity DJ and founder of Black Girls Rock!

"Monique Morris is a personal shero of mine and a respected expert in this space."
—Ayanna Pressley, U.S. congresswoman

From the Publisher

06/28/2019

Morris (cofounder, National Black Women's Justice Inst.; Pushout) posits that many black and Latinx girls endure traumas including food insecurity, physical abuse, sexual exploitation, mental illness, and homelessness. Their responses are often seen as defiance rather than a form of critical thinking. Consequently, black and Latinx girls suffer higher rates of exclusionary punishment, which leads to incarceration, drug abuse, or sexual exploitation. Expanding on ideas outlined in her previous work, Morris offers specific examples of how schools can cultivate a climate of responsibility, accountability, and trust among students, teachers, and administrators. She demonstrates how police presence in schools doesn't foster safety among students, and argues that restorative justice, not isolation from educational opportunities, improves students' connections to the school community. Relying on volunteers committed to supporting the educational goals of the community and to easing trauma benefits both students and the community. VERDICT Readers with an interest in students' welfare will appreciate the author's insight and suggestions for providing safe, inclusionary schools for all.—Lydia Olszak, Bosler Memorial Lib., Carlisle, PA

Library Journal

2019-10-21
A field manual that shows how to keep black girls in school and out of prison.

Morris (Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools, 2016, etc.) begins with a promising idea: that blues songs are a musical underground railroad or conduit to freedom. The author, the co-founder of the National Black Women's Justice Institute, suggests that artists like Billie Holiday—whose work expresses both pain and power—can "help educators, parents, students, and community members reimagine schools as places that counter the criminalization of Black and Brown girls" or interrupt the school-to-prison pipeline that sets up those girls for lives stunted by incarceration. After her introduction, however, Morris uses the blues mainly as a clothesline on which she hangs an assortment of school-based strategies that foster "educational justice." Building on the ideas in Pushout, she argues that black female students are disproportionately harmed by exclusionary discipline measures like suspension and expulsion and need "safe learning spaces." In her most provocative chapter, she recommends removing police from schools and praises a San Diego school that instead uses older women (fondly called "the grandmothers") as proctors or hall monitors. Morris also favors restorative justice programs, transformative mentoring initiatives, and in-school suspensions in soothing rooms with "a Maker's Corner" that lets girls calm down with tactile activities. Useful as such tactics might be in some schools, the author can be a harsh judge of teachers whose methods she faults. The text is heavy on left-leaning educational jargon about such things as the "patriarchal, heteronormative, Eurocentric nature of most pedagogical approaches and academic content," which schools might buffer by offering weekly discussion groups "that engage girls in Black feminist theory." Morris is certainly right that teachers should examine their biases, but the presentation of her material may limit the audience to readers who work in education.

A forward-thinking vision likely to appeal most to school decision-makers with progressive views.

Kirkus Reviews