commercial society and we've done that but no do we need to correct back and attend more public life and civic obligations and have the institutions ask whether they have civic obligations and whether they want to nurture those in their students. >> george thomas government professor at claremont college founders and the idea of the national university constituting the american mind is the name of the book. this is tv on c-span2.

now a talk on the book push-up the criminalization of plaque grows in schools with author monique morris. it's an hour and a half. speech to the director for the center for culture and it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to this particular conversation. the center for arts and culture at the restoration corporation teams up with the press to present push out the criminalization of plaque grows in schools. this conversation is meaningful to the restoration and new press as we share a commitment to amplify and spotlight marginalized voices and stories. we want to thank diane and thene press team for their incredible

part worship intimate conversation. thank you so much. a round of applause please. i also want to note books are for sale folding tonight's conversation, to my left and you are right. gloria steinem, activist writer and journalist wrote a bookgl push-up. if you ever doubted thatoubted t supremacy hines and thosesu devoted to maintaining hierarchy are both embraced and sex need to push out. she tells us exactly how school are crushing the spirit andent talent this country needs. fighting us through the conversation is cheryl watson, director of field support for the new york public schools. she will be speaking withg tonight's offer. please join me in giving these

women a real welcome. [applause] tonight's conversation wouldn't be complete without hearing some of the places of the young women from the research. r to bring us these places is colby christina. ladies and gentlemen, we present the criminalization of black girls in schools. [applause] th this is a 14-year-old who in the summer of 2015 was thrown to th2 ground as well as physically and verbally assaulted afterte refusing to leave her friend at

the hands of the law enforcement officer. the video that later went viral showed her face pushed into the ground as she, a slight framed bikini teenager who presented no physical threat or danger screamed for someone to call her mother for help. the video showed him grounding his knee into her skin and restraining her by placing the full weight of his body on others. the incident was violent and was deemed inappropriate come out of control and inconsistent withci the policies, training andinappo practices. though they've resigned in the public outcry and the scrutiny associated in the actions the image of her hopeless drive and body under his has become one of the snapshots that call the public consciousness to examine the overzealous policing and

criminalization of black youth. though the media focused on the extreme and intolerable abuse cases following black boys such as 12-year-old to race in florida from it reveals what many of us have known for centuries, black girls are also directly impacted by policies and practices that render them vulnerable to abuse, exploitation, and under the worst circumstances, death. for example, an 18-year-old died in police custody after she was arrested for disorderly conduct in alabama. even high-profile cases involving boys we often fail to see those alongside them aftero the shooting the officers tag old sister to the ground and handcuffed her. not only did she watch her brother died at the hands of the officers that she was forced to

grieve his death from the backseat of a police car. addressing these narratives proven difficult in the political climate on thate, onet embraces the dissent and increases the surveillance of the home where our families live and play and where our childrenh are educated. >> welcome, everyone, to a conversation. as parents, educators, sisters, brothers, community leaders i know we're all excited to engage in a powerful conversation. as we examine the injustice black girls experience in school and beyond and have the opportunity to hear her thoughts about how we change the narrative is my pleasure and honor to introduce doctor morris, an author and social

justice scholar is more than 20 years of professional and volunteer experience in the areas of education, civil rights, juvenile and social justice. the author of african-americans by member in the 21st century, too beautiful for words and push out the criminalization of lack girls in schools. she's written dozens of articles, chapters and othercl publications on social justice o issues and lectured widely on the research policies and practices associated in theed juvenile justice, educational and socioeconomic conditions for black girls, women and their families. doctor morris is the cofounder and president of the black justice institute and also a former vice president for economic programs, advocacy and research at the national association for the advancement of colored people and the former

director of research for the henderson center for social justice at uc berkeley law school. her work has informed the development and implementation of the improved cultural gender responses continuum. doctor morris research intersects the gender, education and justice to explore the ways in which the communities are uniquely affected by social policy. i think i speak for everyone in the room when i say thank you for writing this book andne beginning this very importanttts conversation. tonight we are going to have the opportunity to ask some questions about the book and i will engage in a conversation then at the end of the program we will open up to the audience who i know also has a lot of questions they would like to ask

about the book and some of the fox how we begithoughts how we e this narrative. >> hello, everybody. [laughter]me in push out y you reference edward morris in the 2007 study is found that black girls in the classroom are perceived as a unladylike and cloud. talk about your stereotypes. >> it's interesting how we've come to understand the identity of black women and girls. much of the discussion is centered in a critique of the way in which the identity has been presented publicly and also in the scholarship in our own consciousness.ly when i talk about the school

push out, i talk largely aboutut the practices and also thege prevailing consciousness that underlines how we approach girls indoor spaces and understand what they are capable of and ultimately will become. become. that study is profound for me because it does begin to agitate much of the consciousness around how we understand these identities as they have aligned in the stereotypes especially in the social media where they dominate our understanding of what is occurring.. we see this way that theblack identity is presented as being consistent with either structural or loud and sassy or being consistent with angry and

presidenpresent and a combinatil three we have referred to as ratchet but it could be interpreted in many different ways. so the way that we havewe misrepresented and misunderstood the identity plays into our unconscious biases about the behavior so when girls are asking questions in class or questioning material that is perceived as being combative or defiant in ways that are inconsistent with their true intention and in some ways again given the legacies and behavioral patterns we also see the way that this hyper sexualization of girls prevents us from responding to their victimization and that is very problematic. >> just curious, those of you in the audience how many of you have had a similar experience?

does that resonate with you? absolutely. we have a conversation before about what has been happening outside of the meeting and now hopefully this book will be a platform for the conversations and places that can affect policy. so thank you again for that. the next question the book talkr about girls and how it violates the dress code. how should we address the racist dress codes forbidding natural hair, curvy women and how should these girls dress. >> this is a tricky question. it's always interesting when i talk about this and revisit how i used to dress and think about my two daughters and their

presentation and how i recognized much of the ways that adults enforced dress code is a spirit of love. there are places schools have dress codes that do not allow natural hairstyles to be worn, natural hairstyles if you are of styles african descent. so no half rose, cornrows, walks. many people in this room wouldn't be able to go to school with our hair the way that it is. so obviously, and i say this explicitly in the book but those policies need to be removed. there needs to be a regulation of individual cultural practices and it has nothing to do withh how they learn and it disproportionately impacts like girls. the dress code is an interesting piece that got a different

component because not only is about whether girls are shooting up in short shorts or half shirts were spaghetti strap tank top, it's about the policing of girls bodies and much of what i discuss is related to the differential implementation, not the dress code exists but how the adults are enforcing it, not necessarily for their clothing. there are girls that told stories about arriving in school and short shorts into their andr counterpart wearing the same but it's a problem on her body and she is centcom dwindles protest because this treatment the way that many are inclined to come and theand make it an additional reprimand. that is critical to understand

what they are intending to do versus what they are doing. and we have used the dress code to turman the money and use it as a way to turn a population away. i have a research project i am working on with the center on poverty and inequality and we are having a discussion about the officers and girls of color so we went to the southern city and many of the police officers in schools asked how they were to intervene or they would get engaged with girls.at some would say i will turn her away if she doesn't come in with a pink shirt. our dress code is pink, not without. so what are we implementing here? we lost the money and have come to prayer ties the enforcement

of rules around the dress. that is taking us away from the schooling and the functioning of an institution. i talk about it the schools are capable of being in the life of young people and critical to the conversation to me is the understanding that it is a critical factor in the juvenilel and criminal legal system so if that is true, we need to be doing everything we can to keep girls in school and not finding creative ways to turn them away. so when we are having these conversations about the dress code and whether the girl is was showing up in a hat, it's important for us to think constructs as they emerge and also the function again a of

what the schools are. they can engage young people in the practice of learning skills to combat their own and then the internal life and many schools are venturing on critical thinking and instilling in our children the knowledge that they need to be productive members of our society and citizens in our spaces are not the schools enforcing dress codes and turning people away because they are shutting up with a hat. as a black girl there are nuances because a black intellectual but they had to cause her hair is in the process of being graded. and for those of us don't know, that can be a two day process. if a girl shows up with a hat and have her hair done, it will not come off and she will opt to be in class because that is an embarrassing situation.ation.

and we don't have these conversations around of the cultural competencies as well as the unintended or they won't even see unintended because at this point we have enough information to know this isn't the way we should be operating on the undesired consequences associated with implementing the dress code the way that we have been doing across the country. i won't even raise you to ask. as parents and educators i could tell you a story, every story that you've told us there. so thank you for starting this conversation. in a section asking the toughoud questions, you mentioned we live in a man's world, and how this process strong women. we talk about the white society that would go t do they play tof systematic oppression of women?

[laughter] with a backup when i answer that. i was talking to girls while researching push out and before i can say much of anything in into contact with this girl i call faith in the book and that is her opening question to me. she said you know that song it's a man's world, i don't like that song and i said i don't like it either. why don't you like it and she said what does that say to a strong growth like me. i processed that for years thinking what was she trying to tell me. i processed with my friends one of my friends had an interesting perspective she was trying to tell you to recognize her me

strength. i'm a strong girl, that's why she hates you at first. once i acknowledged i saw her than she was able to question whether the son that song waso reimbursing norms now it's ladies and communities and homes about the power and control and the way the public discourses. have increased this idea that in order for a family to behold there has to be a male present. this girl did identify and had detentions in the facility. so i think for that she was processing a lot about herentit. identity. one of the things that i do to

understand their multiple experiences guiding one's engagement with systems ands and people and that for this girl having to sit in a space where it was about the conditions in the community and the absence of men in conversations about girls was also present in her life. an

rights for girls, georgetown law center. so there are lots of folks that have been trying to engage and do a little bit, but there's still an absence of the criminal engagement of the resources and materials and a way to center the conversation about the full continuum and the way in which we begin to assess the risk, threat and response. >> the resources in the book and studies and other things that have been published but i encourage us all to read and research. i think another piece of the book that is powerful but you

told us about the girls and i would love to hear a little bit more about diamond from jezebel in the classroom. can you tell us a little bit more about diamond? >> diamond was a young teenager with an older man she called her boyfriend. he wasn't her boyfriend, he was her pimp. he was -- she was commercially sexually exploited and i met her again in the detention facility. this is a girl that had a problematic relationship with schools and who had been moving in and out and haven't really had the kind of critical response to her victimization that she needed that was in search for it. she was spotted out on the street by some of her classmates who later in school started to believe and tease her about seeing her out on the streets.

the way she put it is they would always try to make me face them. , so the response was one of conflict and the school failed to recognize the way she had been bullied and captured her as a problematic person who was always fighting. when she had enough, she engaged in an act of vandalism and wrote on the wall which resulted in her expulsion. so there was a cycle in her case where not only was the victimization not addressed by the mandatory reporting agency that should have recognized her engagement as a function of her abuse, but the structural justice system response was to criminalize her and pushed her further away from the institution that could help her

heal and so for her by the time i met with her and engaged with her she was in this space of feeling like i need out. i haven't been in school, i love this man, until we dug deeper into what the relationship was and others that were experts working with girls to get them to engage in ways that are helpful in that space to work with her around that. but she was processing and i asked her what she needed to be in school and she told me i needed people who care. so finally, i asked aside from an counselor who would be there, how do you think school in general could respond to black girls in crisis? >> let's take a listen. >> usually the teachers connect

only with certain students that think they deserve more because they get straight a's. there's a reason why they are getting straight a's. because they're faster learners. you are teaching them more, the study more and they are getting more attention than the other kids. like black kids at home, we don't get that much attention. our mothers and dads are working. or sister iour sister is taking. our grandma is taking care of us. we don't have that attention we want from our parents. that makes it disrespectful in class and making it like i don't care. you're not my mom. >> i wonder if we see that a number girls. >> when diamond responded that way ultimately they were involved iwouldinvolved in theis

education and they don't show that black parents are engaged in asking about homework and checking homework and having conversations. they may not show up at the school believe that we traditionally envision, but i'm sure many people in the room were going what. it was important to include narrative in the book because for many of the girls that have experienced school push out, they are not in a stable home environment where they do have the parents that are continually intervening and she's also pointing to her desire for there to be a caring adult is checking on her and asking her and when he and adult presents in a way that you haven't established that relationship it's just fa fake. the piece of this is how we come

to understand that the competency around this is a space of intuition. and much of my work with black girls particularly the elderly pieces and how we engage with black girls com, this notion of cycling cannot be lost. they use language that might on the surface appear to just be this girl has an attitude, which is my other favorite word. but they are expressing they are connecting or not connecting at a very physical level and one that is associated with how they are proceeding to be authentic or not. that you are not my mom is about her saying i want my mother, first of all, but secondly, it's really about saying yo you haved

build trust with me. you haven't connected with me anyway that allows me to trust you that you have my best interest at heart. so that takes time for us to fully explore. but it also takes time for us to deconstruct a little bit among the girls that have been commercially sexually exploited and who are having relationships with older people and might want to see themselves as acting in the waterways that she needed space to just be a child and explore her own identity as a burner. i found her again in a detention facility where she had been criminalized when much of it wasn't occurring but where it could poker where there are some different interventions that took place along that journey. specifically in the section how

can parents and educators bring up the subject of teenage prostitution and should they wait for the adults to be present or should the public be brought up regardless? >> there is no such thing as a team prostitute or a child prostitute. these are children who are being commercially sexually exploited. there's a lot of language adjustment of your engaged in now as a community to better understand the conditions are these girls. what's important is in the lives of many black girls giving the legacy of the hyper sexualization and the notion as a jezebel, people will read them as choosing to participate as opposed to seeing this as an act of harm. educators may not know that there is a young person who is

at risk or is actively engaged because in my experience many girls do not actively identify. it's kind of interesting because there's a lot of debate about whether there should be sex education in schools and debate on who controls the conversation in those spaces but again when they are having the opportunity to engage with each other and how they should be engaged in conversations that distric you o see different outcomes. but there's also.

they are engaging with the suspect for a girl or boy in their environment that is being either commercially or sexually exploited for commercial exploitation. we know from the data, children are in foster care are at an increased risk. and we know that many times in our educational systems we capture those as chronically truant by new data from the department of education to talk about the more than 6 million children who are truant. my immediate reaction to that is take a closer look. if we are talking about chronic or wednesday, we are also talking about a host of other risks. we cant just as an education system say they are truant and therefore out of our care, and that's how we record them. we also have to have the critical partnerships in place with other agencies to make sure that we are getting our kids back in because when the art in

school they are at a reduced risk of harm. that's not to say that it doesn't occur. there are local cases and national cases that involved girls with v. commercial sexual exploitation and violence in schools where there hasn't been an equal protection in place and a critical waiver of the way foy to address these issues. there is a dismissal that we must confront, but these are important dialogues that has to take place in the spaces of learning because it impacts their learning. so we can no longer afford to say that's not my issue. >> it's clear that we have a lot of work to do and questions we need to asked that we are not currently asking.

and i've also thank you for the check on the phrase teenage prostitution and we have to check the language and then recognize how powerful it is and the impact that this can have on others. i say that knowing that we are in a moment of transition. the associated press agreed to use the term instead of trying to prostitution because when you look at the headlines before, just months ago that's what you would see and it feeds into the prevailing consciousness that i was talking about early on. going back on the conversation about disciplining appearance, you brought it up again in too sexy for school. does the media play a role in the over sexualizing of black women, and if so, should we limit their exposure to over

sexualizing music videos from the reality tv or limiting exposure. >> there are two spaces that conversation is happening. and it's interesting to me how those are playing out. there is contacting where there is no censorship. so i've always believed that it's important for the healing power of the narrative. tell the story. there is a loss o lot of turn dh that discussion. we all know that it's going to get collected from someplace else we may not want it to be collected from. when it is at an age-appropriate level at a certain age i believe

in censorship. at a certain age it's important to have discussions about what it is. the media absolutely does play a role and the girls and the books elsewhere described their own frustrations with media representations of their identity and they feel powerless in many ways to engage in the reconstruction of the identity. there are lots of -- there's a lot of possibilities and organizations. they are global media, those that are trying to work with the girls to help them shift the narrative and engage them in a critical examination. but the level of literacy has to improve if we are going to have conversations and also the age compression occurs in that space. so there are younger girls and older girls or women in these public spaces by this sort of

completion. there's a negative impact from the women and girls and the ability to see themselves along this continuum of ways. for me, that term was used somewhat facetiously. because i don't think little girls are sexy. there's nothing sexy about a little girl. so, when we are talking about girls and how they present in school to call something sexy is a comment on her body. and we have to call ourselves out for that and talk about the ways that, you know, getting around the fact. one of the things i recommend is to engage in the process around the development of the standards and the norms in classrooms.

so there are conversations happening about what's norms should be in place in school for them to feel safe and for them to not be punished for being perceived as a distraction to other members of the school community. those are the places they feel safest to the present and where other girls are more respectful, so it's important to have these conversations because we have to engage in conversations about what kind of climate they need to feel safe and it may be inconsistent with what we believe to be true. it may just be a half day so they need to wear a tank top. >> i think it's something i'm taking away from just your response there is the charge for us to educate ourselves about alternatives and other resources than images and videos and things like this that our

children would be interested in but also to make sure that we are aware so we can offer them as a counter narrative to what they are seeing. >> and we have to acknowledge a lot of the ways we see people engaging in our schools is a reflection of what's happening in the community. it's not that from me here on the trains and buses and it's in our spaces just on my way here i heard a group of boys talking about some girl doing sexual acts in the bathroom at their school. but the way that they were talking about it is eliminating to meet no problem talking quite loud on the train about some girl who was doing something and there was no ownership at all about both how they were screaming that relationship and exchange or how it might

negatively impact because they were naming me. to me partly the result of not having the kind of conversations that we need to have about how we are engaging with each other and what is appropriate in the learning spaces outside of whether or not a person is dressed appropriately. there are other ways of demonstrating what is appropriate for time and place. schools have occupational field trip days and themes where you can dress appropriately and they can see the role modeling occurred among individuals when they do curvier days. there are schools that don't have dress codes emphasized and as opposed to saying you don't have a build on.

these are the cases i'm talking about. you don't have a belt on. go home. that means these things that are turning girls a way that they describe that to me are just unconscionable. >> in the struggle to survive you talk about it is common for history to redial against authority and discipline. but how can we give the modern contact and keep things in perspective when it comes to oppression versus routine discipline? when do we tell them punishment is just outrageous? >> i think it's important to have conversations with children very early on about oppression. i come from school that a schoot challenges our thinking around a oppression. one of the things she said is there is no hierarchy of oppression.

but many times, the lives of girls they are asked to prioritize their oppressions and they either have to be black first and female second or they have to be female first and their sexual identity is second. or there is a way that we ask them to prioritized their very complex identities to fit what they need them to be at that moment. and when we are talking about these conditions, and when we are talking about facilitating conversations that are going to produce new outcomes and narratives for girls, we have to get them to understand there are consequences associate associatd behaviorin thebehavior, but thes can be healing. the consequences don't have to be about punishment. they can learn from their mistakes. they are worthy of death. and that is not a message that we routinely engage with our children or an effort that black

girls receive especially if they are in high poverty schools. and when they are in peace schools, we have structures in place that's really emphasized discipline partly because those leading the schools have been made discipline and punishment is the way that you respond to these conditions. i had a very spirited conversation with some folks on an interview in the south recently where there is a belief that a there are deep-seated ideas about what the discipline looks like. we have the corporal punishments. hopefully. and the issue is not just that we have the structures in place although i do believe the corporal punishment has no place in schools but we also see a differential impact. black girls are disproportionately represented

among those children that are receiving corporal punishment that means we are more inclined to beat black girls than others. it's later on monday is violent in response and question where did you learn that. so we have to think about how we are routinely and acting, and again enforcing the social norms in the cultural norms are actively engaging in the process of confronting and deconstructing those things. >> in that whole concept of feeling things did you want to say more? >> when i talk about the

ecosystem for black girls to peel hole in school, i emphasize healing. we talk in the practice about the restorative approaches, and we tend to embrace the restorative practices and about the circle practice in particular. one has to do with the development of the healing responses. there's discussions with young people and creating climate. we critically engage the

well-being of black women and girls in the conversations on building democracy. it's what it is to be a learner and and used to b used to be ine that happen. particularly for the girls are at risk for the push out including those that have been commercially sexually exploited operating in the economies for the juvenile systems they need money and they have to see the connection between the education and how they will occur in money. we have to be very transparent about that. in many of the spaces we say just learned. for some of the girls the freedom to say just learned or the ability to trust the process enough or just let go isn't fair. they have to see the connection between what they are learning today and how that is going to result in their economic well-being in the dairy near

future. to internalize the depression and the implicit biases that informed decision-making tools are we using and engaging to structure the schools so that we can have the kind of conversations that need to be held so that we can assess the risk in an appropriate way to engage in conversation about whether a child is actually a threat to public safety or whether we don't like how she talked to me. but we have to figure out these pieces and then work within the structure to develop a new set of norms. sometimes it just begins with asking different questions, asking a different set of questions that has to do more with whether there are sections. and the processes for them to be part of the new narrative.

>> we could stay on the healing thing all night. the night it gives us an opportunity for the discussions as well. another thing that i really loved about the book again is the kind of three d. experiencee into the diversity it wasn't just one type of girl or one walk of life were type of challenge. i would like to hear more about the destiny. can you tell us more about the destiny? >> it is a black latina who is a performer and she was someone i met who had been taking courses and had an interest in robotics and engineering and have an addiction.

the justice system responded by incarcerating her. and she talked about her experiences with schools because she understood on one level the importance of school and her life but she was also discouraged from engaging in the school because of her interactions with some of the teachers. and then kept emphasizing the importance of student teacher relationships and talking about the various relationships she had in different institutions. she kept going back in the relationships and whether she had it or not and finally, i just asked her what do they say to black girls? >> let's take a listen. >> i've noticed other races get special attention in class. like if they are struggling or if they want to see the teacher after class, i noticed that the

teacher would be more than willing to help them after class. usually they will say something like well, you can stop by for ten or 15 minutes. but i'm not going to wait an hour just for you. but it's like they just did it for the asian girl. there's a lot of people that will stay after school until by doing extra work or working on an extra project the teacher gave them to do and then everybody else will be there for ten or 15 minutes just to talk. i tried to talk to my geometry teacher and she didn't have anywhere to go. nevermind i will just see you in

class. >> thank you for that one. i think we had a similar experience. she comes home from the home with two educated parents and didn't want to go to school the next day how many people in the audience had an experience like that as a child of himself or with your own child. >> i think we are finding ourselves in the buck debate co- book. >> we tend to construct a single identity about black girls and so for that reason, it was important for me to engage the narrative of the girls to talk through the girls who were african-american but also black

latina, and to get us to a place that we could understand the diversity of experiences but how there is a common theme associated with the lower expectations that we have often seen and to use the term were the phrase in the way that we grant them permission to fail. that is a critical piece for us because again, i don't believe -- i've said this in many spaces i definitely believe in the process. we tend to construct narratives as they fight they are problematic and if they talk back or have an attitude or wear short shorts, they are another word i don't use. so, it's important for us to also engage those girls in conversations about how the art instructing their own identities

and how they need to be a part of the construction of the new narrative. number one i saw the absence of girls in the national conversation about the well-being of the community's and there was no way but also because again, my interaction in the juvenile legal system informed how i wanted to work backwards and talk to girls before they get to the criminal and juvenile system. i think there is a way we can practice to inform how we engage with not just these schools but girls on a subway and in our own families, girls down the hall ourselves. so, to be that is part of the call to action is to begin to think through the alternatives.

>> before we open it up for a question. we talk about the economics and poverty. so i have one question their. one is for poverty. how can we as a community work with young black women to change and challenge the statistic and how can a women that already live in poverty improve the quality of life especially in the cases where they have children to care for? spinnaker they've always understood the value of education and it's not that education directly results from you being in poverty. it does open up the field and scope of possibility to engage differently. we had conversations here in brooklyn to talk about the

frustration they felt in trying to get a job and clearly understanding that there were some very real barriers associated with that. but in my other work there was a discussion about the things they didn't get as girls and the way in which they found ways to live in the conditions of poverty that did not include education. it is a discussion with girls about how much earning potential as you gain by having the specific degrees. the way in which the earning potential does increase with every new degree that you get. it's important to continue to explore that just so they understand some people may become the star and play the sport but the vast majority are

going to have to work in a different way. we can follow our passions and work in a different way through understanding our talent experience. what i find most problematic is in the concentration. i believe that any concentration of one group isn't necessarily bad. it's the concentration of the absence of resources that is bad and the absence of infrastructure that's bad. when we talk about making sure the communities are whole and safe, we talk about that historically when we must have an equal investment and sometimes that comes with the ability to choose where you want to live so that you are not in that specific communities advocating for segregation. but i do think it's important for us to understand that it can

exist and not the ghetto and we can have spaces where there is a consciousness that is about uplift and community not about exploitation. the concept of exploitation and at the way that fuels our consciousness both historically to fuel the trauma as well as contemporary conditions of how we move and where the jobs were located and what resources are available to schools and what they are able to do with our children are all pieces we need to continue to examine. we tend to have conversations that are separate from housing policies. we have to have a much more coordinated discussion of how we fund education in the country and how we are moving forward in the development of the competent spaces and what partners need to

be in space with schools to actually engage in some of the recommendation both in the policy papers that have been produced over the last two years and in this book. >> i could be a selfish. i didn't even let her have a break, i want to learn as much as i can in the time that we have. but i do want to open it up. i know that he would love the opportunity to ask questions and engage in a conversation about the book and how we do change this narrative. >> my name is leslie and i work in the office of equity and accs

and the department of education. so, number one, i ask what about the girls, number two i've been pushing them and they are like she's going to be here. just a couple things. when we started launching the program at the central office i couldn't find the work to support what i was trying to do. it feels like we are on the right path but when i think about the teacher preparatio prn and how the universities are preparing teachers in the city like new york in particular, thousands of people said they don't want to teach. and i'm wondering have you come across i any different universiy or college programs that are kind of getting at it.

>> good question. the first, i think you were uplifting names that should be uplift in the conversation because there are some participatory action works that are happening here in new york that i think is very promising and that deserves greater uplift so i'm glad that you are in touch because that's very important. schools that train teachers have not emphasized to the extent possible with a should emphasize the importance of caring and bleeding with love and when i talk about less judgment more love often the conversations folks say what is the recommendation and probably the most radical thing is that, that said there are emerging

practices happening. districts that are having conversations now about the developing collaboratives. it's in the process of building a collaborative for african-american girls. one of the fewest fewest cannoty in the country that is looking to do that and bring partners and have critical directions for that work. it works with the exploited girls and then touring center to develop the office of education to develop an educational pilot reentry program for girls. and so, in that space we are constructing pedagogy that is rooted in liberation and deconstructing oppression. and it feels radical to say that as a space during education but that's what we have to do is engage in these conversations so

that young people feel connected to what they are learning and how they are learning and understand what they are learning and how connects to their well-being. and to actively engage in this process as they learn that is one thing that the girls will tell us. what i took that to mean is we are wrapping ourselves around hewriting ourselves around herie education is tailored to her specific needs a. there is other districts about the ways to their own implicit bias and there's different districts around the country that are not only engaging in the full continuum of responses and in the behavior like the restorative approaches that are

also understanding implicit biases that i find very helpful and useful. >> good evening and thank you for the buck in front of the central office department. a black woman that breaks all the stereotypes of what wg is. my question is around the concept of sexuality and young women into specifically for those of dissent because as a caribbean person, we grow up being exposed to what can

conceive of in that sort of thing. when you come here the things that are not necessarily over sexualized in our culture become very sexualized here. he used it into womanhood and to celebrate your culture. it's where you see it played out a.

it's the composition of public w black women have been sexualiz sexualized. to think about the ways in which we have not as black women and girls largely been responsible for the framing of our own identities. it's very important for us to develop new spaces for us to take the conversation back to have the critical dialogue that a lot of hip-hop feminists scholars are having around these very same questions. is this a problem.

for the young people that are activists in this space who are trying to reclaim and engage in a challenge to some of the normative us and the ways in which our construction of black femininity have been normalized to the white middle-class standards. we continue to have conversations about things. they want to embrace their own sexuality and wants t want to ce their cultural roots and who want to sort of participate in that domain in ways and with people that placed them at harm.

they are harmed as a result of them doing it because we haven't had the critical discussions about how it is received, who you are with and doing it. so again, the healing power of the narrative suggests that we tell our stories. she does show, you think i'm doing this but let's look if you travel more than you see it or if you have the kind of exchange programs, then you understand that it's not about the constructed sexualization of black women who were deeply oppressed under the conditions of slavery that we still continue to live and about the bodies into presentations and its functionality in society, but also how we are perfectly human and can embrace our sexuality as a part of that.

>> good evening. thank you for your voice and activity in the world. thank you. >> depressing first question i have a couple i'm going to sneak into the first one is where were you in 1997? i'm going to explain that so no one gets the wrong idea. that's when i was hired by the department of education to work as a teacher. you have eggs, performing arts license and nobody needs that. i said i'd do i get a job. so when i met the superintendent, i said where do you want to work. i want to work with the kids that nobody else in new york city wants to work with and they

laughed at me and said are you sure and i said absolutely. he didn't know. he said how would you like to work at a school called rosewo rosewood. i worked there for three years between the ages of 16 to 65 and everything that you just described is what was presented to me without any backup preparation teacher training program. it's having the health benefits and all that and engaging with these stories that they all wanted to talk about the prostitution violence and i was

deconstructed. i went home crying every night but i kept on wanting to come back because i knew that something really important for myself was happening. the glue is totally identified with each other's pain and loneliness and maybe i'm asking the kind of question there because it's one of my questions there was a white male that came out and started working as a principal and started jumping up in the middle of the meetings with superintended, some who came from all walks of life today didn't seem to be willing to talk about these issues. how can i help without having my head a pop or someone tell me the only reason i can say this is because i have some kind of entitlement, like they don't

know where i came from either. where do i fit into this dialogue? for me it's a very real world. if you can talk about it because i think that you claimed this term. it's what they talking in a prison about confinement. >> thank you. so, a couple of things. first, there is a body of growing research for people who need that about the value of empathy in schools among the teachers and educators working with children. ..

can we give them the tools to do it and it's really simple.

there are so many places they can check out when there's no one there holding them accountable engaging them in a way that could reinforce their pride and empathizing with the prescience that they have engaged. i talk about confinement pathways as opposed to the pipeline because of my homework it became very clear that school to prison pipeline was too neuro-a framework to capture the multiple pathways to confinement the girls were experiencing and when we talk about schools of prison while it's an urgent framework that certainly engages all of us in a need and desire to respond that for many of our girls they have not experienced prison but they have experienced the multiple forms of environment that exists along our legal system, the confinement in homes, confinement in facilities and confinement in schools that there are ways in which we have talked about this phenomenon of criminalization.

>> him early motherhood as a form of confinement. >> not necessarily. i don't. i think it's important for us to think about this identity that many girls do have once they have children and there are lots of young mothers who are fighting against the stigma of being pushed out because they have had a child does not impact further they continue to go to school. there should be structures in place to account for that and in many districts there are. girls continue to finish and they are legally not supposed to be discriminated against because they have a child and their legal epic it's who are working with districts to ensure that happens however making decisions and searching for love and trying to form relationships with individuals that do impact mobility and to impact opportunities to move freely certainly play a role in this

conversation and so i think what is most important again is to let girls be a part of constructing their own narratives around these issues and working with those of us engaged in policy discussions about what they actually need to be successful rather than us assuming certain conditions are going to define their full trajectory. thank you. >> just to be conscious of time as well we are going to take the last three questions here unless someone has a burning question. did you need a mic? [inaudible] [inaudible]

[inaudible] [inaudible] [inaudible]

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[inaudible] [inaudible] >> i will start with a cycle and because i think it plays out differently throughout the country and we are still building out the research that can answer that with some degree of integrity. you know there is a constant narrative that has been following black girls in rural and urban spaces not necessarily

that they are hypersexual but there is again the dichotomy of around the high performers who is fine and the girl who is not with our time. so there is this way in which that renders groups and visible that is counterproductive to our conversation about uplifting all of our children. what i'm recognizing in our work now is in many places because schools are more segregated than they were in the decades that you named the fact that a type of integration as we saw it and now there's a separation occurring where bennie of the children who are black girls are educated are also very black and there's not necessarily the kind of cultural dissidents occurring the between educators and children among themselves but there's a way in which her

reinforcement internalizes the impression occurring that doesn't allow girls to fully exploit their own identities in ways that are more construct it. that speaks to the prevailing context that i want all of us to deal with. the way in which we are talking about isn racial oppression by anchoring it into double consciousness narrative that is the way in which black people affected deal with being american and black and for women and girls and no matter the variables they stop being black female and american in this space. so we have to confront these identities in the way it plays out. i have had varying degrees of access. the conversation is just beginning and i certainly welcome the access and i think

there are opportunities to talk through. i've received a lot of imitations from superintendents from some elected officials at the national level who want to explore their policy and potential impact as they -- pertain to young black girls. [inaudible] [inaudible]

[inaudible] >> thank you very much. >> i want to thank you so much for your work and your much-needed conversation. my question is, my question is how can i properly engages my fellow brothers and police on these issues specifically contributions to the hypersexual station of our girls and also how can i engages my brothers on becoming better at the kids for a younger sisters and nieces in the current school system? >> that's an important question and i guess a follow-up of that spirit is actually just do it and engage. there's a fair amount if

learning that needs to occur and unlearning that needs to occur and i think healing work that i talk about with girls is necessary with boys. much of how we have talked about her engagement with boys has been around how we create a culture of masculinity that centers them in a way that in some ways we don't address it patriarchy and the sexism that occurs when we enforce those elements of our engagement with the other. one of the things that i recommend in the book that i talk about it generals the need for us to have the talk with boys and girls and the talk needs to be about more than safety as it is framed in our current construct around fatal violence particularly in public spaces but also to think about the violence that occurs behind closed doors in the ways in which we are participating in that violence in our speech, in our construction of norms and in

how we just engage with each other. i would give an example in schools where boys programs occurring in the schools and one boy says to a girl nobody cares about about you and that's why you don't have a program. and she was like oh my -- i can't believe you said that to me. he said nobody wants to hear about your problems. what kind of problems have you got? in many ways it's impossible for them to internalize the idea that we are the ones with the problem is problematic for him to say no one cares about you which was traumatic for her. what she did in response was to create a girls school and started a program for herself because that's what black women do, right? that was a very microway of engaging around this. new ways of understanding relationships and offering of

our partnerships and shared experience and i'm hopeful that with "pushout" another projects that are emerging we will have more bridges where we can have conversations about communities and shared experiences and also things that are different in these spaces to weaken supportive of each other. we must speak on the girls. we are in a shared pics -- community. this is a shared experience. >> last question. >> good evening. my daughter quincy, i have a long-winded question for you.

[applause] do we have one last question? okay, come on, your turn. seize the opportunity. >> we would like you to go up to the mic. >> hello everyone, good evening. i currently work at an organization where we -- i work at a media organization where we

help students comprehend create critique and ultimately challenge media. i'm the only one if you know what i'm saying at my organization. i used to be an advocate for two years so working with high school students and helping girls a lot of them dealing with push out situations. what exactly do you mean because i'm trying to be a crusader in doing that. >> that is a beautiful thing. i want there to be a critical examination of imaging, symbolism. i think there has to be discussions about how bodies are presented on television and in ads and constructed. i think we have to get our young people to understand what is constructed and what is rooted in stereotype in what is real and to understand the conditions that underlie that that have

supported the narrative that are harmful in our communities and can actively take a role in reframing. i've noticed black girls being able to see images of themselves that are not very sexual. and seeing images of themselves that are not angry and to see themselves in ways that do engage their voice their loud voice has a positive thing and you asked a question about this defiance and how starkly that has sustained our well-being is their ability to speak up and out an understanding that there's a critical part of our resistance and in many spaces being in is in your act if being in that space is an act of resistance and justice. when girls don't see them selves in some cases only in others

they have to understand being in the spaces where they are perceived as or where they are constructed makes their being an act of justice. they have not engage in some of the critical thinking activities about narratives, about deconstructing norms, about understanding where these ideas and it's there -- historical roots of somebody's ideas on why only certain stories get told and not others. what is the process for the storytelling to occur. where's the breakdown of? so thinking about all of these components and understanding how others reenact aspects of black femininity which are inconsistent with our existence or which we may find funny in some spaces but are actually demeaning or insulting and others. they have got to be able to

differentiate and so i think in a curriculum that you are developing, any ideas for ways of talking to young people about those things are very valuable. the other thing that is important and other programs are doing is teaching girls how to construct their own narrative based on their own experiences how to ask questions that they feel are being asked or if they look at something to say what's missing from this analysis? how would you approach this same issue the more recent religion experiences especially black girls were often not involve the better we are able to build the capacity to engage in other spaces in these very same ways. i would allow you to have the fun final word but i like to express i gratitude.

i was so tired when i came in here today and i'm so charged up right now. it also makes me think about my favorite quote when much is given much is required and i want you to know that the gifts you have given to me and we are not going to take that lightly. we would also like to thank dr. indira and nikki johnson and everyone who created this space to have this very important dialogue and i thank everyone for coming out and being so engaged and i know the great work moving forward. we want to hear from you and your final thoughts. >> my final thoughts are with really simple and i'm going to ask you to engage me in this. it's that one of the things that i hope black girls take from this entire discussion in that we develop a robust agenda round is the idea they are sacred and

loved. so i would like everyone to say as loud as you can black girls are sacred and loved. >> please join me in thanking dr. morris. [applause] >> if you would like to get a