Rep. Ayanna Pressley of the Massachusetts 7th Congressional District, and Monique W. Morris, the creator of the documentary “PUSHOUT: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools” and the founder and president of the National Black Women’s Justice Institute, write at the Boston Globe: A Just Society Doesn’t Criminalize Girls. The policies and unfair practices that disproportionately push girls of color from institutions of learning stem from deeply entrenched biases that require bold, community-based solutions to correct:
Too frequently, educational justice is denied for girls – especially for girls of color. Schools should be the safest place for our children and yet, for many girls of color, the school environment adds painful weight to their already heavy emotional backpacks.
Across our country, black and brown girls are pushed out of school not because they pose any sort of threat, but for simply being who they are. Society too often deems our hair too distracting and our bodies too provocative, our voices too loud, and our attitudes too mean — demeaning our very existence before we even reach adulthood. According to the National Women’s Law Center, black girls in preschool are 54 percent of the girls receiving out-of-school suspensions despite making up only 20 percent of girls enrolled in preschool. Preschool.
We are internalizing oppression before we’ve learned to read or write.
From kindergarten to 12th grade, black girls are seven times more likely than white girls to be suspended from school, and four times more likely to be arrested at school. Latinx girls are more than 1.5 times as likely as white girls to receive an out of school suspension, and Native American girls are suspended at three times the rate of white girls. When we unfairly discipline our girls, we rob them of their childhood by treating them as if they need less protection, nurturing, and comfort than other children. We fail to see their humanity and we fail to respond to the adverse childhood experiences that so many of us experience in our youth. [...]
The policies and unfair practices that disproportionately push girls of color from institutions of learning stem from deeply entrenched biases that require bold, community-based solutions to correct. Now is the time to support relationship-building, mental health support, and restorative interventions, as opposed to unfair and exclusionary discipline.
This alarming crisis is what led to the development of the Ending Punitive, Unfair, School-based Harm that is Overt and Unresponsive to Trauma Act. The Ending PUSHOUT Act aims to dismantle school-to-confinement pathways by creating an ecosystem within our schools where all children, especially children of color, can heal and thrive. [...]
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QUOTATION
“The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters.The majority of mankind are working people. So long as their fair demands—the ownership and control of their livelihoods—are set at naught, we can have neither men’s rights nor women’s rights. The majority of mankind is ground down by industrial oppression in order that the small remnant may live in ease.” ~~Helen Keller, letter, 1911.
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
At Daily Kos on this date in 2016—Mike Pence declares Trump 'mandate' at Trump-hosted Heritage Foundation dinner:
Vice President-Elect Mike Pence continues to prove himself the right man to be Trump's right-hand man. There's no lie a petulant Donald Trump can demand that Pence won't promptly jog out on stage and repeat like he's Trump's personal Bullshit Butler.
Vice president-elect Mike Pence claimed Tuesday night that President-elect Donald Trump has a “mandate” to lead the country, as he ticked through a long list of conservative priorities for the new administration in what he vowed would be a busy first few months in office.
Only in Republican-land can losing the popular vote by millions still be considered a "mandate." George W. Bush considered it a "mandate" when he was chosen by Supreme Court decree; Trumpence's victory over the popular vote led to massive protests around the nation and they're still insisting it must be a "mandate" because—well, we could psychoanalyze this all we want but the short version will always be that it's because that's what liars do. Donald Trump's ego can't handle being the most unpopular president-elect in modern history, and Donald Trump's ego is the thing the Republican Party is determined to restructure the entire new American government around.