Medium Post #3

Before engaging the materials, I had somewhat of an idea of what the “Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools” would dive into; the name was pretty self-explanatory. Moreover, in high school, one of our debate topics was deliberating the use of reasonable suspicion vs. probable cause; within this context, I remember learning about the three Black girls who were stripped searched at school. Prior to reading the excerpts from The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, I was not familiar with Alexander’s work and writing. But after reading the introduction and “The Rebirth of Cast” I noticed that I was very much familiar with a lot of her ideas. The language Alexander uses to talk about mass incarceration and how it affects Black Americans has almost become the language that everyone uses to talk about the issue. This mass adoption of her ideas, to me, just stresses the widespread truth and applicability behind Alexander’s statements.

Of the two works, “Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools” really stayed with me. Hearing these girls sit down and testify in front of a camera made their stories real. Not that the stories weren’t real in the first place, but to hear and see a little girl crying on camera makes it clear that these happenings aren’t just words on a paper, these incidents weren’t isolated; these moments contain genuine trauma that most of these girls will carry with them for their whole life. Sumaya’s stories about second grade stood out to me the most. Particularly the part about the shop owner and then subsequently the police misjudging her age and then leaving Sumaya to roam the streets. I grew up constantly hearing the phrase “girls mature faster than boys”, and even as a white, privileged individual, this statement and overarching societal norm has had a profound impact on my life and especially my socialization as a young girl. But when you add race into the mix of these apologetic statements towards boys, as well as generations of labeling Black women as sexual and/or insubordinate has allowed for the world to conveniently forget Black girls are still little girls. The police, for probably a myriad of biased reasons, aged a seven-year-old girl by five years, all stemming from the color of her skin. Sumaya’s mom puts it best when she notes that even if her daughter was, in fact, actually twelve years old, she was still a minor out on her own during the school day. In the eyes of law enforcement, a seven-year-old Black girl is the same as a twelve-year-old Black girl, which is the same as an 18-year-old Black girl- which is a Black woman. By aging these girls, one not only takes away the joy of their youth but all of a sudden, one can justify harsher punishment and reactions. No longer are these the mistakes of a scared little girl, but instead the deliberate actions of a grown woman.

The second part of Sumaya’s story that sort of made me go back and think was when she talks about her suicidal thoughts, how she “just wanted to go to Heaven”. Right off the bat, it was really upsetting to think that a girl as young as seven could be pushed to this point. I didn’t even know what suicide was when I was in second grade. You can see in Sumaya’s words and body language that this was not just some moment of despair; this was real, suicidal ideation brought about by bullying and neglect from her teacher. The idea of a grown adult treating a child with such utter disrespect that this child loses their will to live is the exact opposite of what a teacher should be doing. Also, the school’s willful ignorance of her teacher’s behaviors as well Sumaya’s literal safety, there seemed to be a larger, structural issue at hand. Listening to Sumaya’s story, I knew she couldn’t be the only one who was pushed to the edge. She wasn’t. According to the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, in 2017, just under fifteen percent of Black high school students seriously considered suicide, and over ten percent made a suicide plan. A study published in JAMA Pediatrics even concluded that suicide rates for black children aged five to twelve were roughly two times higher than those of similarly-aged white children. These are alarming statistics. But they make sense. Mental health issues are constantly seen as a “white problems”. However, these rates plainly show that that’s not the case. Even when BIPOC do receive mental health care, they are unlikely to receive the same diagnosis and treatment as white people with the same symptoms, according to the report Race, Culture, and Ethnicity and Mental Health by former surgeon general David Satcher. I don’t know how someone can look at Sumaya and all the trauma she endured and think that this is normal, think that a seven-year-old can and should be pushed to this point, or worst of all think that this is a product of Sumaya’s home life/genetics when so clearly her suicidal ideations were the indicator of verbal abuse?

The most upsetting thing about this, though, is our society’s willful ignorance of these inconsistencies. There are tons and tons of literature pointing to the fact that ethnic minorities are less likely to seek treatment for eating disorders despite higher rates of the condition. Yet, if you think about how eating disorders are depicted in the media, it’s always a rich, skinny, white girl. But, on the other hand, for a more “violent” mental disease like Schizophrenia, Black people are overrepresented in state psychiatric hospitals, according to a study in Health Affairs. This, from my deduction, stems from a combination of years of fear due to the perpetuation of violent tropes of Black people and also new studies saying Black people face higher rates of the disorder. But, according to the same article in Health Affairs, these numbers point to the fact that mental health professionals “overdose schizophrenia and under diagnose mood disorders in African Americans”. This also connects with Alexander’s writing about incarceration. According to the American Psychology Association, 64 percent of jail inmates, 54 percent of state prisoners, and 45 percent of federal prisoners report some form of mental illness, making it so that the number of mentally ill people incarcerated actually outnumber those in psychiatric care. Of this, twenty percent of Black female inmates identified as seriously mentally ill.

To me, this highlights a new facet of the school-to-prison pipeline. We are more familiar with the idea that zero-tolerance policies and police presence at school can push a child into a pattern of bad decision making. But, from this, I’d argue that years of abuse, ignored mental health symptoms, and even microaggressions can push someone to a similar breaking point.

#relg102