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Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools
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 flourishingOn 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 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.
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.
293 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 29, 2016
1022 people are currently reading
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June 20, 2016
Whatever you're doing.... Whatever you're reading... Stop and go get this book.
I suppose I may be biased. I went to public schools that seemed to value adhering to a dress code more than educating children and so the bite of this book feels especially real. Monique Morris doesn't just paint a picture of the plight of black girls in public schools across the country—she points out all of the ways the good guys are culpable. The ways teachers, counselors, teachers, parents, and fellow students are complicit in what she calls the "school-to-confinement" pathways that hurt black girls and other young girls of color.
I can't rave enough about this book and no review I give will do it justice!
I suppose I may be biased. I went to public schools that seemed to value adhering to a dress code more than educating children and so the bite of this book feels especially real. Monique Morris doesn't just paint a picture of the plight of black girls in public schools across the country—she points out all of the ways the good guys are culpable. The ways teachers, counselors, teachers, parents, and fellow students are complicit in what she calls the "school-to-confinement" pathways that hurt black girls and other young girls of color.
I can't rave enough about this book and no review I give will do it justice!
August 27, 2020
I saw an image on Facebook today, a Soviet propaganda cartoon from 1964. It was of a Black boy trying to get into a school where two white children already sat in the school yard. The Black child was blocked by hooded Klansmen forming a wall circling the school. The cartoon was called something like ‘first lesson’. I’ve watched in horror at how quickly the US has descended back to the late 1950s and early 1960s. The murder, often without consequence, of people of colour by police has sparked demonstrations across the world, but, it seems, has done little or nothing to stop the murders. The current President appears to believe his best chance at re-election is in playing the race-card.
The Soviets knew a thing or two about propaganda. The cartoon wasn’t designed to shame US citizens about their treatment of Black citizens so much, rather it was intended for people in the third world. It was intended to remind them that there were sides and picking a side mattered. That if this is how the US treats its own Black citizens, how will they treat you? There is no Soviet Union today and colonialism has moved on to neo-colonialism. The US is certainly much less concerned about how it might be seen by African nations than it was in the 1960s. Geopolitics and internal race relations have played out in their separate spheres. The problem for the young Black girls discussed in this book is there seems little external motivation now for the US to act. Certainly, Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in Portland and JFK’s deployment of them in Birmingham look very much for opposite reasons all these year later.
This book is the story of a nation’s neglect. It focuses upon the treatment of poor Black girls in schools. In part this is the story of the school-to-prison pipeline. It is about the growing use of ‘discipline’ in school, of no-excuses policies, of police-like guards who not only criminalise Black school children, but are likely to brutalise them as well. One of the more chilling examples of over-reach described in this book is of one such prison/school guard telling children, ‘It’s time’ – meaning it is time for them to leave school, that their education is now over. His qualifications for making this recommendation? The point is. he has no qualifications, other than the racial stereotypes he has entered the school building with. The right question to ask is what he is doing there in the first place. And here the racial stereotypes of society more generally come to the fore. The guards are there to protect the students from potential mass shooters. However, everyone knows who actually do school shootings, and they certainly are not Black girls. Rather they are invariably white, middle class boys. The guards don’t just wait for a random shooter to show up, but rather they turn their attention to the students, essentially criminalising childhood misdemeanours.
This book suggests that one of the greatest ways to protect young Black girls would be to encourage them to remain in education. The point is made that the more you learn, the more you earn – however, as reassuring as this sounds, it is only partly true, as is made clear by books like The Global Auction: The Broken Promises of Education, Jobs and Incomes. It is half the story at best, as is made clear in Jean Anyon’s research, where working class kids are provided with very different forms of education to that of middle class kids. To believe that all kids would be able to access a middle class education just by staying on at school for a little longer truly misses the point of the reproductive character of so much of education. This is also the result of nearly endless research in books like Stop High-Stakes Testing: An Appeal to America's Conscience, The Flat World and Education: How America's Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future, Working Class Without Work: High School Students in A De-Industrializing Economy, Dividing Classes: How the Middle Class Negotiates and Rationalizes School Advantage or Can Education Change Society??
This book also reminded me of the book based on Australian educational research called Learning from the Margins: Young Women, Social Exclusion and Education. In that working class girls and their mothers are interviewed about school. In a telling example, the mothers say that they are very keen for their daughters to remain in school, but they don’t want them to feel disrespected. The mothers can see the benefits that would come from finishing school, but they also remember how they had been made to feel by teachers who looked down on them at school – and this was not unlike the Black students being told ‘it’s time’.
A young girl in this describes what happens when someone calls her a bitch. She not only describes the anger this makes her feel, but also how this then turns to physical rage, where she is likely to attempt to tear the room apart. This is something Deleuze and Guattari call ‘captured lines of flight’. The system may oppress us, but it also provides what appear in the midst of our lived experience what look like ‘ways out’ – lines of flight where we can escape the immediacy of that oppression. These lines of flight might appear very attractive at the time – leaving school, for instance, or telling the teacher to shove their homework where the sun doesn’t shine… The problem is that these ‘choices’ have been captured by the system, that is, rather than providing an escape, they ultimately hurt the system less than they damage the person who follows them in their attempted escape. If someone knows that you have a big red button they can press that will make you explode, then don’t be surprised if they press it when it is likely to cause you the most damage.
This book follows Black girls into the sex industry, follows them into relationships with men who exploit them and destroy their lives. But it also traces the sexualisation of all Black girls across society, including in the classroom where a Black and a white girl might wear identical clothes, but one will be sent home and the other allowed into class. The sexualisation of young Black girls can sometimes start from ridiculously young ages. The levels of exploitation described make this a painful book to read.
For me, the main problem is one of poverty in a racialized society. The society itself sets impossible standards for these children to follow and then presents them as degenerate for any misstep. All of which is an essential part of late-capitalism and the punitive nature of the state which turns upon the poor.
The end of the welfare state didn’t reduce the money that was spent on welfare – in fact, as a case in point, in the US public social spending has increased from 14.3% of GDP in 2000 to 18.7% in 2018. What has changed is the punishments that accompany anything that might look like ‘welfare’. Governments demand mutual obligations. These are based on notions that define being out of work or being too sick to work as a failing of personal responsibility, rather than a social dysfunction and collective failure. We have witnessed a return to the morality of the workhouse, where the poor are held personally responsible for the predicaments they find themselves in. Under this model, the poor, need to be incentivised to act in ways to best address their current failings – and that incentive is generally the harshest of discipline. Throughout the Anglophone world the harshest discipline is mostly reserved for people of colour. This book looks at the consequences of this reversal of blame as it is experienced by Black girls, particularly those who have been excluded or who self-exclude from the education system.
The book ends with a series of suggested strategies teachers, parents and friends to encourage young Black girls to reappraise their lives and hopefully get their lives back on track. I generally have problems with such lists. Yet again the problems become the personal responsibility of these young women. The problem is that the complex of issues that these young women face are not caused by the education system and are not caused by themselves. As such, demanding they confront systemic and all-pervasive forms of abuse by only resorting to their own friendship groups or their own individual resources doesn’t seem likely to overcome that abuse. What is called for is a community response to the issues of pushouts and pullouts. To focus on individual students only seems to perpetuate the same discrimination. A great first step would be for the community to demand schools look less like prisons and more like school. The community could also look at the perverse incentives that encourage schools to exclude students. If we truly believe that education is a protective against poverty, social dysfunction and crime, then not excluding students from school seems an obvious first step.
Thanks for recommending this Rick – I will try to get to The Color of Law soon too.
The Soviets knew a thing or two about propaganda. The cartoon wasn’t designed to shame US citizens about their treatment of Black citizens so much, rather it was intended for people in the third world. It was intended to remind them that there were sides and picking a side mattered. That if this is how the US treats its own Black citizens, how will they treat you? There is no Soviet Union today and colonialism has moved on to neo-colonialism. The US is certainly much less concerned about how it might be seen by African nations than it was in the 1960s. Geopolitics and internal race relations have played out in their separate spheres. The problem for the young Black girls discussed in this book is there seems little external motivation now for the US to act. Certainly, Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in Portland and JFK’s deployment of them in Birmingham look very much for opposite reasons all these year later.
This book is the story of a nation’s neglect. It focuses upon the treatment of poor Black girls in schools. In part this is the story of the school-to-prison pipeline. It is about the growing use of ‘discipline’ in school, of no-excuses policies, of police-like guards who not only criminalise Black school children, but are likely to brutalise them as well. One of the more chilling examples of over-reach described in this book is of one such prison/school guard telling children, ‘It’s time’ – meaning it is time for them to leave school, that their education is now over. His qualifications for making this recommendation? The point is. he has no qualifications, other than the racial stereotypes he has entered the school building with. The right question to ask is what he is doing there in the first place. And here the racial stereotypes of society more generally come to the fore. The guards are there to protect the students from potential mass shooters. However, everyone knows who actually do school shootings, and they certainly are not Black girls. Rather they are invariably white, middle class boys. The guards don’t just wait for a random shooter to show up, but rather they turn their attention to the students, essentially criminalising childhood misdemeanours.
This book suggests that one of the greatest ways to protect young Black girls would be to encourage them to remain in education. The point is made that the more you learn, the more you earn – however, as reassuring as this sounds, it is only partly true, as is made clear by books like The Global Auction: The Broken Promises of Education, Jobs and Incomes. It is half the story at best, as is made clear in Jean Anyon’s research, where working class kids are provided with very different forms of education to that of middle class kids. To believe that all kids would be able to access a middle class education just by staying on at school for a little longer truly misses the point of the reproductive character of so much of education. This is also the result of nearly endless research in books like Stop High-Stakes Testing: An Appeal to America's Conscience, The Flat World and Education: How America's Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future, Working Class Without Work: High School Students in A De-Industrializing Economy, Dividing Classes: How the Middle Class Negotiates and Rationalizes School Advantage or Can Education Change Society??
This book also reminded me of the book based on Australian educational research called Learning from the Margins: Young Women, Social Exclusion and Education. In that working class girls and their mothers are interviewed about school. In a telling example, the mothers say that they are very keen for their daughters to remain in school, but they don’t want them to feel disrespected. The mothers can see the benefits that would come from finishing school, but they also remember how they had been made to feel by teachers who looked down on them at school – and this was not unlike the Black students being told ‘it’s time’.
A young girl in this describes what happens when someone calls her a bitch. She not only describes the anger this makes her feel, but also how this then turns to physical rage, where she is likely to attempt to tear the room apart. This is something Deleuze and Guattari call ‘captured lines of flight’. The system may oppress us, but it also provides what appear in the midst of our lived experience what look like ‘ways out’ – lines of flight where we can escape the immediacy of that oppression. These lines of flight might appear very attractive at the time – leaving school, for instance, or telling the teacher to shove their homework where the sun doesn’t shine… The problem is that these ‘choices’ have been captured by the system, that is, rather than providing an escape, they ultimately hurt the system less than they damage the person who follows them in their attempted escape. If someone knows that you have a big red button they can press that will make you explode, then don’t be surprised if they press it when it is likely to cause you the most damage.
This book follows Black girls into the sex industry, follows them into relationships with men who exploit them and destroy their lives. But it also traces the sexualisation of all Black girls across society, including in the classroom where a Black and a white girl might wear identical clothes, but one will be sent home and the other allowed into class. The sexualisation of young Black girls can sometimes start from ridiculously young ages. The levels of exploitation described make this a painful book to read.
For me, the main problem is one of poverty in a racialized society. The society itself sets impossible standards for these children to follow and then presents them as degenerate for any misstep. All of which is an essential part of late-capitalism and the punitive nature of the state which turns upon the poor.
The end of the welfare state didn’t reduce the money that was spent on welfare – in fact, as a case in point, in the US public social spending has increased from 14.3% of GDP in 2000 to 18.7% in 2018. What has changed is the punishments that accompany anything that might look like ‘welfare’. Governments demand mutual obligations. These are based on notions that define being out of work or being too sick to work as a failing of personal responsibility, rather than a social dysfunction and collective failure. We have witnessed a return to the morality of the workhouse, where the poor are held personally responsible for the predicaments they find themselves in. Under this model, the poor, need to be incentivised to act in ways to best address their current failings – and that incentive is generally the harshest of discipline. Throughout the Anglophone world the harshest discipline is mostly reserved for people of colour. This book looks at the consequences of this reversal of blame as it is experienced by Black girls, particularly those who have been excluded or who self-exclude from the education system.
The book ends with a series of suggested strategies teachers, parents and friends to encourage young Black girls to reappraise their lives and hopefully get their lives back on track. I generally have problems with such lists. Yet again the problems become the personal responsibility of these young women. The problem is that the complex of issues that these young women face are not caused by the education system and are not caused by themselves. As such, demanding they confront systemic and all-pervasive forms of abuse by only resorting to their own friendship groups or their own individual resources doesn’t seem likely to overcome that abuse. What is called for is a community response to the issues of pushouts and pullouts. To focus on individual students only seems to perpetuate the same discrimination. A great first step would be for the community to demand schools look less like prisons and more like school. The community could also look at the perverse incentives that encourage schools to exclude students. If we truly believe that education is a protective against poverty, social dysfunction and crime, then not excluding students from school seems an obvious first step.
Thanks for recommending this Rick – I will try to get to The Color of Law soon too.
April 3, 2021
A heartbreaking but illuminating look at how Black girls are treated in America, particularly in our schools. Author Monique W. Morris spent four years chronicling individual cases of Black girls across the country, interviewing them and observing their classroom dynamics.
Ms. Morris includes numerous statistics that highlight just how bad it is, how Black girls are criminalized - even children as young as six years old are handcuffed and arrested - and pushed out of our educational systems. She investigates the history of stereotypes about Black girls and women and shows how educators routinely apply those stereotypes and biases to their young students.
I appreciated the personal stories of the girls she interviewed and the depth of research put into this book. However, my one complaint is that there was a lot of repetition and the book could have been half as long.
I think this is an important book for educators or anyone working with children and should also be of interest to anyone wanting to learn more about systemic racism.
Ms. Morris includes numerous statistics that highlight just how bad it is, how Black girls are criminalized - even children as young as six years old are handcuffed and arrested - and pushed out of our educational systems. She investigates the history of stereotypes about Black girls and women and shows how educators routinely apply those stereotypes and biases to their young students.
I appreciated the personal stories of the girls she interviewed and the depth of research put into this book. However, my one complaint is that there was a lot of repetition and the book could have been half as long.
I think this is an important book for educators or anyone working with children and should also be of interest to anyone wanting to learn more about systemic racism.
March 30, 2016
Required reading for all educators and policy makers. Review to come.
March 24, 2023
“The drive to cast contemporary America as a colorblind society impairs our ability to recognize two important phenomena: the persistence of segregation and how it shapes the identities of black girls, and the impacts of systems that reproduce and reinforce unequal access to educational opportunity.”
Black girls are often characterized by their teachers and educational administrators as more active and less conforming than their white counterparts. Consequently, they are frequently addressed more critically and less supportively. Simple acts such as asking questions or speaking out of turn can be seen as disruptive disobedience. The disallowance of classroom interaction shuts down the voices of black girls and reinforces their negative associations with education and authority.
Adding insult to injury, Black girls are triply oppressed: they are oppressed as women in a patriarchal society, they are oppressed as beings of color in a culture of white superiority, and they are very often oppressed as poor and impoverished in a capitalist hierarchy. Frankly, the only thing more challenging than growing up poor, black, and female in America is growing up poor, black, female, and gay in America.
“The current practices and prevailing consciousness in homes, neighborhoods, schools, and other places young people occupy regularly respond to black girls as if they are fully developed adults and in turn their responses to their mistakes follow a similar pattern. Society treats them this way and our girls believe the hype. And when they do, adults ignore the power dynamics that affect youthful decision making.”
These young women of color deserve educators who do not see them as inferior. They deserve something more than zero tolerance disciplinary policies aimed at adolescent and preadolescent demographics. We are failing them by systems of academic suspension and expulsion. We are failing them by lowered expectations that, effectively, grant them permission to fail.
Monique Morris has authored an eye opener. Published in 2015, her statistics show trends that continue to this day—black girls are disproportionately suspended from our schools, disproportionately expelled from our schools, and disproportionately detained and/or incarcerated in our juvenile justice institutions. This book should be required reading for every educator, educational administrator, and detention facility staff member in America.
“The education of black girls is a lifesaving act of social justice… There are no throwaway children. We can and must do better.”
Black girls are often characterized by their teachers and educational administrators as more active and less conforming than their white counterparts. Consequently, they are frequently addressed more critically and less supportively. Simple acts such as asking questions or speaking out of turn can be seen as disruptive disobedience. The disallowance of classroom interaction shuts down the voices of black girls and reinforces their negative associations with education and authority.
Adding insult to injury, Black girls are triply oppressed: they are oppressed as women in a patriarchal society, they are oppressed as beings of color in a culture of white superiority, and they are very often oppressed as poor and impoverished in a capitalist hierarchy. Frankly, the only thing more challenging than growing up poor, black, and female in America is growing up poor, black, female, and gay in America.
“The current practices and prevailing consciousness in homes, neighborhoods, schools, and other places young people occupy regularly respond to black girls as if they are fully developed adults and in turn their responses to their mistakes follow a similar pattern. Society treats them this way and our girls believe the hype. And when they do, adults ignore the power dynamics that affect youthful decision making.”
These young women of color deserve educators who do not see them as inferior. They deserve something more than zero tolerance disciplinary policies aimed at adolescent and preadolescent demographics. We are failing them by systems of academic suspension and expulsion. We are failing them by lowered expectations that, effectively, grant them permission to fail.
Monique Morris has authored an eye opener. Published in 2015, her statistics show trends that continue to this day—black girls are disproportionately suspended from our schools, disproportionately expelled from our schools, and disproportionately detained and/or incarcerated in our juvenile justice institutions. This book should be required reading for every educator, educational administrator, and detention facility staff member in America.
“The education of black girls is a lifesaving act of social justice… There are no throwaway children. We can and must do better.”
March 15, 2016
Wow. Blown away at what i've learned, and had (sadly) confirmed reading this book. Everyone with children particularly girls, no matter their race, should read this book. Yes it's about black girls however I know many parents with young white girls who are labeled early on as "aggressive" or "hard-to-handle" and are treated pretty similarly to how their black sisters are in school when labeled. Anyways, it is a succinct and well-written book about something too familiar in the black community, sadly ignored in the educational system, with many stories and statistical research to back up the findings. The only thing I wish the author had spent more time on is what to do/how to best handle certain situations at various ages, etc....I guess looking for answers and having them is always the hardest part of writing a book like this. VERY informative nonetheless. Highly recommend.
February 22, 2017
I am not sure how to review this book. There were a few things that bothered me, but drawing attention to them would draw attention away from the main message. And the main message is essential for any educator, policy maker, tax payer, or human being to understand.
The truth of the matter is that in America, black people were forced to be slaves. When they were finally freed, Americans (mostly Southern but those in the north also played a huge part) made laws that restricted the freedoms of black people. When these Jim Crow laws were finally challenge, more than 100 years after black people were "freed" from slavery, Americans began locking up black men and women in record numbers. Mass incarceration is still limiting the freedoms of black people today.
Adding to that, the majority of black people have *never* had the chance to be equally educated, equally housed, or equally cared for in the way the vast majority of white people have. There are many books, like this one, that document the unacceptable lack of funding for black schools, which leaves the schools without proper textbooks, proper teachers, or even proper subjects to teach. Students in these poverty stricken schools are set up to fail. Their schools look like prisons, are run like prisons, and get students used to policing as a form of control. As someone who spent 2 years in a program that taught neuroscience to high school kids in West Philadelphia, I can personally attest to this.
It's not ok to relegate the vast majority of black people to poor neighborhoods and poor schools that most whites would never want to live in or attend. It's appalling treatment that has roots that are older than our country itself and those roots have continued to grow and still have quite a hold today.
For this reason, Pushout is essential reading for anyone trying to understand why a growing number of black girls are coming under correctional control in the United States. Morris does an exquisite job of explaining why some behaviors that look like a black-girl-problem are actually a societal problem. Sometimes she is not as convincing and, imo, it weakens her overall argument. Having grown up with a bunch of seriously racist people in my life, I know how more conservative types will read the examples she didn't argue as well. They will see it not as an exception to a solid narrative, but rather as a bunch of tiny holes at which they will pick, with the sole purpose of dismissing the entire argument. For this reason, I hope the next person to make this argument runs the book by some conservative folks first to see where the author might be able to make her arguments more resistant to that sort of attack.
The truth of the matter is that in America, black people were forced to be slaves. When they were finally freed, Americans (mostly Southern but those in the north also played a huge part) made laws that restricted the freedoms of black people. When these Jim Crow laws were finally challenge, more than 100 years after black people were "freed" from slavery, Americans began locking up black men and women in record numbers. Mass incarceration is still limiting the freedoms of black people today.
Adding to that, the majority of black people have *never* had the chance to be equally educated, equally housed, or equally cared for in the way the vast majority of white people have. There are many books, like this one, that document the unacceptable lack of funding for black schools, which leaves the schools without proper textbooks, proper teachers, or even proper subjects to teach. Students in these poverty stricken schools are set up to fail. Their schools look like prisons, are run like prisons, and get students used to policing as a form of control. As someone who spent 2 years in a program that taught neuroscience to high school kids in West Philadelphia, I can personally attest to this.
It's not ok to relegate the vast majority of black people to poor neighborhoods and poor schools that most whites would never want to live in or attend. It's appalling treatment that has roots that are older than our country itself and those roots have continued to grow and still have quite a hold today.
For this reason, Pushout is essential reading for anyone trying to understand why a growing number of black girls are coming under correctional control in the United States. Morris does an exquisite job of explaining why some behaviors that look like a black-girl-problem are actually a societal problem. Sometimes she is not as convincing and, imo, it weakens her overall argument. Having grown up with a bunch of seriously racist people in my life, I know how more conservative types will read the examples she didn't argue as well. They will see it not as an exception to a solid narrative, but rather as a bunch of tiny holes at which they will pick, with the sole purpose of dismissing the entire argument. For this reason, I hope the next person to make this argument runs the book by some conservative folks first to see where the author might be able to make her arguments more resistant to that sort of attack.
July 28, 2017
Monique W. Morris has done it again.
A while back I had the pleasure of reviewing her first book, Black Stats. And as much as Black Stats was extensively researched and illuminating, Pushout has gone above and beyond. This book is a call to action, and now I need to get the work. To read the rest of this review and to see a mini documentary about this book from Health Happens Here Click Here
A while back I had the pleasure of reviewing her first book, Black Stats. And as much as Black Stats was extensively researched and illuminating, Pushout has gone above and beyond. This book is a call to action, and now I need to get the work. To read the rest of this review and to see a mini documentary about this book from Health Happens Here Click Here
October 8, 2016
It was a surreal experience to look up from this book to see the black girls in my classroom demonstrating exactly what Morris describes. I appreciated her incorporation of critical race theory--double consciousness, internalized racism--as well as feminist theory in addressing the often-overlooked issue of how the criminalization of education uniquely affects black girls. In a world where the answers to what it means to be black almost always refer to what it means to be a black man, this book is a timely reminder that black girls are just as affected by racism and unequal education as black boys but require different, context-specific approaches to overcoming this oppression. After reading this book, I have a much more careful eye as to how gender affects interactions with my students in my own black classroom. As Morris writes, this is "an unapologetic rejection of the notion that our girls' learning is in any way less important than anyone else's. There are no throwaway children. We can, and must, do better."
January 28, 2018
An important book and a rather useful as well. Morris details the reason why young Black women do not graduate school and why they are expelled at high rates. She also highlights ways to deal with the problem - part of it is shift in culture. The book includes a question and answer secton which is most useful.
June 12, 2016
Where to begin. Aside from the fact that I want to quote every page of this book for starters - this is one of the best academic kind of books I've read in awhile (coming off a Masters of Ed Program, which I wish this text could have been a part of). Incredibly researched, the footnotes and research do not detract from the book, as will often happen, but makes you actually want to read the footnotes (a experience I don't get all too often!). The mix of narratives from her interviews with girls, as well as research from the more academia side of things makes this a perfect structural marriage of the logical side, as well as the emotional.
As she notes, all too often, Black girls are left out of the discussion - whether or racism (which will often turn into conversations about treatment of Black men), or sexism (which is often centered around conversations of white women's experiences). As she writes, "The failure to include Black girls fully in the articulation of American democracy has relegated them to the margins of society." (188). We need to develop schools, services, and pedagogies that are responsive to culture, race, and gendered experiences. Must read!
As she notes, all too often, Black girls are left out of the discussion - whether or racism (which will often turn into conversations about treatment of Black men), or sexism (which is often centered around conversations of white women's experiences). As she writes, "The failure to include Black girls fully in the articulation of American democracy has relegated them to the margins of society." (188). We need to develop schools, services, and pedagogies that are responsive to culture, race, and gendered experiences. Must read!
April 22, 2016
Disturbing, enlightening and important. Essential reading for educators.
May 12, 2021
“Not every investment requires money. As the girls in this book have shown, they want to know that people care about them and their well-being. They want to be seen and acknowledged for who they are and what they can contribute to the learning environment. Our collective community can respond to their needs by being there for them. But many schools around the country have also established girls’ groups as a way to provide encouragement for girls simply by convening them in regular conversation and sisterhood check-ins. These are good ways to facilitate conversation and to launch the next level of investment—one that does require financial resources. Join efforts to raise awareness about the conditions of Black girls in the racial justice movement.”
PUSHOUT
Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools by Monique W. Morris is such an important read. Black Girls are currently the fastest-growing population in the juvenile justice system. Our education system is failing these girls when they should be a place of safety and support. This book goes into how our current policies affect these girls and how we can challenge them to make a more stable environment. The author travels throughout the country and interviews girls and staff to get their opinions and shed light on what can be changed for the better.
“Defining freedom cannot amount to simply substituting it with inclusion. Countering the criminalization of Black girls requires fundamentally altering the relationship between Black girls and the institutions of power that have worked to reinforce their subjugation.
PUSHOUT
This book is broken up into five main chapters: Struggling to Survive, A Blues for Black Girls when the “Attitude” is Enuf, Jezebel in the Classroom, Learning on Lockdown, and Repairing Relationships, Rebuilding Connections. Then at the end, there are references for those who are seeking help or guidance. The author targets internalized racism, systemic racism, and even shines a light on the voices of Black Girls.
This book is absolutely filled with statistics. Statistics that can’t be argued or ignored. But the part that is undeniable is the passion that these girls have for an education. In the interviews, these girls know the importance of getting an education. So it begs the question, what changes can we make to better assist Black Girls and help them THRIVE? We need to develop programs that take into account everyone’s race, culture, and experiences. I feel like this book should be required reading! Let’s listen to these voices! I rate this book 5 out of 5 stars.
PUSHOUT
Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools by Monique W. Morris is such an important read. Black Girls are currently the fastest-growing population in the juvenile justice system. Our education system is failing these girls when they should be a place of safety and support. This book goes into how our current policies affect these girls and how we can challenge them to make a more stable environment. The author travels throughout the country and interviews girls and staff to get their opinions and shed light on what can be changed for the better.
“Defining freedom cannot amount to simply substituting it with inclusion. Countering the criminalization of Black girls requires fundamentally altering the relationship between Black girls and the institutions of power that have worked to reinforce their subjugation.
PUSHOUT
This book is broken up into five main chapters: Struggling to Survive, A Blues for Black Girls when the “Attitude” is Enuf, Jezebel in the Classroom, Learning on Lockdown, and Repairing Relationships, Rebuilding Connections. Then at the end, there are references for those who are seeking help or guidance. The author targets internalized racism, systemic racism, and even shines a light on the voices of Black Girls.
This book is absolutely filled with statistics. Statistics that can’t be argued or ignored. But the part that is undeniable is the passion that these girls have for an education. In the interviews, these girls know the importance of getting an education. So it begs the question, what changes can we make to better assist Black Girls and help them THRIVE? We need to develop programs that take into account everyone’s race, culture, and experiences. I feel like this book should be required reading! Let’s listen to these voices! I rate this book 5 out of 5 stars.
August 12, 2020
More later
July 8, 2017
I think this book is relevant to libraries as a place with adults who are authority figures in the lives of young black women. I found the appendices helpful and I think as adults in a young black woman's life in school, or public libraries we have a responsibility to learn as much as we can about the triggers and issues they face in their lives that can affect how we interact with them in our spaces.
March 23, 2019
this is a good book to introduce yourself to the injustices of the juvenile justice system. it can be a bit condescending at times, as the author goes back on points she’s trying to make, but if you get past those it really does provide good information. i recommend not stopping with this book, because it is a pretty surface level explanation of just some of the problems young black girls face.
June 20, 2018
RECOMMEND THIS FOR ANYONE WHO IS LOOKING TO GET INTO EDUCATION
April 30, 2019
A review in 30 points:
1. In 2005, I read David Shipler’s then-new book The Working Poor, where he used people’s narratives to build a case that the American economy was rigged against those who were poor. The beam in his eye, though, is that nearly all of his dozens of stories read like this: “So-and-so dropped out of high school, got pregnant a few times, and keeps getting arrested for drugs and shoplifting and now she can’t even get a dignified job that pays a living wage, people, it’s a nightmare for this poor victim George Bush is evil!”
2. Monique Morris uses the same storytelling strategy to make the case for systemic discrimination against black girls in American schools in Pushout, and she does it by making the exact same mistakes David Shipler made a decade ago. A typical example might look like this: “One student repeatedly cussed out the teacher in front of the class and got into fights and suddenly the random oppressors are giving her grief hey everybody this racist system is broken!“
3. Of the many stories in this book, zero ever suggest that any trouble a student ever finds herself in is her own fault, not to any degree. Such a message of null responsibility seems dangerous to give to youth, and unethical for a scholar to promote.
4. Morris constantly alludes to “attitude” and “loudness” among black girls (why is such stereotyping OK for her?), and ascribes these traits to a conscious rebellion against a racist system. Again, this is never defended, nor is any alternative explanation ever explored much less refuted (an inexcusable lapse for a scholar!).
5. The girls’ stories are always treated as objectively factual, with nary a shred of skepticism from the author evident. Not to say that the girls are prevaricating–though why wouldn’t they try to look good for a sympathetic interviewer?–but who’s to say that their perceptions of their experiences are perfect? Why is no space ever given for others involved to explain any shortcomings in the girls’ memories? Or is only one side of the story valid? Only one view is privileged here? (Has Morris never seen Rashomon?)
6. A more accurate–and more honest–assessment of the girls in this book would include a more well-rounded picture of their lives. Do they have two parents at home? Did the adults in the family finish high school? Do their families work and obey the law? If the answers to the above are “no” for most of the girls portrayed in this book, that would seem significant–why hide it? If the answers are yes, that would strengthen Morris’s case, so why not advertise it? Her silence on the subject seems telling. (Or are the “no” answers also the result of racist oppression, in a conveniently permanent self-fulfilling loop of begging the question?)
7. Though Morris often throws out statistics like “X% of all suspended students are Black girls,” she never says how much of the total black female student population that percentage represents. A more useful number would be something like “X% of all black girls in America have been suspended.” A large number there would be indicative of a problem, but as it is, she’s looking at a very narrow area of the whole picture. Such obfuscated reporting is disingenuous.
8. The fact is, the vast majority of black girls are never suspended, never in trouble, and never drop out. The vast majority of black girls in America (and I say this after having taught school at several sites around a large and ethnically diverse city for 16 years) do not match the simplified description of them given by Morris. She derides “caricatures of Black femininity,” but constantly indulges in them herself.
9. Her failure to note all of this, much less deal with it, leads me to wonder why she focuses on such a tiny portion of the population; a minority of a minority, really. I suppose it’s because that’s the only way she can make her case for systemic discrimination.
10. Morris never examines, much less proves, her belief that there even is systemic discrimination. Perhaps she feels this book wasn’t the place for it. Perhaps it’s just received wisdom for her, a commonplace article of faith. At any rate, in light of the above point, there’s an enormous flaw in her theory that she needs to deal with: if there is, in fact, systemic discrimination against black girls in America’s schools, then it must be counted as a spectacular failure, for the vast majority of black girls escape the clutches of its machinations completely unscathed. This would seem to be true for all the other trendy brands of proposed “systemic discrimination” out there, also.
11. The author herself is a black woman. I’m curious what her experiences with this “racist” educational system were. Was she ever suspended? Was she ever in confrontational arguments with teachers? Was she “pushed out” by hostile school personnel? Or was she encouraged by the scores of teachers who live to advocate for minorities? Was she given extra attention and opportunities because she was black and female? And did she herself come from an intact, two-parent, law-abiding family? I wonder what the answers to these questions would say about her thesis.
12. I see from her bio in the book’s jacket that she has an advanced college degree and is married with two children. Looks like she could be a great mentor to these girls. I hope she shared with them how she became who she is today.
Following are specific observations throughout the text:
13. Morris makes it all the way to page 19 before mentioning slavery.
14. The facts cited at the bottom of pg. 32 and the top of 33 say that people who drop out of school tend to drop out of schools that people tend to drop out of.
15. An example of Morris’s myopia: one story concerns Jazzy, a 16-year-old dropout. Morris spends three pages waxing on about “internalized racial oppression” relative to Jazzy, but one quote from Jazzy mentions that she had cut a court-ordered electronic monitoring device off from her ankle…seems like there might be some relevant background there. Morris ignores it, and goes on to knock down some vague straw-man villains she sets up on the next page. (43-46)
16. One girl does accept some personal blame for her situation. Morris immediately dismisses that to charge on with her agenda: “Her willingness to embrace personal accountability…can be read as an asset, but I considered the other factors that lead teenagers to push the limits” (49).
17. “Yet many schools punish girls who speak out of turn or challenge what they feel is injustice as if it were a violation of law rather than an interrogation of unfairness” (63). Context of classroom community, anyone? Morris never seems concerned with being fair, only in grinding an ax.
18. Subjective student feelings are always treated as evidence of prejudice by teachers, and those teachers are always part of a concrete system of oppression. *sigh*
19. Pages 71-83 discuss discipline in Chicago schools. Students complain about everything from metal detectors to school police officers. No mention is made of the epidemic of gang violence there, which in recent years has reached truly historical levels. Weird to ignore such a relevant aspect of her protagonists’ milieu.
20. “What can (and should) be developed and nurtured in educational settings, but almost never is, is a deeper awareness of the numerous social factors–related to race, gender, sexuality, disability status, or other identities–that have the power to trigger Black girls and shape their interactions with people in schools….Most common was the notion that an ‘attitude’ was provoked by incidents of disrespect” (86). Note the use of “trigger” and “provoked.” Morris holds the world around them accountable for these girls’ choices 100% of the time in her book. Instead of excusing instinctive victimhood, what if we taught them to be proactive, the kind of soft skill that makes middle class kids successful?
21. Morris often uses the word “perceived” to qualify how others regard the girls in her story, but the girls’ own perceptions are never critically examined.
22. “When girls in the sex trade are removed from school or sent the signal that their presence in school is problematic, they are being handed over to the predators. Essentially, schools are throwing them away” (100). Morris here evinces a worldview where school–government for the young–is the ultimate and only force for good in children’s lives. Where is the family in this “school-to-predators” journey? Nowhere, for Morris. Worse than that omission is her apparent ignorance that this is indeed a big part of the problem.
23. “The racial disparities described here are a function of multiple factors: socioeconomic (unemployment, poverty), educational (poor performance, truancy), juvenile justice (differential handling, lack of gender-responsive treatment and alternatives to detention), and family and community (an incarcerated parent, living in high-crime areas), among others” (145). What others? Anything more salient than the ones listed? Anything more specific and closer to home than “an incarcerated parent?”
24. “Portia and many girls like her who attend these schools, *despite their bad choices* and the equally bad ones made for them along the way, still have hopes…” (147, emphasis added). This is the first nod to any kind of personal responsibility I’ve seen in this book. And it only took 147 pages! It sits next to a reaffirmation that other factors are still in the foreground, too, but still, it’s something.
25. “I found that one-third of detained Black girls–like Faith–BELIEVED that it was because they simply asked the teacher a question. Even when girls were ‘talking back,’ they often FELT that they were responding to an unprompted, negative comment made by their teacher” (147, emphasis added). This is evidence? This is how social science works?
26. Morris spends all of page 158 analyzing a single instance of poor word choice by one teacher. Never do the words or actions of the girls in her narratives come under such close scrutiny. Those words are privileged.
27. Chapter 3–about sex trafficking–and chapter 4–about schools in juvenile detention facilities–cover important subjects, but are clearly far outside the mainstream. Does this mean that the mainstream is effective, if one must venture so far out to the fringes of the social experience to find problems? This hinders the ethos of the author’s thesis.
28. “For Heaven, positive encouragement from her teachers was an important dynamic for her continued learning. But those relationships were not there, so she looked for reinforcements elsewhere” (171). Gee, too bad human history hasn’t engineered a safe social setting for children in their own home, from birth, to do this. Does this anecdote go on to tell of Heaven bonding with her family? Of course not, silly. In the world of Monique Morris, there is only government on one hand or disaster on the other.
29. “Prevent and disallow ‘Permission to Fail'” (183). A positive point–I agree with this idea as a general educational goal. I’ve known administrators who believe that students have a “right to fail.” That’s not exactly what the author means here, but it’s a good all-around point.
30. Unless I missed something, the word “father” is never used in this book.
1. In 2005, I read David Shipler’s then-new book The Working Poor, where he used people’s narratives to build a case that the American economy was rigged against those who were poor. The beam in his eye, though, is that nearly all of his dozens of stories read like this: “So-and-so dropped out of high school, got pregnant a few times, and keeps getting arrested for drugs and shoplifting and now she can’t even get a dignified job that pays a living wage, people, it’s a nightmare for this poor victim George Bush is evil!”
2. Monique Morris uses the same storytelling strategy to make the case for systemic discrimination against black girls in American schools in Pushout, and she does it by making the exact same mistakes David Shipler made a decade ago. A typical example might look like this: “One student repeatedly cussed out the teacher in front of the class and got into fights and suddenly the random oppressors are giving her grief hey everybody this racist system is broken!“
3. Of the many stories in this book, zero ever suggest that any trouble a student ever finds herself in is her own fault, not to any degree. Such a message of null responsibility seems dangerous to give to youth, and unethical for a scholar to promote.
4. Morris constantly alludes to “attitude” and “loudness” among black girls (why is such stereotyping OK for her?), and ascribes these traits to a conscious rebellion against a racist system. Again, this is never defended, nor is any alternative explanation ever explored much less refuted (an inexcusable lapse for a scholar!).
5. The girls’ stories are always treated as objectively factual, with nary a shred of skepticism from the author evident. Not to say that the girls are prevaricating–though why wouldn’t they try to look good for a sympathetic interviewer?–but who’s to say that their perceptions of their experiences are perfect? Why is no space ever given for others involved to explain any shortcomings in the girls’ memories? Or is only one side of the story valid? Only one view is privileged here? (Has Morris never seen Rashomon?)
6. A more accurate–and more honest–assessment of the girls in this book would include a more well-rounded picture of their lives. Do they have two parents at home? Did the adults in the family finish high school? Do their families work and obey the law? If the answers to the above are “no” for most of the girls portrayed in this book, that would seem significant–why hide it? If the answers are yes, that would strengthen Morris’s case, so why not advertise it? Her silence on the subject seems telling. (Or are the “no” answers also the result of racist oppression, in a conveniently permanent self-fulfilling loop of begging the question?)
7. Though Morris often throws out statistics like “X% of all suspended students are Black girls,” she never says how much of the total black female student population that percentage represents. A more useful number would be something like “X% of all black girls in America have been suspended.” A large number there would be indicative of a problem, but as it is, she’s looking at a very narrow area of the whole picture. Such obfuscated reporting is disingenuous.
8. The fact is, the vast majority of black girls are never suspended, never in trouble, and never drop out. The vast majority of black girls in America (and I say this after having taught school at several sites around a large and ethnically diverse city for 16 years) do not match the simplified description of them given by Morris. She derides “caricatures of Black femininity,” but constantly indulges in them herself.
9. Her failure to note all of this, much less deal with it, leads me to wonder why she focuses on such a tiny portion of the population; a minority of a minority, really. I suppose it’s because that’s the only way she can make her case for systemic discrimination.
10. Morris never examines, much less proves, her belief that there even is systemic discrimination. Perhaps she feels this book wasn’t the place for it. Perhaps it’s just received wisdom for her, a commonplace article of faith. At any rate, in light of the above point, there’s an enormous flaw in her theory that she needs to deal with: if there is, in fact, systemic discrimination against black girls in America’s schools, then it must be counted as a spectacular failure, for the vast majority of black girls escape the clutches of its machinations completely unscathed. This would seem to be true for all the other trendy brands of proposed “systemic discrimination” out there, also.
11. The author herself is a black woman. I’m curious what her experiences with this “racist” educational system were. Was she ever suspended? Was she ever in confrontational arguments with teachers? Was she “pushed out” by hostile school personnel? Or was she encouraged by the scores of teachers who live to advocate for minorities? Was she given extra attention and opportunities because she was black and female? And did she herself come from an intact, two-parent, law-abiding family? I wonder what the answers to these questions would say about her thesis.
12. I see from her bio in the book’s jacket that she has an advanced college degree and is married with two children. Looks like she could be a great mentor to these girls. I hope she shared with them how she became who she is today.
Following are specific observations throughout the text:
13. Morris makes it all the way to page 19 before mentioning slavery.
14. The facts cited at the bottom of pg. 32 and the top of 33 say that people who drop out of school tend to drop out of schools that people tend to drop out of.
15. An example of Morris’s myopia: one story concerns Jazzy, a 16-year-old dropout. Morris spends three pages waxing on about “internalized racial oppression” relative to Jazzy, but one quote from Jazzy mentions that she had cut a court-ordered electronic monitoring device off from her ankle…seems like there might be some relevant background there. Morris ignores it, and goes on to knock down some vague straw-man villains she sets up on the next page. (43-46)
16. One girl does accept some personal blame for her situation. Morris immediately dismisses that to charge on with her agenda: “Her willingness to embrace personal accountability…can be read as an asset, but I considered the other factors that lead teenagers to push the limits” (49).
17. “Yet many schools punish girls who speak out of turn or challenge what they feel is injustice as if it were a violation of law rather than an interrogation of unfairness” (63). Context of classroom community, anyone? Morris never seems concerned with being fair, only in grinding an ax.
18. Subjective student feelings are always treated as evidence of prejudice by teachers, and those teachers are always part of a concrete system of oppression. *sigh*
19. Pages 71-83 discuss discipline in Chicago schools. Students complain about everything from metal detectors to school police officers. No mention is made of the epidemic of gang violence there, which in recent years has reached truly historical levels. Weird to ignore such a relevant aspect of her protagonists’ milieu.
20. “What can (and should) be developed and nurtured in educational settings, but almost never is, is a deeper awareness of the numerous social factors–related to race, gender, sexuality, disability status, or other identities–that have the power to trigger Black girls and shape their interactions with people in schools….Most common was the notion that an ‘attitude’ was provoked by incidents of disrespect” (86). Note the use of “trigger” and “provoked.” Morris holds the world around them accountable for these girls’ choices 100% of the time in her book. Instead of excusing instinctive victimhood, what if we taught them to be proactive, the kind of soft skill that makes middle class kids successful?
21. Morris often uses the word “perceived” to qualify how others regard the girls in her story, but the girls’ own perceptions are never critically examined.
22. “When girls in the sex trade are removed from school or sent the signal that their presence in school is problematic, they are being handed over to the predators. Essentially, schools are throwing them away” (100). Morris here evinces a worldview where school–government for the young–is the ultimate and only force for good in children’s lives. Where is the family in this “school-to-predators” journey? Nowhere, for Morris. Worse than that omission is her apparent ignorance that this is indeed a big part of the problem.
23. “The racial disparities described here are a function of multiple factors: socioeconomic (unemployment, poverty), educational (poor performance, truancy), juvenile justice (differential handling, lack of gender-responsive treatment and alternatives to detention), and family and community (an incarcerated parent, living in high-crime areas), among others” (145). What others? Anything more salient than the ones listed? Anything more specific and closer to home than “an incarcerated parent?”
24. “Portia and many girls like her who attend these schools, *despite their bad choices* and the equally bad ones made for them along the way, still have hopes…” (147, emphasis added). This is the first nod to any kind of personal responsibility I’ve seen in this book. And it only took 147 pages! It sits next to a reaffirmation that other factors are still in the foreground, too, but still, it’s something.
25. “I found that one-third of detained Black girls–like Faith–BELIEVED that it was because they simply asked the teacher a question. Even when girls were ‘talking back,’ they often FELT that they were responding to an unprompted, negative comment made by their teacher” (147, emphasis added). This is evidence? This is how social science works?
26. Morris spends all of page 158 analyzing a single instance of poor word choice by one teacher. Never do the words or actions of the girls in her narratives come under such close scrutiny. Those words are privileged.
27. Chapter 3–about sex trafficking–and chapter 4–about schools in juvenile detention facilities–cover important subjects, but are clearly far outside the mainstream. Does this mean that the mainstream is effective, if one must venture so far out to the fringes of the social experience to find problems? This hinders the ethos of the author’s thesis.
28. “For Heaven, positive encouragement from her teachers was an important dynamic for her continued learning. But those relationships were not there, so she looked for reinforcements elsewhere” (171). Gee, too bad human history hasn’t engineered a safe social setting for children in their own home, from birth, to do this. Does this anecdote go on to tell of Heaven bonding with her family? Of course not, silly. In the world of Monique Morris, there is only government on one hand or disaster on the other.
29. “Prevent and disallow ‘Permission to Fail'” (183). A positive point–I agree with this idea as a general educational goal. I’ve known administrators who believe that students have a “right to fail.” That’s not exactly what the author means here, but it’s a good all-around point.
30. Unless I missed something, the word “father” is never used in this book.
February 27, 2023
An excellent introduction to the intersectional issues faced by Black girls in schools. With all the talk of the "school to prison pipeline," it is important to consider the complexities that make that a reality, and Morris covers those here. She talks to and includes the experiences of many young Black girls in various types of schools and uses those experiences to help illustrate her points about the system issues at play.
I think what was most enlightening were the brief glimpses into what the teachers think about their intereactions in these classrooms -- it seems many of them don't see any problems or think they are helping when they aren't (at least in certain situations).
What I appreciated here was the heavy influence on the girl's voices in naming the problem and how it affects them both in the moment and long term. It was helpful to see how even one comment, policy, or incident could contribute to a growing distrust of schools -- whether it be dress codes, zero tolerance policies, curriculum decisions, or even the qualifications of the teachers assigned to teach them.
Reading Pushout was just another reminder to me that one is never "done" with reading anti-racist books. A lot of the material here is not new to me (I do have a PhD in Education with a heavy emphasis on social justice, so I've read a lot of the people and texts Morris cites here), but it is always helpful to take time to recenter these values in my own practice and consider where I need to continue to do the work. That need will never end, so I'm glad we decided to pick this book to focus on for our schools Equity Team book study this spring. I'll be interested to hear what my colleagues think and how we can apply our learning to our work on the team, too.
I think what was most enlightening were the brief glimpses into what the teachers think about their intereactions in these classrooms -- it seems many of them don't see any problems or think they are helping when they aren't (at least in certain situations).
What I appreciated here was the heavy influence on the girl's voices in naming the problem and how it affects them both in the moment and long term. It was helpful to see how even one comment, policy, or incident could contribute to a growing distrust of schools -- whether it be dress codes, zero tolerance policies, curriculum decisions, or even the qualifications of the teachers assigned to teach them.
Reading Pushout was just another reminder to me that one is never "done" with reading anti-racist books. A lot of the material here is not new to me (I do have a PhD in Education with a heavy emphasis on social justice, so I've read a lot of the people and texts Morris cites here), but it is always helpful to take time to recenter these values in my own practice and consider where I need to continue to do the work. That need will never end, so I'm glad we decided to pick this book to focus on for our schools Equity Team book study this spring. I'll be interested to hear what my colleagues think and how we can apply our learning to our work on the team, too.
July 22, 2020
Did you see the Judge sentence the young 15 year old to "jail time" for not doing her homework? If you did...you've already had glimpsed into what I just read - Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools by Monique W. Morris.
Pushout was an incredible book that is spot on. Our girls are being victimized in the schools, by teachers, by systems. Our girls are prejudged based on hair texture, body composition and the clothes that they wear. Our girls are forgotten about when they are kidnapped or are beaten. All throughout the book I couldn't help but shake my head.
I couldn't read this one fast enough.
Pushout was an incredible book that is spot on. Our girls are being victimized in the schools, by teachers, by systems. Our girls are prejudged based on hair texture, body composition and the clothes that they wear. Our girls are forgotten about when they are kidnapped or are beaten. All throughout the book I couldn't help but shake my head.
I couldn't read this one fast enough.
July 11, 2021
Essential reading for educators. Grateful for Morris’s scholarship.
Read
June 13, 20242024 reads: 158/250
this book discusses the criminalization of black girls in schools, leading to black girls’ education being disrupted and their lives being changed. what i loved about this book is that the author interviewed many black girls who have been wronged by the school system. this book also discusses how we can change things to allow for a better school experience. i’d recommend this to anyone who lives in the u.s., and the numerous statistics detailed throughout horrified me.
this book discusses the criminalization of black girls in schools, leading to black girls’ education being disrupted and their lives being changed. what i loved about this book is that the author interviewed many black girls who have been wronged by the school system. this book also discusses how we can change things to allow for a better school experience. i’d recommend this to anyone who lives in the u.s., and the numerous statistics detailed throughout horrified me.
October 23, 2024
Wow. Black girls and the exclusionary model of education. I see this a lot when I see Black girls in schools. It's bad. It's real. Morris knows.
Morris seems shocked by the culture of control, surveillance, and push-out in schools nowadays, but these systems are so ubiquitous that they're not just for children being pre-judged by their color anymore. A cursory Google isn't telling me how old Morris is, but she must be born in the '70s or earlier. Teachers must account for every child every minute nowadays, and God forbid if they have to go to the bathroom. But besides Morris' shock that terrible systems are terrible, Morris is spot on and amazing. This book could have easily been twice as long, or five times as long, or as long as every Black girl in America's story of being blamed or penalized or misunderstood or underestimated or bored by an unchallenging curriculum and teachers who refuse to push them academically and react to them as though they're being recalcitrant. And the appendix answers all the questions a person could have, whether you are young teen being trafficked or a concerned aunt whose niece is not doing so well in school. Absolute must read.
The audiobook reader sounds like a languid bot, even though she's human in real life. I listened to this on 1.5 speed, that made things better.
Morris seems shocked by the culture of control, surveillance, and push-out in schools nowadays, but these systems are so ubiquitous that they're not just for children being pre-judged by their color anymore. A cursory Google isn't telling me how old Morris is, but she must be born in the '70s or earlier. Teachers must account for every child every minute nowadays, and God forbid if they have to go to the bathroom. But besides Morris' shock that terrible systems are terrible, Morris is spot on and amazing. This book could have easily been twice as long, or five times as long, or as long as every Black girl in America's story of being blamed or penalized or misunderstood or underestimated or bored by an unchallenging curriculum and teachers who refuse to push them academically and react to them as though they're being recalcitrant. And the appendix answers all the questions a person could have, whether you are young teen being trafficked or a concerned aunt whose niece is not doing so well in school. Absolute must read.
The audiobook reader sounds like a languid bot, even though she's human in real life. I listened to this on 1.5 speed, that made things better.
September 21, 2017
"The 'attitude' often attributed to Black girls casts as undesirable the skills of being astute at reading their location - where they sit along the social hierarchy - and overcoming the attendant obstacles. These were lessons learned through generations of struggle, and these lessons sit at the apex of what provides Black women and girls the audacity to demand being treated with dignity. However, when the way of the world includes a general lack of cultural competence and an aversion to valuing the unique considerations of gender, these survival characteristics are degraded and punished rather than recognized as tools of resilience." (p. 20)
I want to give this to every educator I know and all the ones I don't.
I want to give this to every educator I know and all the ones I don't.
April 29, 2017
This is an interesting topic told in the most boring possible fashion.
Told as some kind of ethnography the stories of the girls are trite and do little to engender any kind of sympathy to or understanding of the difficulties that they face or the institutionalization of an entire people or the specifics of gender.
Focusing as it does on these 'stories' it becomes a boring race to the bottom of stereotype. The facts and figures are useful and insightful, but hidden in the mess of moralizing and bad dialects.
Told as some kind of ethnography the stories of the girls are trite and do little to engender any kind of sympathy to or understanding of the difficulties that they face or the institutionalization of an entire people or the specifics of gender.
Focusing as it does on these 'stories' it becomes a boring race to the bottom of stereotype. The facts and figures are useful and insightful, but hidden in the mess of moralizing and bad dialects.
October 10, 2023
I checked this book out from the public library through LIBBY in both audiobook and e-book formats. Even though it’s only 9 hours long, it seemed to take forever to finish. I kept falling asleep or losing my concentration and having to go back. When I realized there were a lot of people waiting and I couldn’t extend my loan, I just returned it. It would have been better to have had it in front of me to cite passages and references in my review. The narrator is very serious and it reads a little like a textbook in monotone. I don’t give it a 5 for that, it’s the content.
A few reviews have said the book is full of propaganda and exaggerated. However, I felt that the author did an excellent job of presenting what has been going on in some areas of this country very well. I never saw anything like she describes when I was in school, nor did I notice anything when my daughters were growing up. I do think people’s complaints have some merit upon reflection, but only in that there is so little about where the system is not failing. Personally, I was so horrified and sickened by the end of the book that I initially wrote a review without remembering that I had never seen anything like what was being described and had only heard of rare cases. This is a VERY UNCOMFORTABLE book and I 100% believe what she and her subjects say has been and is still going on in many classrooms and cities all across the country. I hope it is an exaggeration to be honest. I did just finish, “So You Want to Talk about Race”, by ljeoma Oluo, and I recognized instantly the benefit of having had that author’s perspective on what’s happening in America first.
I learned so much from “Pushout”! Black women (or a lot of them) certainly do have a huge hill to climb in growing up safely, getting a quality education, having to work twice as hard as black men (and more than that, when compared to any other group). Monique Morris presents through case by case interviews, statistics, studies, and history why too many black girls are ending up in reform schools, or on the streets, and even worse. She documents at least 4 years of interviews with black girls, some of their teachers, and others while exploring their lives and educational situations. She describes how and why they are being failed by the systems that be. Within the schools and areas where she is researching, there is such a low percentage of success that it’s almost a miracle if there ever is a happy ending. These girls do not represent all black females, or even most black female students in America. As Publisher’s Weekly, mentions in their excellent review from 01/18/16, these children are drawn from predominantly high-poverty and racially isolated areas, with low-performing schools. It is likely that the situation is also occurring to some degree outside of that population.
Please pick up a copy, or access this book online. I chopped off half of my review and I’ve started it over and over again. I keep listing all of the ways these girls are being failed and what they’ve had to endure from their communities and their schools, teachers, and correctional facilities, I’m just rewriting the book and not doing it justice. If I have time, I may try again later.
A few reviews have said the book is full of propaganda and exaggerated. However, I felt that the author did an excellent job of presenting what has been going on in some areas of this country very well. I never saw anything like she describes when I was in school, nor did I notice anything when my daughters were growing up. I do think people’s complaints have some merit upon reflection, but only in that there is so little about where the system is not failing. Personally, I was so horrified and sickened by the end of the book that I initially wrote a review without remembering that I had never seen anything like what was being described and had only heard of rare cases. This is a VERY UNCOMFORTABLE book and I 100% believe what she and her subjects say has been and is still going on in many classrooms and cities all across the country. I hope it is an exaggeration to be honest. I did just finish, “So You Want to Talk about Race”, by ljeoma Oluo, and I recognized instantly the benefit of having had that author’s perspective on what’s happening in America first.
I learned so much from “Pushout”! Black women (or a lot of them) certainly do have a huge hill to climb in growing up safely, getting a quality education, having to work twice as hard as black men (and more than that, when compared to any other group). Monique Morris presents through case by case interviews, statistics, studies, and history why too many black girls are ending up in reform schools, or on the streets, and even worse. She documents at least 4 years of interviews with black girls, some of their teachers, and others while exploring their lives and educational situations. She describes how and why they are being failed by the systems that be. Within the schools and areas where she is researching, there is such a low percentage of success that it’s almost a miracle if there ever is a happy ending. These girls do not represent all black females, or even most black female students in America. As Publisher’s Weekly, mentions in their excellent review from 01/18/16, these children are drawn from predominantly high-poverty and racially isolated areas, with low-performing schools. It is likely that the situation is also occurring to some degree outside of that population.
Please pick up a copy, or access this book online. I chopped off half of my review and I’ve started it over and over again. I keep listing all of the ways these girls are being failed and what they’ve had to endure from their communities and their schools, teachers, and correctional facilities, I’m just rewriting the book and not doing it justice. If I have time, I may try again later.
June 17, 2020
Audio. I constantly strive to make my school environment better, and this book definitely lead to some insightful information that I needed to know. A great resource for all teachers wanting to reflect on discipline, student-teacher relationships, and specifically educating black girls within their school. Each child is different. It's our responsibility as educators to know the wide span of challenges and hardships all of our students face. Paired with my reading of "The New Jim Crow" this was eye-opening, and I truly LOVE the interviews and reflections from the students. Their voices must be heard.
August 20, 2020
(c/p from my review on TheStoryGraph) There isn't much in this book that is overall shocking when you know a certain amount about Black feminism, but the focus on schools and the way those schools have failed Black girls is really eye opening. It has a lot to say and it says it very well. The use of real girls experiences and stories makes you feel as if you are in the room with these girls. I'm not sure how anyone can read this book and not want to take action. Luckily, the book appendix has some great tools on what you can do to help.
May 28, 2020
As we become MORE aware of huge systemic issues of mass incarceration, this book reminds us to look at young women, and not just focus our whole attention on young black men. Girls face racial issues, but also gendered issues, stemming from slavery through today where they are considered more mouthy, more sexualized, and more nonconforming just be being themselves. All of which puts them at a greater danger of being punished as “willful” which can all to easily redirect them out of the school system and into the juvenile detention/prison complex. This book also covers some aspects of the sex trafficking forces that are acting to pull our girls out of school, because they are worth more out on the streets than in school, and worth more the younger they can be diverted. With young vulnerable black girls often falling between these two forces, it’s no wonder they struggle and need our support and better educational resources.
October 23, 2021
Anyone who is in education needs to read this. I highly recommend the audiobook!
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