Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools

by Monique Couvson

Overview

The “powerful” (Michelle Alexander) exploration of the harsh and harmful experiences confronting Black girls in schools, and how we can instead orient schools toward their flourishing

On the day fifteen-year-old Diamond from the Bay Area stopped going to school, 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.

In a work that Lisa Delpit calls “imperative reading,” Monique W. Morris chronicles the experiences of Black girls across the country whose complex lives are misunderstood, highly judged—by teachers, administrators, and the justice system—and degraded by the very institutions charged with helping them flourish. Painting “a chilling picture of the plight of black girls and women today” (The Atlantic), Morris exposes a world of confined potential and supports the rising movement to challenge the policies, practices, and cultural illiteracy that push countless students out of school and into unhealthy, unstable, and often unsafe futures.

At a moment when Black girls are the fastest growing population in the juvenile justice system, Pushout is truly a book “for everyone who cares about children” (Washington Post).

Book cover photograph by Brittsense/brittsense.com.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620970942
Publisher:	New Press, The
Publication date:	03/29/2016
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	404,246
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Monique Couvson (formerly 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 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

Introduction 1

1 Struggling to Survive 16

2 A 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

A Q & A for Girls, Parents, Community Members, and Educators 198

Resources for African American Girls 220

Appendix B Alternatives to Punishment 222

Methodology 243

Acknowledgments 247

Notes 250

Editorial Reviews

01/18/2016
The school-to-prison pipeline has been examined largely for how it affects men, but Morris, cofounder of the National Black Women’s Justice Institute, shifts our focus to the deleterious impact on African-American girls in racially isolated, high-poverty, low-performing schools. Morris examines the zero- tolerance policies (“the primary driver of an unscrupulous school-based reliance on law enforcement”), coupled with the increased police presence and surveillance tools (e.g., metal detectors and bag check stations) to show their effects on African-American girls. Through the voices of young girls themselves, she conveys their experiences with teachers and staff at school and in the juvenile correction facilities. She is particularly attentive to the sexual exploitation and abuse of girls, including transgender and special-needs girls. Morris’s work, buttressed by appalling statistics and scholarly studies, is supplemented by two useful appendices (“A Q&A for Girls, Parents, Community Members, and Educators,” “Alternatives to Punishment”) and a list of community resources. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

“A powerful indictment of the cultural beliefs, policies, and practices that criminalize and dehumanize Black girls in America, coupled with thoughtful analysis and critique of the justice work that must be done at the intersection of race and gender.”

—Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow

“If you ever doubted that Supremacy Crimes—those devoted to maintaining hierarchy—are rooted in both sex and race, read Pushout. Monique Morris tells us exactly how schools are crushing the spirit and talent that this country needs.”

—Gloria Steinem

“This book is imperative reading, not only for educators and those in the justice system but—perhaps especially—for anyone who loves and sleeps down the hall from a young, developing African American woman.”

—Lisa Delpit, author of “Multiplication Is for White People” and Other People’s Children

“A dynamic call to action. Black girls’ exposure to being pushed out of school and set on paths to incarceration, physical and economic insecurity, and social marginality is so movingly set forth by Morris that it can no longer be ignored. Pushout is essential reading for all who believe that Black lives matter.”

—Kimberlé Crenshaw, co-editor of Critical Race Theory and co-author of the reports “Say Her Name” and “Black Girls Matter”

“At a moment when footage of institutional assaults on young Black men emerges with a horrifying regularity comes a timely and indispensable look at the often invisible oppression of girls of color. Pushout blazes with the voices of young women fighting for their dignity, safety, and the fundamental right to a future.”

—Nell Bernstein, author of Burning Down the House and All Alone in the World

“Despite increased attention to the mass and over-incarceration of Black men, the plight of criminalized Black women and girls is overlooked, underreported, and underanalyzed. Finally, a compelling narrative that tells us the heartrending story of how schools are culpable in re-victimizing some of our most vulnerable citizens. This is a must-read for educators, juvenile justice officials, parents, and the entire community.”

—Gloria Ladson-Billings, Kellner Family Distinguished Chair in Urban Education, University of Wisconsin–Madison

“Morris’s sharp analysis and the compassionate way she contextualizes these stories will surely compel readers to take action against the injustices that Black girls experience in schools and beyond.”

—Beth E. Richie, author of Arrested Justice

“A road map for educators and policymakers who want to address the unique ways in which black girls are placed in the school-to-prison pipeline.”

—Erica L. Green, The New York Times

From the Publisher

03/15/2016
Let's face it—for a large portion of our 18-and-under population, school is not the place they'd choose to be. While most kids do still attend, a number drop out. As Morris (cofounder, National Black Women's Justice Inst.; Black Stats) writes, school can be a hostile environment, especially for black girls, where cultural differences and racial and gender biases can cause other students, teachers, and administrators to misinterpret normal behavior or calls for help as causing trouble. Those students who decide to stop going to class can find themselves immersed in unhealthy practices and situations. African American female dropouts are among the most vulnerable, as they can be led into prostitution, drug addiction, and criminal behavior, and eventually wind up in juvenile facilities where they are exposed to that system's version of education, in which little learning may actually take place. Having had the same experiences as the youth she interviewed for her book, Morris provides sensible solutions to some of the problems she describes, arguing that educators must abandon their stereotypical views of young black women, and instructors at juvenile facilities must want the best for their students. VERDICT Educators, particularly those who teach this demographic, would do well to give this a quick read.—Terry Christner, Hutchinson P.L., KS

Library Journal

2016-01-02
A writer and educator explores how various learning environments marginalize black girls and push them away from positive and productive futures. The concept of the "school-to-prison" pipeline has long dominated discourse about the relationship of the education and juvenile justice systems, especially where young people of color are concerned. Morris (Black Stats: African Americans by the Numbers in the Twenty-first Century, 2014), the co-founder of the National Black Women's Justice Institute, builds on previous work in which she discussed the way that "the ‘pipeline framework' has been largely developed from the conditions and experiences of males." Poverty is one of the most daunting challenges black girls face, and they have a far greater likelihood of incarceration than girls of other races. But even when they do find employment, they earn less than both black and white men. They also live in more violent environments and die of homicide at shockingly high rates and young ages. Rather than help uplift these girls, however, Morris argues that the public school system participates in their further marginalization through zero-tolerance-type discipline policies such as detention, suspension, and expulsion. It also hurts them by reducing black girls to their sexuality and/or understanding them according to race and gender stereotypes that characterize them as loud, aggressive, and disrespectful. So girls are not pushed into jails or the streets to be exploited and abused, schools—including those at juvenile detention centers—must become "bastions of community building, where healing is the center of…pedagogy." The personal stories at the heart of the author's discussion create a compelling study that puts a human face on both suffering and statistics. Combined with the many suggestions she offers throughout the book for creating healthier learning environments for black girls, Morris' book offers both educators and those interested in social justice issues an excellent starting point for much-needed change. A powerful and thought-provoking book of social science.

Kirkus Reviews