The skanner., August 28, 2013, Page 12, Image 12

Health & Education 2013
Q&A: Girls ‘Invisible’ in Boys and Men of Color Movement
Morris: Most of my research and work
has been with black and Latina females,
who are overrepresented among women in
prison and girls in confinement (i.e.
detained in juvenile hall). In the numerous
interviews and focus groups that I have con-
ducted with these women and girls over the
years, I’ve observed that young women of
color do not always center their own well-
being in their relationships with men and
boys in their lives. There has been a stated
obligation to “be there” for their male coun-
terparts, even if it meant that their own
futures were in jeopardy.
I recently spoke with a girl who admitted
that she dropped out of school to spend time
with her boyfriend, who had also dropped
out. When he started taking advantage of
the male-centered improvement initiatives
in their community, she thought it was her
By Peter Schurman
New America Media
S
ince the Trayvon Martin shooting,
communities across the country have
begun to speak out about the many
challenges that young boys and men of
color face, from higher rates of violence and
incarceration to poverty, racism and the
widening achievement gap in schools. In
August, lawmakers in California convened
a hearing with the Alliance of Boys and
Men of Color, a statewide alliance of youth-
led advocacy organizations, to discuss bills
aimed at tackling some of these issues. But
for Dr. Monique Morris, author of the forth-
coming book Black Stats: African
Americans by the Numbers in the Twenty-
first Century, the movement leaves out the
issues facing girls and women of color.
New America Media: There is a growing
emphasis in this country seeking to address
the needs of Boys and Men of Color. Why
hasn’t there been a similar push for girls and
women of color?
Monique Morris: First, I want to say that
there should absolutely be an investment in
the wellbeing of males of color. However,
that investment should not be to the exclu-
sion of females of color! Some
organizations, such as Girls for Gender
Equity in New York, The Human Rights
Project for Girls in Washington, DC, and
the Center for Young Women’s Develop-
ment in San Francisco are working hard to
mobilize policymakers and the public
toward the goal of improving the conditions
of women and girls of color, but there is
Some of the most egregious applications of
zero-tolerance policies in this country have
criminalized black girls in elementary schools
currently no nationally-coordinated move-
ment to support the healthy development of
our girls. Among the bigger obstacles to this
movement is the male endangerment rheto-
ric, which has rendered girls of color
invisible.
NAM: How are the challenges they face
different from their male counterparts?
Page 12 The Portland Skanner August 28, 2013
responsibility to make sure he arrived on
time to his program. She told me that no
one, in the months that she accompanied
him to the program, asked her why she was-
n’t in school. Because there was no real
intervention in her life, this girl ultimately
participated in the underground economy as
a survival strategy, and ended up in juvenile
hall.
NAM: More attention is now being paid
to issues within the classroom, looking at
things like school discipline policies. How
do these policies impact women of color?
Morris: There is a tendency to look at the
suspension rates of males and compare
them to females, which makes it seem as if
there is no problem with the use of exclu-
sionary discipline (e.g., out of school
suspensions and expulsions) among
females. However, when you look at the
racial disparities by gender, black girls
experience suspension and expulsion at the
highest rates among girls. Zero tolerance
policies have led to more than 1 in 10 black
girls being suspended nationwide. In Oak-
land, California, for example, the
suspension rate for black females is three
times the rate for Latinas, and more than
seven times the rate for white and Asian
Pacific Islander girls.
Some of the most egregious applications
of zero-tolerance policies in this country
have criminalized black girls in elementary
schools. Girls as young as 6-years-old have
been arrested for throwing tantrums in their
school classrooms, for fighting, or for being
disruptive to the learning environment.
Older girls of color also experience unnec-
essarily punitive responses to their
behaviors in schools. Black girls have espe-
cially been disproportionately suspended
from school for behaviors that are subjec-
tively
determined
worthy
of
reprimand—for being “loud, defiant, and
See INVISIBLE on page 11