Transformational Resistance and Developing a Critical Consiousness for Students in Their Early Stages of Schooling and Beyond

High School

Black high school students are extremely vulnerable to becoming apart of the school-to- prison pipeline epidemic, because white teachers treat black students as if they are older than their actual age, and inherently wanting to challenge the authority of the teacher. White teachers are much more likely to call the police on black students so that they are not obligated to deal with them in the classroom. As you can see on the map, all of the red pushpins indicate black high school students that have been racially oppressed by white teachers or administration members physically and punitively. For example the black girl at Spring Valley high school that was slammed on the floor by a white security guard that had apparently acted out in this behavior on multiple students in the past, (the footage below may be disturbing viewer discretion is advised)   Or the 16 year old girl who "has asthma and diabetes and was hit with a book by a teacher after she fell asleep in class"(Crenshaw 2015 pg. 6). These schools condone the physical abuse of black students and justify this violence by calling these students monsters, troublemakers and criminalizing their very existence because they are black, therefor making them a threat to the white faculty members, students and administration of the school. On the map one of the red pushpins represents Little Rock Nine, the first nine black students that attended Little Rock Central High School. The students were met with angry white parents and students, that spat on the black students that were coming to integrate these schools, the reason that event is on the map is to highlight that since the early stages of desegregation to now where all schools are integrated, black students are still faced with violence but by faculty and administration members, and if not them then law enforcement they call on to arrest black students. For example the 16 year old black girl in California was arrested for not cleaning up a cake, she accidentally dropped, properly off of the floor, but this girl's actions did not break any laws, but she was still arrested. Another 16 year old in Florida was arrested for conducting a school experiment that accidentally created a tiny explosion, but she wasn't trying to destroy a facility. Black students are hunted down by white faculty members and these faculty members get away with racially discriminating against black students because of "zero-tolerance" policies "zero tolerance policies" are created by the district or the schools, that mandate specific consequences for any offense of the school code no matter how small these offenses are. Therefore students can be arrested for anything that surpasses school code of conduct, zero tolerance policies is what fuels the school-to- prison pipeline system.
    Integrated schools were never catered to black students, and have done so much to harm black students from succeeding, that the dropout rate for black students is monumental because black students who recognize that they they are being oppressed by their educators don't see the point in attending school if they are going to be subject to racial oppression and risk being arrested just to get a degree. However, not attending school is not going to help anything either. Black students will still be subject to this form of racial oppression, and you will leave without an education or degree, which will hurt your chances of getting opportunities where you can actually make change. Please read the next page to understand how you're voice can implement change for black students in these schools including yourself!

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