Yes, they are interesting in that regard. Its really sort of speaks to the selfconscious mission of creating a particular kind of leadership. West point is really remarkable in that regard. Those institutions come up in debate. Thomas jefferson who helped bring west point into being also was in support of a National University although he thought we needed a constitutional amendment to establish that and he speaks of west point in much of the same way although west point for jeffersons most important in its scientific terms at the time when the Scientific Development that will come out of it. At a place like west point, encourages maybe too strong a word but its a genuine liberal Arts Education and that means that while we want to cultivate certain understanding of politics in certain habits of mind that will be essential for leadership, part of those habits are going to be very openended and subject to serious questioning and thats something that those who think about the National University are acutely aware of early on. They want to teach the range of ideas about politics and government even while trying to cultivate a particular understanding. I think you see some of that. We actually see that beyond west point in many ways. We are very open when we teach in terms of liberal arts about the varieties of political experience and we really want to be critical of Political Institutions including our own and yet most of the institutions themselves take themselves to be committed to some form of democracy. Its not like were saying we dont mind if we end up producing a bunch of students who are elitist monarchs. We would think that would somehow have been, we wouldve done something wrong along the way. Professor thomas, with the decline in liberal Arts Education overall in the country, are we losing civics . Thats a great question and should be a serious concern to us. In fact, at the end of the book i pose that the great challenge in our day really is the potential commercialization that threatens to equip the more robust liberal arts element. When you think about the founding generation, it mightve been from religion but in our day its probably because of the success of american constitutionalism, the forwardlooking version of it really wanted to create a thriving commercial society and weve done that but now do we need to correct back the other way and attend more than have our educational institutions really ask whether the have obligations and commitment the founders and the idea of the National University constituting the American Mind is the name of the book. This is book tv on cspan. Now a talk on the book push out, the criminalization of black girls in schools. Its one hour 30 minutes. We have great pleasure to welcome you to welcome you to this particular conversation this evening. We team up with the new press to present push out. The criminalization of black girls in schools. This conversation is deeply meaningful to both restoration and the new press as we share a commitment to amplify and spotlight marginalized voices and stories. We want to thank diane and the new press team, particularly the kia for their incredible partnership in tonights conversation. Thank you so so much. A round of applause please. I also want to note that books are for sale following tonights conversation. To my left and youre right. Gloria steinem, activist writer and journalist wrote about push out. If you ever doubted that supremacy crimes, those devoted to maintaining hierarchy are rooted in both race and, read push out. Monique morris tells us exactly how schools are crushing the spirits and talent that this country needs. Guiding us through tonights conversation is Cheryl Watson harris, Senior Executive director for the new york public schools. She will be speaking with tonights author. Please join me and giving these two women a warm welcome. Tonights conversation would not be complete without hearing some of the voices from the research. To bring us these resources is Colby Christina from restoration youth arts academy. Here is push out, the criminalization of black girls in schools. [applause] this was the cry of 14yearold who in the summer of 2015 was thrown to the ground as well as physically and verbally assaulted after she refused to leave her friends at the mercy of this Law Enforcement officer in mckinney, texas. A video that later went viral showed him pushing her face in the ground as she, a slight frame barefoot bikiniclad teenager who presented no physical threat or danger screamed for someone to call her mother for help. The video showed him grinding her knee into her bearskin and restraining her by placing the full weight of his body onto hers. The incident was violent and reeked of sexual assault. Overtones that were later deemed inappropriate, outofcontrol and inconsistent with the Police Departments policies, trainings and articulated practices. He resigned in response to the public outcry and internal a scrutiny associated with his action, the image of her helpless frightened body under his has become a snapshot that cause us to examine. Though media nava c efforts have focused on the extreme and intolerable cases involving black boys such as 17yearold treyvon martin, a growing number of cases involving black girls has surfaced to reveal what many of us have known for centuries. Black girls are also directly impacted by criminalizing policies and practices that render them vulnerable to a few exploitations, dehumanizations dehumanizations and under the worst circumstances, death. 18yearold Shanika Proctor died in Police Custody after she was arrested for Disorderly Conduct in alabama. Even in highprofile cases involving boys, we often fail to see the girls who are right there alongside them. After the fatal shooting, the officers tackled his 14yearold sister to the ground and handcuffed her. Not only had she just watch her little brother die at the hands of these officers but she was forced to grieve his death from the backseat of a police car. Addressing these problematic narratives have proved difficult in the current social and political climate, one that embraces punitive responsive to dissent and increases the surveillance of the home where families live, the the communities where our Children Play in the schools where children are educated. Welcome everyone to push out. A conversation with doctor monique morris. As parents and educators, sisters, sisters, brothers, community leaders, i know we are all excited to engage in a thoughtful and powerful conversation with doctor morris. As we examine the injustice that black girls experience in school and beyond and also have the opportunity to hear her thoughts about how we change this narrative. It is my true pleasure and honor to introduce doctor monique morris. Dr. Monique morris is an author and social Justice Scalia with more than 20 years of professional and volunteer experience in the areas of education civil rights, juvenile and social justice. Doctor morris is the author of several publications, too beautiful for words and push out, the criminalization of black girls in school. She she has written dozens of articles, chapters and other publications on social justice issues and lectured widely on Research Policies and practices associated with improving juvenile justice, educational and social Economic Conditions of black girls, women and their families. Dr. Morris is the cofounder and president of the National Black justice institute. She is also the former vp for economic programs, advocacy and research at the National Association for the advancement of colored people. She is the former director of research for the Henderson Center for social justice at uc berkeley law school. Her work has informed the development and implementation of improved culturally competent continuum of services for youth. Her research intersects race gender education and justice to explore the ways in which black communities and other communities of color are uniquely affected by social policy. I think i speak for everyone in the winter room when i say thank you to doctor morris for writing this book and beginning this very, very important conversation. Tonight we are to have the opportunity to ask dr. Morris some questions about the book. I will engage in a conversation with doctor morris and then at the end of the program we will open it up to the audience who i know also has a lot of questions they would like to ask about the book and some of dr. Morriss thoughts on how we begin to change this narrative. Hello everybody. Welcome in push out you referenced the ladies, in the 2007 study it is found that black girls in the classroom are perceived as unladylike and loud. Talk about your thoughts on combating the stereotype of loud black women. Its very interesting how we have come to understand the identity of black women and girls. Much of the discussion about push out is centered in a critique of the way in which the identity, the black feminine identity has been presented publicly but also in our scholarship and in our own consciousness. When i talk about school push out, i talk largely about the policies, practices and the prevailing consciousness that underlies how we approach girls in our spaces, how we understand who they are, what theyre capable of and who they ultimately will become. That study is a profound one for me because it does begin to agitate much of the consciousness around how we understand these identities as they have aligned with historically means. Especially when means dominate our understanding of what the current, we see this way in which the identity of black girls and women is presented as either consistent as a hypersexual or loud or being emasculated angry presents. Or some combination of all three which we can interpret it in many different ways. This way in which we have misrepresented the identity plays into our subconscious. Our unconscious bias about how we understand behavior. When girls are asking questions in class or when girls are questioning material, its often perceived as being an authority of the adults or being defiant in ways that are inconsistent with their true intention. In some ways, again, given the legacies and misreadings that accompany the behavioral patterns that we see in school, we also see this way in which this hypersexuals age and prevents us from responding to their trauma and victimization. Im just curious what those of you in the audience, how many of you have had a similar experience . Does that resonate with you. Absolutely. We had a great conversation even before the session about the conversations that have been happening outside the meeting now hopefully this book will be a platform for those conversations to happen in the places that can really affect policy. Thank you again for that. The next question, in the book it talks about girls with hair and how it violates the dress code. How should we address racist dress code for bidding natural hair, punishing curvy women and how should these girls dress . This is a tricky question about how girls should dress. Its always interesting when i talk about this and when i revisit how i used to dress and when i think about my two daughters and their presentation and how i recognize that most of the way in which adults enforce the dress code is done through what they call to be a spirit of love. There are places in this country where schools have dress codes that disallow natural hair styles to be warned, if you are of african descent. So no afros are cornrows or locks, many of the people in this room would not be able to go to school with our hair the way it is so obviously, i say this pretty explicitly in the book, those those policies need to be removed. Theres no place for there to be a regulation of individual cultural practices around here. That has nothing to do with how individuals learn and it impacts black girls. The dress code is an interesting piece. It has a different component to it because not only is it about whether girls are showing up in short shorts or half shirts or spaghetti strap tank top, its about the policing of girls bodies in different ways. Much of what i discuss is related to how theres a differential interpretation, not that it exists but how the adults are enforcing the dress code that renders black girls vulnerable to a policing of their body. Not necessarily their clothing. There are girls who tell stories about arriving in school in short shorts, they have a white white or asian counterpart who is wearing the short shorts but its a problem on her body and she is sent home. When girls protest against this treatment the way many are inclined to do, they get an additional reprimand. with girls and interact about whether they are dressing appropriately. Some administrators will say i will turn a girl away if she doesnt have a pink shirt. Our dress code is pink not legal. What are we emphasizing . Lost the prioritization of learning and have come to prioritize enforcement of rules around dressed. That is taking us away from the intention of schooling and certainly the role and function of an institution. I talk about when schools are capable of young people and its the understanding its a critical, if that is true which we know it is, we need to keep girls in school, not finding creative ways to turn them away. So when we are doing this and having these conversations about dress codes and if a girl is showing up in a hat and thats reason for her to leave, we take in the conversation of the true intention of schools and turned it into its important to think through but also to critically examine the function of what schools are. Schools can either reinforce social norm and societal norm, or they can engage young people in the practice to combat their own oppressions. And many schools that are venturing Critical Thinking and instilling in our children the knowledge that they need to be a. Its turning people away because they are not showing up at the hat on. For black girls, there are particular nuances because a black girl a show of what they had on because her hair is in the process of being created. For those of us that have in the past, we know that can be a two day process. So if she has a hat on and you tell her she has to take it off, its not coming off so she will opt not to be in class. Thats an embarrassing situation. And we dont have these conversations around the cultural competencies as well as the unintended. Implementing dress codes the way we have been doing across the country. I think. And as educators i can tell you a story for every story youve told us there starting the conversation. In a section asking the tough questions, you mentioned that we live in a mans world and how thithis oppresses strong women. We talk a lot about white society. But what role do they play in the systematic oppression of black women . You heard that. [laughter] i was in a detention facility talking to girls while researching push out and before i could say much of anything i came in contact with this girl who i call faith in the buck, and that was her opening question to me. She said i dont like that song and i said i dont like it either. Ive processed about for years, what was she trying to tell me. She was trying to tell me to recognize the strength. Icu and i want you to see me. Shes a strong girl. Once i acknowledge, then she was able to question whether that was reinforcing the norms in our society and communities and home about the power. They embraced this idea that in order for a family to be holding a person to be whole, there has to be a male present a. Theres there is a girl that idd as a gay girl, thats what she called. She was processing a lot about her identity. One of the things i intentionally do in this space is engage in the lens about intersection because there are multiple experiences guiding the engagement with systems and people and that having to sit in the space where is was about the condition of nails into the prioritization to the community and the absence of men in conversations about the girl was also present in her life. To me its played out in the exchange we had about that. Many times when i talk historically in the last ten years when i have been one of maybe three women asking the question what about the girls its met with silence and there has not been a robust engagement among men to engage in space and in many ways, the pushback i received has come from men who want me to be quiet while we prioritized the boys and others in the space to engage. The investments made was a necessary investment, and i think that it was important to have the conversations and it continues to be important to have the conversations. Its also important to have the conversations about the women and girls and thats where i have been in this space and where i will remain until we bridge conversations about the communities that we share in institutions we share into the surveillance we share and the acknowledgment that while the structures are impacting both of us or anyone along the gender continuum in similar ways the impact is different in our responses have to be tailored to those impacts. They have to engage in its own functioning in the inter sexuality in order to appreciate that there are certain experiences that women and girls are facing that do allow us and require us to critically engage men and boys and those conversations are not happening. And i hope in some communities we begin to get there and i say that i really do intend for it to be the beginning of a more robust conversation and engagement of these issues but one of the first things it needs to happen is the man needs to be able to engage. There are lots of the violent victimization the girls at risk of the push out experience multiple forms of oppression and until we engage the community in the conversation about how to find them as sixyearolds in campuses to how we engage them as learners in ways that render them invisible or alienate them to the point weve got this narrative where we see black women as these successful achievers on one end are presented and then disproportionately represented among those that are exploited and havent been in school for years in some cases. We havent reconciled this space and part of that has to do with our absence of the discussion and continuum and the role that we are all playing in facilitating that we either ignore or see success. Thats why everyone is here. We are just so thankful that you were courageous enough to open up this dialogue with some push out. You are pretty much the one that we have been waiting for to open up that dialogu the dialogue ank thats why the book is so popular and theyve had a chance to share the moment. Theres probably three or four months before it came out because we agree with you and we are thankful that we are having this conversation. I do want to acknowledge that there is a community of mostly women whove been engaged in this work. There were before the push outsinvolved in some ways as a community we were engaged in conversations that the forum produced black girls matter and was the publisher of the paper i wrote on the pipeline to include black girls and also the naacp fund issued a paper on unlocking opportunities and the human rights for girls, georgetown law center. So there are lots of folks that have been trying to engage and do a little bit, but theres still an absence of the criminal engagement of the resources and materials and a way to center the conversation about the full continuum and the way in which we begin to assess the risk, threat and response. The resources in the book and studies and other things that have been published but i encourage us all to read and research. I think another piece of the book that is powerful but you told us about the girls and i would love to hear a little bit more about diamond from jezebel in the classroom. Can you tell us a little bit more about diamond . Diamond was a young teenager with an older man she called her boyfriend. He wasnt her boyfriend, he was her pimp. He was she was commercially sexually exploited and i met her again in the detention facility. This is a girl that had a problematic relationship with schools and who had been moving in and out and havent really had the kind of Critical Response to her victimization that she needed that was in search for it. She was spotted out on the street by some of her classmates who later in School Started to believe and tease her about seeing her out on the streets. The way she put it is they would always try to make me face them. , so the response was one of conflict and the school failed to recognize the way she had been bullied and captured her as a problematic person who was always fighting. When she had enough, she engaged in an act of vandalism and wrote on the wall which resulted in her expulsion. So there was a cycle in her case where not only was the victimization not addressed by the mandatory reporting agency that should have recognized her engagement as a function of her abuse, but the structural Justice System response was to criminalize her and pushed her further away from the institution that could help her heal and so for her by the time i met with her and engaged with her she was in this space of feeling like i need out. I havent been in school, i love this man, until we dug deeper into what the relationship was and others that were experts working with girls to get them to engage in ways that are helpful in that space to work with her around that. But she was processing and i asked her what she needed to be in school and she told me i needed people who care. So finally, i asked aside from an counselor who would be there, how do you think school in general could respond to black girls in crisis . Lets take a listen. Usually the teachers connect only with certain students that think they deserve more because they get straight as. Theres a reason why they are getting straight as. Because theyre faster learners. You are teaching them more, the study more and they are getting more attention than the other kids. Like black kids at home, we dont get that much attention. Our mothers and dads are working. Or sister iour sister is taking. Our grandma is taking care of us. We dont have that attention we want from our parents. That makes it disrespectful in class and making it like i dont care. Youre not my mom. I wonder if we see that a number girls. When diamond responded that way ultimately they were involved iwouldinvolved in theis education and they dont show that black parents are engaged in asking about homework and checking homework and having conversations. They may not show up at the school believe that we traditionally envision, but im sure many people in the room were going what. It was important to include narrative in the book because for many of the girls that have experienced school push out, they are not in a stable home environment where they do have the parents that are continually intervening and shes also pointing to her desire for there to be a caring adult is checking on her and asking her and when he and adult presents in a way that you havent established that relationship its just fa fake. The piece of this is how we come to understand that the competency around this is a space of intuition. And much of my work with black girls particularly the elderly pieces and how we engage with black girls com, this notion of cycling cannot be lost. They use language that might on the surface appear to just be this girl has an attitude, which is my other favorite word. But they are expressing they are connecting or not connecting at a very physical level and one that is associated with how they are proceeding to be authentic or not. That you are not my mom is about her saying i want my mother, first of all, but secondly, its really about saying yo you haved build trust with me. You havent connected with me anyway that allows me to trust you that you have my best interest at heart. So that takes time for us to fully explore. But it also takes time for us to deconstruct a little bit among the girls that have been commercially sexually exploited and who are having relationships with older people and might want to see themselves as acting in the waterways that she needed space to just be a child and explore her own identity as a burner. I found her again in a detention facility where she had been criminalized when much of it wasnt occurring but where it could poker where there are some different interventions that took place along that journey. Specifically in the section how can parents and educators bring up the subject of teenage prostitution and should they wait for the adults to be present or should the public be brought up regardless . There is no such thing as a team prostitute or a child prostitute. These are children who are being commercially sexually exploited. Theres a lot of language adjustment of your engaged in now as a community to better understand the conditions are these girls. Whats important is in the lives of many black girls giving the legacy of the hyper sexualization and the notion as a jezebel, people will read them as choosing to participate as opposed to seeing this as an act of harm. Educators may not know that there is a young person who is at risk or is actively engaged because in my experience many girls do not actively identify. Its kind of interesting because theres a lot of debate about whether there should be Sex Education in schools and debate on who controls the conversation in those spaces but again when they are having the opportunity to engage with each other and how they should be engaged in conversations that distric you o see different outcomes. But theres also. They are engaging with the suspect for a girl or boy in their environment that is being either commercially or sexually exploited for commercial exploitation. We know from the data, children are in foster care are at an increased risk. And we know that many times in our educational systems we capture those as chronically truant by new data from the department of education to talk about the more than 6 million children who are truant. My Immediate Reaction to that is take a closer look. If we are talking about chronic or wednesday, we are also talking about a host of other risks. We cant just as an Education System say they are truant and therefore out of our care, and thats how we record them. We also have to have the critical partnerships in place with other agencies to make sure that we are getting our kids back in because when the art in school they are at a reduced risk of harm. Thats not to say that it doesnt occur. There are local cases and National Cases that involved girls with v. Commercial Sexual Exploitation and violence in schools where there hasnt been an equal protection in place and a critical waiver of the way foy to address these issues. There is a dismissal that we must confront, but these are important dialogues that has to take place in the spaces of learning because it impacts their learning. So we can no longer afford to say thats not my issue. Its clear that we have a lot of work to do and questions we need to asked that we are not currently asking. And ive also thank you for the check on the phrase teenage prostitution and we have to check the language and then recognize how powerful it is and the impact that this can have on others. I say that knowing that we are in a moment of transition. The Associated Press agreed to use the term instead of trying to prostitution because when you look at the headlines before, just months ago thats what you would see and it feeds into the prevailing consciousness that i was talking about early on. Going back on the conversation about disciplining appearance, you brought it up again in too sexy for school. Does the media play a role in the over sexualizing of black women, and if so, should we limit their exposure to over sexualizing music videos from the reality tv or limiting exposure. There are two spaces that conversation is happening. And its interesting to me how those are playing out. There is contacting where there is no censorship. So ive always believed that its important for the healing power of the narrative. Tell the story. There is a loss o lot of turn dh that discussion. We all know that its going to get collected from someplace else we may not want it to be collected from. When it is at an ageappropriate level at a certain age i believe in censorship. At a certain age its important to have discussions about what it is. The media absolutely does play a role and the girls and the books elsewhere described their own frustrations with media representations of their identity and they feel powerless in many ways to engage in the reconstruction of the identity. There are lots of theres a lot of possibilities and organizations. They are global media, those that are trying to work with the girls to help them shift the narrative and engage them in a critical examination. But the level of literacy has to improve if we are going to have conversations and also the age compression occurs in that space. So there are younger girls and older girls or women in these public spaces by this sort of completion. Theres a negative impact from the women and girls and the ability to see themselves along this continuum of ways. For me, that term was used somewhat facetiously. Because i dont think little girls are sexy. Theres nothing sexy about a little girl. So, when we are talking about girls and how they present in school to call something sexy is a comment on her body. And we have to call ourselves out for that and talk about the ways that, you know, getting around the fact. One of the things i recommend is to engage in the process around the development of the standards and the norms in classrooms. So there are conversations happening about whats norms should be in place in school for them to feel safe and for them to not be punished for being perceived as a distraction to other members of the school community. Those are the places they feel safest to the present and where other girls are more respectful, so its important to have these conversations because we have to engage in conversations about what kind of climate they need to feel safe and it may be inconsistent with what we believe to be true. It may just be a half day so they need to wear a tank top. I think its something im taking away from just your response there is the charge for us to educate ourselves about alternatives and other resources than images and videos and things like this that our children would be interested in but also to make sure that we are aware so we can offer them as a counter narrative to what they are seeing. And we have to acknowledge a lot of the ways we see people engaging in our schools is a reflection of whats happening in the community. Its not that from me here on the trains and buses and its in our spaces just on my way here i heard a group of boys talking about some girl doing sexual acts in the bathroom at their school. But the way that they were talking about it is eliminating to meet no problem talking quite loud on the train about some girl who was doing something and there was no ownership at all about both how they were screaming that relationship and exchange or how it might negatively impact because they were naming me. To me partly the result of not having the kind of conversations that we need to have about how we are engaging with each other and what is appropriate in the learning spaces outside of whether or not a person is dressed appropriately. There are other ways of demonstrating what is appropriate for time and place. Schools have occupational field trip days and themes where you can dress appropriately and they can see the role modeling occurred among individuals when they do curvier days. There are schools that dont have dress codes emphasized and as opposed to saying you dont have a build on. These are the cases im talking about. You dont have a belt on. Go home. That means these things that are turning girls a way that they describe that to me are just unconscionable. In the struggle to survive you talk about it is common for history to redial against authority and discipline. But how can we give the modern contact and keep things in perspective when it comes to oppression versus routine discipline . When do we tell them punishment is just outrageous . I think its important to have conversations with children very early on about oppression. I come from school that a schoot challenges our thinking around a oppression. One of the things she said is there is no hierarchy of oppression. But many times, the lives of girls they are asked to prioritize their oppressions and they either have to be black first and female second or they have to be female first and their Sexual Identity is second. Or there is a way that we ask them to prioritized their very complex identities to fit what they need them to be at that moment. And when we are talking about these conditions, and when we are talking about facilitating conversations that are going to produce new outcomes and narratives for girls, we have to get them to understand there are consequences associate associatd behaviorin thebehavior, but thes can be healing. The consequences dont have to be about punishment. They can learn from their mistakes. They are worthy of death. And that is not a message that we routinely engage with our children or an effort that black girls receive especially if they are in high poverty schools. And when they are in peace schools, we have structures in place thats really emphasized discipline partly because those leading the schools have been made discipline and punishment is the way that you respond to these conditions. I had a very spirited conversation with some folks on an interview in the south recently where there is a belief that a there are deepseated ideas about what the discipline looks like. We have the Corporal Punishments. Hopefully. And the issue is not just that we have the structures in place although i do believe the Corporal Punishment has no place in schools but we also see a differential impact. Black girls are disproportionately represented among those children that are receiving Corporal Punishment that means we are more inclined to beat black girls than others. Its later on monday is violent in response and question where did you learn that. So we have to think about how we are routinely and acting, and again enforcing the social norms in the cultural norms are actively engaging in the process of confronting and deconstructing those things. In that whole concept of feeling things did you want to say more . When i talk about the ecosystem for black girls to peel hole in school, i emphasize healing. We talk in the practice about the restorative approaches, and we tend to embrace the Restorative Practices and about the circle practice in particular. One has to do with the development of the healing responses. Theres discussions with young people and creating climate. We critically engage the wellbeing of black women and girls in the conversations on building democracy. Its what it is to be a learner and and used to b used to be ine that happen. Particularly for the girls are at risk for the push out including those that have been commercially sexually exploited operating in the economies for the juvenile systems they need money and they have to see the connection between the education and how they will occur in money. We have to be very transparent about that. In many of the spaces we say just learned. For some of the girls the freedom to say just learned or the ability to trust the process enough or just let go isnt fair. They have to see the connection between what they are learning today and how that is going to result in their economic wellbeing in the dairy near future. To internalize the depression and the implicit biases that informed decisionmaking tools are we using and engaging to structure the schools so that we can have the kind of conversations that need to be held so that we can assess the risk in an appropriate way to engage in conversation about whether a child is actually a threat to Public Safety or whether we dont like how she talked to me. But we have to figure out these pieces and then work within the structure to develop a new set of norms. Sometimes it just begins with asking different questions, asking a different set of questions that has to do more with whether there are sections. And the processes for them to be part of the new narrative. We could stay on the healing thing all night. The night it gives us an opportunity for the discussions as well. Another thing that i really loved about the book again is the kind of three d. Experiencee into the diversity it wasnt just one type of girl or one walk of life were type of challenge. I would like to hear more about the destiny. Can you tell us more about the destiny . It is a black latina who is a performer and she was someone i met who had been taking courses and had an interest in robotics and engineering and have an addiction. The Justice System responded by incarcerating her. And she talked about her experiences with schools because she understood on one level the importance of school and her life but she was also discouraged from engaging in the school because of her interactions with some of the teachers. And then kept emphasizing the importance of student teacher relationships and talking about the various relationships she had in different institutions. She kept going back in the relationships and whether she had it or not and finally, i just asked her what do they say to black girls . Lets take a listen. Ive noticed other races get special attention in class. Like if they are struggling or if they want to see the teacher after class, i noticed that the teacher would be more than willing to help them after class. Usually they will Say Something like well, you can stop by for ten or 15 minutes. But im not going to wait an hour just for you. But its like they just did it for the asian girl. Theres a lot of people that will stay after school until by doing extra work or working on an extra project the teacher gave them to do and then everybody else will be there for ten or 15 minutes just to talk. I tried to talk to my geometry teacher and she didnt have anywhere to go. Nevermind i will just see you in class. Thank you for that one. I think we had a similar experience. She comes home from the home with two educated parents and didnt want to go to school the next day how many people in the audience had an experience like that as a child of himself or with your own child. I think we are finding ourselves in the buck debate co book. We tend to construct a single identity about black girls and so for that reason, it was important for me to engage the narrative of the girls to talk through the girls who were africanamerican but also black latina, and to get us to a place that we could understand the diversity of experiences but how there is a common theme associated with the lower expectations that we have often seen and to use the term were the phrase in the way that we grant them permission to fail. That is a critical piece for us because again, i dont believe ive said this in many spaces i definitely believe in the process. We tend to construct narratives as they fight they are problematic and if they talk back or have an attitude or wear short shorts, they are another word i dont use. So, its important for us to also engage those girls in conversations about how the art instructing their own identities and how they need to be a part of the construction of the new narrative. Number one i saw the absence of girls in the National Conversation about the wellbeing of the communitys and there was no way but also because again, my interaction in the juvenile legal system informed how i wanted to work backwards and talk to girls before they get to the criminal and juvenile system. I think there is a way we can practice to inform how we engage with not just these schools but girls on a subway and in our own families, girls down the hall ourselves. So, to be that is part of the call to action is to begin to think through the alternatives. Before we open it up for a question. We talk about the economics and poverty. So i have one question their. One is for poverty. How can we as a Community Work with young black women to change and challenge the statistic and how can a women that already live in poverty improve the quality of life especially in the cases where they have children to care for . Spinnaker theyve always understood the value of education and its not that education directly results from you being in poverty. It does open up the field and scope of possibility to engage differently. We had conversations here in brooklyn to talk about the frustration they felt in trying to get a job and clearly understanding that there were some very real barriers associated with that. But in my other work there was a discussion about the things they didnt get as girls and the way in which they found ways to live in the conditions of poverty that did not include education. It is a discussion with girls about how much earning potential as you gain by having the specific degrees. The way in which the earning potential does increase with every new degree that you get. Its important to continue to explore that just so they understand some people may become the star and play the sport but the vast majority are going to have to work in a different way. We can follow our passions and work in a different way through understanding our talent experience. What i find most problematic is in the concentration. I believe that any concentration of one group isnt necessarily bad. Its the concentration of the absence of resources that is bad and the absence of infrastructure thats bad. When we talk about making sure the communities are whole and safe, we talk about that historically when we must have an equal investment and sometimes that comes with the ability to choose where you want to live so that you are not in that specific communities advocating for segregation. But i do think its important for us to understand that it can exist and not the ghetto and we can have spaces where there is a consciousness that is about uplift and community not about exploitation. The concept of exploitation and at the way that fuels our consciousness both historically to fuel the trauma as well as contemporary conditions of how we move and where the jobs were located and what resources are available to schools and what they are able to do with our children are all pieces we need to continue to examine. We tend to have conversations that are separate from housing policies. We have to have a much more coordinated discussion of how we Fund Education in the country and how we are moving forward in the development of the competent spaces and what partners need to be in space with schools to actually engage in some of the recommendation both in the policy papers that have been produced over the last two years and in this book. I could be a selfish. I didnt even let her have a break, i want to learn as much as i can in the time that we have. But i do want to open it up. I know that he would love the opportunity to ask questions and engage in a conversation about the book and how we do change this narrative. My name is leslie and i work in the office of equity and accs and the department of education. So, number one, i ask what about the girls, number two ive been pushing them and they are like shes going to be here. Just a couple things. When we started launching the program at the Central Office i couldnt find the work to support what i was trying to do. It feels like we are on the right path but when i think about the teacher preparatio prn and how the universities are preparing teachers in the city like new york in particular, thousands of people said they dont want to teach. And im wondering have you come across i any different universiy or College Programs that are kind of getting at it. Good question. The first, i think you were uplifting names that should be uplift in the conversation because there are some participatory action works that are happening here in new york that i think is very promising and that deserves greater uplift so im glad that you are in touch because thats very important. Schools that train teachers have not emphasized to the extent possible with a should emphasize the importance of caring and bleeding with love and when i talk about less judgment more love often the conversations folks say what is the recommendation and probably the most radical thing is that, that said there are emerging practices happening. Districts that are having conversations now about the developing collaboratives. Its in the process of building a collaborative for africanamerican girls. One of the fewest fewest cannoty in the country that is looking to do that and bring partners and have critical directions for that work. It works with the exploited girls and then touring center to develop the office of education to develop an educational pilot Reentry Program for girls. And so, in that space we are constructing pedagogy that is rooted in liberation and deconstructing oppression. And it feels radical to say that as a space during education but thats what we have to do is engage in these conversations so that young people feel connected to what they are learning and how they are learning and understand what they are learning and how connects to their wellbeing. And to actively engage in this process as they learn that is one thing that the girls will tell us. What i took that to mean is we are wrapping ourselves around hewriting ourselves around herie education is tailored to her specific needs a. There is other districts about the ways to their own implicit bias and theres different districts around the country that are not only engaging in the full continuum of responses and in the behavior like the restorative approaches that are also understanding implicit biases that i find very helpful and useful. Good evening and thank you for the buck in front of the Central Office department. A black woman that breaks all the stereotypes of what wg is. My question is around the concept of sexuality and young women into specifically for those of dissent because as a caribbean person, we grow up being exposed to what can conceive of in that sort of thing. When you come here the things that are not necessarily over sexualized in our culture become very sexualized here. He used it into womanhood and to celebrate your culture. Its where you see it played out a. Its the composition of public w black women have been sexualiz sexualized. To think about the ways in which we have not as black women and girls largely been responsible for the framing of our own identities. Its very important for us to develop new spaces for us to take the conversation back to have the critical dialogue that a lot of hiphop feminists scholars are having around these very same questions. Is this a problem. For the young people that are activists in this space who are trying to reclaim and engage in a challenge to some of the normative us and the ways in which our construction of black femininity have been normalized to the white middleclass standards. We continue to have conversations about things. They want to embrace their own sexuality and wants t want to ce their Cultural Roots and who want to sort of participate in that domain in ways and with people that placed them at harm. They are harmed as a result of them doing it because we havent had the critical discussions about how it is received, who you are with and doing it. So again, the healing power of the narrative suggests that we tell our stories. She does show, you think im doing this but lets look if you travel more than you see it or if you have the kind of exchange programs, then you understand that its not about the constructed sexualization of black women who were deeply oppressed under the conditions of slavery that we still continue to live and about the bodies into presentations and its functionality in society, but also how we are perfectly human and can embrace our sexuality as a part of that. Good evening. Thank you for your voice and activity in the world. Thank you. Depressing first question i have a couple im going to sneak into the first one is where were you in 1997 . Im going to explain that so no one gets the wrong idea. Thats when i was hired by the department of education to work as a teacher. You have eggs, performing arts license and nobody needs that. I said id do i get a job. So when i met the superintendent, i said where do you want to work. I want to work with the kids that nobody else in new york city wants to work with and they laughed at me and said are you sure and i said absolutely. He didnt know. He said how would you like to work at a School Called rosewo rosewood. I worked there for three years between the ages of 16 to 65 and everything that you just described is what was presented to me without any backup preparation teacher training program. Its having the Health Benefits and all that and engaging with these stories that they all wanted to talk about the prostitution violence and i was deconstructed. I went home crying every night but i kept on wanting to come back because i knew that something really important for myself was happening. The glue is totally identified with each others pain and loneliness and maybe im asking the kind of question there because its one of my questions there was a white male that came out and started working as a principal and started jumping up in the middle of the meetings with superintended, some who came from all walks of life today didnt seem to be willing to talk about these issues. How can i help without having my head a pop or someone tell me the only reason i can say this is because i have some kind of entitlement, like they dont know where i came from either. Where do i fit into this dialogue . For me its a very real world. If you can talk about it because i think that you claimed this term. Its what they talking in a prison about confinement. Thank you. So, a couple of things. First, there is a body of growing research for people who need that about the value of empathy in schools among the teachers and educators working with children. Can we give them the tools to do it and its really simple. There are so many places they can check out when theres no one there holding them accountable engaging them in a way that could reinforce their pride and empathizing with the prescience that they have engaged. I talk about confinement pathways as opposed to the pipeline because of my homework it became very clear that school to prison pipeline was too neuroa framework to capture the multiple pathways to confinement the girls were experiencing and when we talk about schools of prison while its an urgent framework that certainly engages all of us in a need and desire to respond that for many of our girls they have not experienced prison but they have experienced the multiple forms of environment that exists along our legal system, the confinement in homes, confinement in facilities and confinement in schools that there are ways in which we have talked about this phenomenon of criminalization. Him early motherhood as a form of confinement. Not necessarily. I dont. I think its important for us to think about this identity that many girls do have once they have children and there are lots of Young Mothers who are fighting against the stigma of being pushed out because they have had a child does not impact further they continue to go to school. There should be structures in place to account for that and in many districts there are. Girls continue to finish and they are legally not supposed to be discriminated against because they have a child and their legal epic its who are working with districts to ensure that happens however making decisions and searching for love and trying to form relationships with individuals that do impact mobility and to impact opportunities to move freely certainly play a role in this conversation and so i think what is most important again is to let girls be a part of constructing their own narratives around these issues and working with those of us engaged in policy discussions about what they actually need to be successful rather than us assuming certain conditions are going to define their full trajectory. Thank you. Just to be conscious of time as well we are going to take the last three questions here unless someone has a burning question. Did you need a mic . [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] i will start with a cycle and because i think it plays out differently throughout the country and we are still building out the research that can answer that with some degree of integrity. You know there is a constant narrative that has been following black girls in rural and urban spaces not necessarily that they are hypersexual but there is again the dichotomy of around the high performers who is fine and the girl who is not with our time. So there is this way in which that renders groups and visible that is counterproductive to our conversation about uplifting all of our children. What im recognizing in our work now is in many places because schools are more segregated than they were in the decades that you named the fact that a type of integration as we saw it and now theres a separation occurring where bennie of the children who are black girls are educated are also very black and theres not necessarily the kind of cultural dissidents occurring the between educators and children among themselves but theres a way in which her reinforcement internalizes the impression occurring that doesnt allow girls to fully exploit their own identities in ways that are more construct it. That speaks to the prevailing context that i want all of us to deal with. The way in which we are talking about isn racial oppression by anchoring it into double consciousness narrative that is the way in which black people affected deal with being american and black and for women and girls and no matter the variables they stop being black female and american in this space. So we have to confront these identities in the way it plays out. I have had varying degrees of access. The conversation is just beginning and i certainly welcome the access and i think there are opportunities to talk through. Ive received a lot of imitations from superintendents from some elected officials at the National Level who want to explore their policy and potential impact as they pertain to young black girls. [inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible] thank you very much. I want to thank you so much for your work and your muchneeded conversation. My question is, my question is how can i properly engages my fellow brothers and police on these issues specifically contributions to the hypersexual station of our girls and also how can i engages my brothers on becoming better at the kids for a younger sisters and nieces in the Current School system . Thats an important question and i guess a followup of that spirit is actually just do it and engage. Theres a fair amount if learning that needs to occur and unlearning that needs to occur and i think healing work that i talk about with girls is necessary with boys. Much of how we have talked about her engagement with boys has been around how we create a culture of masculinity that centers them in a way that in some ways we dont address it patriarchy and the sexism that occurs when we enforce those elements of our engagement with the other. One of the things that i recommend in the book that i talk about it generals the need for us to have the talk with boys and girls and the talk needs to be about more than safety as it is framed in our current construct around fatal violence particularly in public spaces but also to think about the violence that occurs behind closed doors in the ways in which we are participating in that violence in our speech, in our construction of norms and in how we just engage with each other. I would give an example in schools where boys programs occurring in the schools and one boy says to a girl nobody cares about about you and thats why you dont have a program. And she was like oh my i cant believe you said that to me. He said nobody wants to hear about your problems. What kind of problems have you got . In many ways its impossible for them to internalize the idea that we are the ones with the problem is problematic for him to say no one cares about you which was traumatic for her. What she did in response was to create a girls school and started a program for herself because thats what black women do, right . That was a very microway of engaging around this. New ways of understanding relationships and offering of our partnerships and shared experience and im hopeful that with pushout another projects that are emerging we will have more bridges where we can have conversations about communities and shared experiences and also things that are different in these spaces to weaken supportive of each other. We must speak on the girls. We are in a shared pics community. This is a shared experience. Last question. Good evening. My daughter quincy, i have a longwinded question for you. [applause] do we have one last question . Okay, come on, your turn. Seize the opportunity. We would like you to go up to the mic. Hello everyone, good evening. I currently work at an organization where we i work at a Media Organization where we help students comprehend create critique and ultimately challenge media. Im the only one if you know what im saying at my organization. I used to be an advocate for two years so working with High School Students and helping girls a lot of them dealing with push out situations. What exactly do you mean because im trying to be a crusader in doing that. That is a beautiful thing. I want there to be a critical examination of imaging, symbolism. I think there has to be discussions about how bodies are presented on television and in ads and constructed. I think we have to get our young people to understand what is constructed and what is rooted in stereotype in what is real and to understand the conditions that underlie that that have supported the narrative that are harmful in our communities and can actively take a role in reframing. Ive noticed black girls being able to see images of themselves that are not very sexual. And seeing images of themselves that are not angry and to see themselves in ways that do engage their voice their loud voice has a positive thing and you asked a question about this defiance and how starkly that has sustained our wellbeing is their ability to speak up and out an understanding that theres a critical part of our resistance and in many spaces being in is in your act if being in that space is an act of resistance and justice. When girls dont see them selves in some cases only in others they have to understand being in the spaces where they are perceived as or where they are constructed makes their being an
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