We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom

by Bettina L. Love

In education, it is not well publicized that Black girls are suspended at a rate that is six times higher than that of their White female peers. In 2012, in New York City, fifty-three Black girls were expelled compared with zero White girls.5 In every state in America, Black girls are more than twice as likely to be suspended from school as White girls.6 And darker-skinned Black girls are suspended at a rate that is three times greater than those with lighter skin.7 Research shows that these higher rates of suspension are not because of misbehavior (a determination that is incredibly subjective, especially when race is a part of the equation) but because of racist and sexist stereotypes that teachers and school officials hold against Black girls. For too many, suspension is a birthright of being young and Black.

Black girls stats