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Richardson 1 For​ Black Girls Too Fast Too Furious: Black Girlhood & School Discipline Senior Research Thesis Presented to the Faculty of The School of Arts & Sciences Brandeis University Department of African & African American Studies Chad Williams, Advisor The Women, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program Shoniqua Roach, Advisor In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts by Victoria Richardson May 2020 Copyright by Victoria Richardson Committee Members Professor Chad Williams Signature:__________________________ Professor Shoniqua Roach Signature:__________________________ Professor Derron Wallace Signature:__________________________ Richardson 2 Acknowledgment I dedicate my senior thesis to my younger sister, my niece, to Black girls I know, to Black girls I don't know at all, and to the younger version of myself. There will be moments when you don't feel seen, you don't feel heard, you don't feel protected or cared for. This work is for those moments. This work is my expression of love and care for you. This is my reminder to you that you are powerful. You are capable. Stand in your truth. Unapologetically. As I complete this work in the midst of a pandemic I must express my gratitude for my health. I am eternally grateful to be well enough to see this project to the end. I hold in my heart closely all the loved ones we lost during this trying time. I take this space to honor the memory of my grandmother Joyce. You have motivated me to finish this project when I didn't think I was strong enough to do so. Professor Williams, thank you for pushing me my first class at Brandeis until the end of this journey. You have helped me develop a growing love for Black studies. Your mentorship from a far through the years and then directly through the completion of my senior research has been crucial to the development of the scholar I am and am becoming. Thank you. Professor Wallace, if it weren't for your class freshman year I would have never seen myself in the field of education. Your final assignment that year is the inspiration for the work I present here. You helped me to find a passion I plan to hold onto. Thank you for asking hard questions. Thank you for the moments of discomfort. Thank you for giving me such a solid foundation of knowledge and practice I can bring with me into the classroom. Thank you for believing in me. Professor Roach, what I have learned from you in one year makes me wish we had you at Brandeis so much sooner. You showed me what it means to love Black girls and Black women in institutions that do not always care for or love us. You remind me to be authentic. You helped me to think critically, to take new perspectives, to really do the work and to do with meaning and intention.Thank you for supporting me. The list can go on, but finally I want to thank my mother and father, College Persistence Advisor Shira Olson, my #HipHopEd family, my lifelines Alicia, Tamyra, Tehjia and Kayla. Thank you for supporting me, inspiring me, holding me accountable, letting cry on your shoulders, and celebrating even my smallest victories as I completed this project. Richardson 3 Table of Contents I. Introduction ​5 II. Background and Historical Context 17​ III. Contemporary Issues 34​ IV. Implications 67​ V. Conclusion 100​ Richardson 4 For Black Girls For Black girls too​ Fast For Black girls too​ Furious For Black girl ​Sitting dead down For Black girl in​ detention offices For Black Girls ​wishing herself away from For Black girls, this​ reality For Black girls who love For Black girls being​ loud For Black girls, Black​ girls For Black girls who find comfort For Black girls in​ silence For Black girls? Who​ are we For Black girls to​ decide what For Black girls’ ​empowerment For Black girls looks​ like? For Black girl For Black girls we​ need For Black girls to​ create space For Black girls to be free For Black girls to​ be loved For Black girls ​to be happy For ​Black girls Richardson 5 Chapter I: Introduction & Methods By the time I reached senior year of high school I had been suspended at least five times. I have been kicked out of the classroom more times than I am able to recollect. I have been permanently removed from after-school enrichment programs. I served a number of detentions and memorized the path to the principal's office. I have been publicly ridiculed. I had a principal threaten to call Child Protective Service after begging that my parents wouldn't be called. To my face I have been called a “waste of space,” “a bad kid,” and labelled incorrigible. I spent a lot of time feeling frustrated. I spent a lot of time struggling with feelings of hypervisibility and invisibility. I spent my entire school experience feeling like I had to balance combat boots on eggshells. I came to understand myself as a nuisance. I struggled because everything that made me also made me vulnerable to disciplinary action. I came to hate the way I spoke so much, so loud, and so passionate. I made it my goal to shrink myself, to be quiet, to be less, to do less, and when I did things changed for me. I learned that in order to stay under the radar that this was the me I needed to be. My experiences in the classroom undoubtedly shaped the formation of my identity. They influenced the way I understood myself and my place not only in the classroom but in the real world. The idea that I did not belong was always apparent to me. I did not see myself reflected in learning materials. I did not see myself fitting into uniformed school cultures that I was always too loud for. I did not see my wants, needs or culture reflected in teachers who “got paid regardless.” My identity made school less about learning the necessary academic skills I needed to be a successful student and more about conforming. Eventually I learned to focus my efforts on the curriculum in which I was really being graded. I became the type of young lady I was Richardson 6 supposed to be. My schooling experiences had many implications I was unaware of and later required me to do a lot of unlearning in order to discover and become comfortable with my true self. My study of identity via African American Studies and Women and Gender Studies and through the study of Urban Education gave me the knowledge and language that allowed me to begin to make sense of my experience in the classroom as a Black queer women from the Bronx. My new understanding of theory inspired praxis, and served as an analytical tool for activism. In 2016, I wrote my first college research paper ‘The Damage of Discipline: Discipling Black Girls In NYC Schools’ in which I began to explore discipline disparities for Black girls in New York City schools. In 2017 I constructed and published a Blog site titled Dear, Urban Education where I presented an accessible analysis of the way Black femininity is rejected in the classroom. In 2018 I drafted a policy memo to NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio & Chancellor​ Richard A. Carranza suggesting mandatory restorative​ justice programs in all NYC schools as an alternative to suspension. It was through the analysis of my own experiences that I understood the urgency for more tangible intervention that could address the realities of school discipline for Black girls. Through academic scholarship I discovered that my experience is not an isolated incident. I know that other Black girls can relate to my experiences in educational spaces. I can imagine that other Black girls are grappling with similar feelings regarding sense of belonging. And so I feel a personal obligation, not only as a Black Feminist Scholar but also as an educator, Black woman, and former urban student to continue to make sense of my experiences for the frustrated little girl I used to be and for all Black girls alike. Richardson 7 The reality is that schools are pushing students out of the classroom and into the prison system. A wealth of research has been done regarding Black students and the School to Prison 1 Pipeline. This​ research often falls short because it focuses particularly on Black boys and/or considers the experiences of Black girls and Black boys to be homogeneous. Fewer studies have been done to examine how race and gender interact to influence the practices and policies that 2 create the pipeline. The research that has been done shows that Black girls are also affected by school discipline policies and practices. However, they experience this policing in a way that is unique from their counterparts. Black girls are disciplined for very particular reasons usually tied to both racial and gender biases. These policies and practices have tangible implications. Black women represent thirty percent of all incarcerated women in the United States but represents thirteen percent of the 3 4 general population of women. But beyond that, Black girls are dropping out of school. Black girls are referring to themselves as “bad students” and dread going to school every morning. Black girls who have learned to silence themselves in the classroom are doing the same thing in corporate offices, hospitals, domestic relationships, and everywhere else in the world. Schools as institutions, and the discipline policies and practices they adopt, are a cause of this phenomenon.

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