Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools

Chapter 1 concerns the question of why Black girls must fight so hard simply to survive—not only in educational spaces, but in their general lives. Morris understands that social and political issues such as racism, misogyny, and classism infiltrate the educational system; as such, her chapter first seeks to isolate these systemic issues before delineating their expressions in the classroom. The first chapter’s concepts include intersectional identity, the “ghetto,” and their combined effect on girls’ selfhood, ego, and their societal self-understanding. The chapter also scrutinizes how these realities affect educators and their relationships with their Black female students.

Seeking to accurately explore Black girls’ lived experiences in the United States, Chapter 1 first presents the concept of intersectionality and its relation to one’s whole self. Intersectionality, a term attributed to legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, is the concept that selfhood entails various identities—gender, sexuality, race, etc.—and that the whole self cannot be understood apart from these considerations. It is particularly important to note that with intersectionality, “there is no hierarchy of oppressions” (24). Speaking further on how intersectionality enlightens selfhood and lived experiences, Morris explains, “Each identity intersects with the other to generate a more complex worldview than the one that would exist if any of us were ever truly able to walk through life with a singular identity. Oppressed identities further complicate this experience” (24). Understanding intersectionality is important to Morris’s thesis concerning the pushout phenomenon because Black girls suffer unique oppressive experiences—both in and outside of the classroom—due to their intersectional identities of Black and female.

Class is yet another aspect comprising intersectional identity. Even outside discussions of selfhood and identity, class profoundly influences all American schoolchildren. As Morris notes, the low-performing schools in the United States are high-poverty schools, characterized by underperforming students and high dropout rates. Higher performing schools, meanwhile, are typically low-poverty. Students of color are directly and disproportionately impacted by underfunded, low-performing schools; Morris provides the statistic that “About 58% of Black students and 50% of Latino students who made the decision to leave school were being educated in one of our nation’s high-poverty, low-performing schools” (31). One’s class and even their neighborhood thus directly impact the educational access and quality in the United States.

Economic status’ intersection with other self-identities plays a significant role in the pushout phenomenon. When girls are Black and working class or working poor, their racial, gender, and class identities converge and render them special targets for the oppressive and punitive attitudes that run amok in the American education system. Linking to previous points about the significance of one’s neighborhood regarding quality of education, a large portion of Chapter 1 explores the “ghetto” and how attitudes surrounding the ghetto—both in Black girls and their educators—have profound effects on young students. Defined by Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton as a group of neighborhoods “that are exclusively inhabited by members of one group, within which virtually all members of that group live,” the ghetto is also characterized by “inadequate housing, high morbidity and infant mortality rates, and related social pathologies” (30). Building off these established definitions, Morris further interprets the ghetto as “among the spatial dynamics that greatly influence a common, collective interpretation of Black feminine identity in the United States” (30). With 25% of Black women and 40% of Black children living in poverty (20), the struggles of the ghetto weigh heavily on Black girls in school. However, the ghetto’s influence on Black female students cannot entirely be tracked by statistics; the ghetto affects interpersonal relationships by inspiring attitudes and ideologies amongst its inhabitants as well as those living outside of it. Those living outside the ghetto harbor common misunderstandings and judgements of the ghetto; these misinformed biases result in racist, misogynistic, and classist attitudes that are then projected onto the ghetto’s inhabitants.

Both these material and psychological effects of the ghetto are key in understanding the pushout phenomenon. To explicate this cruciality, Morris relies on a series of case studies interspersed throughout the first chapter. This methodological choice to incorporate case studies alongside academic theories (such as intersectionality and classism) not only helps demonstrate how these abstract ideas are reflected in real-life incidents, but it also aids Morris’s defense of her thesis. In citing anecdotes of girls whom she has personally engaged, Morris builds a damning case against the treatment and criminalization of Black girls in American schools. For example, Morris brings attention to the continued roles of such historical attitudes of control, power, and speech:

The legacy of slavery and segregated opportunity socialized punishment and discipline (as opposed to, say, love and opportunity) as an appropriate response to ‘bad’ Black girls who rebelled against normative ideas about proper feminine behavior (35).

Destiny’s case study lucidly illustrates the relationships between race, power, and discipline in the classroom. Destiny described how she was labeled as annoying and disruptive for asking questions during class. Here, Destiny’s act of “speaking out” in class (i.e., asking questions to her teacher) is a symbolic confrontation with historically racist and misogynistic attitudes that seek to control how and when she can talk. Through the very act of speaking, Destiny was affirming her selfhood, presence in the classroom, and independent thought. However, such assertions threaten the dominant structures of power, represented by her teacher. As such, Destiny was labelled a “bad girl” and “delinquent” by her teacher and school.

Destiny’s case study is especially important to Pushout as a whole; when Morris’s theoretical observations are cross-referenced against the real-life comments made by Destiny’s educator (specifically, the educator’s understanding of a disruptive child as one who “intentionally take[s] up air and space” [41]), it shows how social and political prejudices historically leveled against Black girls and women still exist, even amongst schoolteachers. Morris concludes her chapter with the case study of Faith, whose own story was remarkably similar to that of Destiny. Faith reflected, “They say I’m disrespectful. That’s my label, disrespectful, ‘cause I’ve always got something to say” (55). With yet another case reflecting all of the themes of Chapter 1 (the interrelationship between intersectional identity, the ghetto, and historical attitudes of power), Morris emphasizes two points: that the criminalization of Black girls in schools is indeed occurring, and that it is occurring on an urgent, systemic level. With these observations, Chapter 1 sets the foundation for Morris’s later exploration of—and proposed solutions for—the pushout phenomenon.