Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools

by Monique W. Morris

Malaika’s narrative reflects the complicated nature of speaking one’s truth as a Black girl in the United States. The messages that she received regarding her duty to speak up and the reactions to her resistance to an oppressive silence or humiliation were confusing. They would be for any of us! As with Shai, the absence of fairness underscores Malaika’s desire to speak up, but it was her resistance to being marginalized, to being physically placed in the corner, that set her off. Malaika was aware of how being placed in a corner is both a punishment for individual behavior and also a warning to other children about what might happen to them if they engage in similar behavior. Malaika was fundamentally trying not to become the symbol of “bad behavior”—particularly since she felt that she was speaking her truth. It is the idea that her truth has no place in the classroom that triggers Malaika.