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GONE TOO SOON: Infant Mortality – Wellness & Empowerment – EBONY

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GONE TOO SOON: Infant Mortality

By David Leonard Writer

The text message I received this morning should have brought a smile to my face. My younger sister let me know that doctors would be inducing her this evening. With her first child set to join the world, I found myself overcome with fear and anxiety. Five years ago, my second child Sophie was born. Some 12 hours later, she would succumb to an infection, dying right in front of her mother and I. In an instant, we had lost our child.

My sister’s message immediately took me back to that day, thinking about the past while scared about the future (I have previously written about this). My thoughts are not a simple manifestation of association or my yearning to be a protector for my younger sister, but genuine fear because that day is still with me.

Every detail of that day still sits with me: getting dropped off at the hospital; how sick my wife looked when I entered the room; the sights and sounds when Sophie entered the world. More vivid and painful are the memories of where I was sitting when she went into cardiac arrest, the clothes I was wearing, the hospital smell, and the sounds of “code blue.” To this day, I still cannot see a helicopter without thinking about the 60+ mile trip I took in the dark, so close to my dying daughter yet unable to help or hold her. Today I think about my parents sitting in the waiting room anticipating the arrival of my nephew just as I sat in the waiting room – waiting for things to turn around, waiting for my wife to arrive, waiting for the pain to stop; waiting . . . waiting, only to see her die in front of us.

My fear and anxiety are not simply an outcome of our own experience but the bubble that burst when our daughter passed away. For every 1,000 live births, 4.5 babies die in the United States. The U.S. accounts for the second largest amount of neonatal deaths (that includes child deaths within the first 27 days of life) in the industrialized world. Compared to other countries around the world, the United States ranks with Croatia, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, and lags behind Cuba, Slovakia, all of Western Europe and Scandinavia. The situation is even worse when as we look at racial inequality, especially as we look at the first year of life. African American children are 2.5 times more likely to die before their first birthday than White ones.

Infant mortality is even more devastating in the developing world. Each year, three million babies die in the first week of life, with an additional one million dying by their 27th day. Four million babies do not live past their 28th day of life, mostly from preventable diseases and malnutrition. A recent study found that babies under the age of 1 month account for 41% of all child death, with over half of those deaths occurring in five countries: Pakistan, Nigeria, China, Congo, and India, where more than 900,000 babies die each year. In Afghanistan, 1 out in every 19 babies born die shortly after they enter the world. Every minute, 7 newborn babies die, even though a vast majority of them could be saved. Where are the YouTube revolutionaries to eradicate this malady?

Babies are not the only ones in danger; in the United States, 400 women die each year while giving birth.There are no words for pain, despair, and sense of injustice I feel when I think of the millions of women across the world who have passed away as they were set to bring forth life. And I know that I am tremendously blessed knowing that my partner, who spent a week in the hospital following the birth of Sophie, survived. This cannot be said for women throughout the world. Amnesty International reports that one woman dies every 90 seconds during pregnancy or while giving birth. A total of 350,000 women die each year. With 80 percent of those deaths occurring in only 21 nations, 15 of which are located in sub-Saharan Africa, the consequences of poverty, colonization, and a lack of global commitment to this issue are clear.

Continue reading @ GONE TOO SOON: Infant Mortality – Wellness & Empowerment – EBONY.

SLAM ONLINE | » Ballers, Political Shot Callers and the ‘Show Your Papers’ Movement

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Ballers, Political Shot Callers and the ‘Show Your Papers’ Movement

An outbreak of racist taunts continues to be a problem at NCAA basketball games.

by C. Richard King and David J. Leonard

The past month has witnessed a series of racist cheers at sporting events. Fans at a University of Minnesota at Duluth mocked the visiting University of North Dakota hockey team, jeering “Small Pox Blankets”—a chant that belittles the school and Native Americans through a reference to its mascot, which converts the reality of genocide into a sporting smack down. In Pittsburgh, during a recent basketball game, fans (as well as players) from Brentwood High hurled racial epithets at Monessen High players. Three fans dressed banana costumes surrounding the primarily black Monessen team, as the left for the locker at halftime, yelling epithets while making monkey noises. Some parents reported that members of the Brentwood squad joined in, calling its opponent, “monkeys and cotton pickers.”

More recently, students at the predominantly white Alamo Heights High School celebrated the defeat of the largely Latino Edison High School with a chant of “USA, USA!” So, it was little surprise in the round of 64, members of the pep band from the University of Southern Mississippi (USM) yelled, “Where’s your green card?” at Kansas State University freshman Angel Rodriguez (who was born in Puerto Rico) as he took foul shoots.

Administrators were quick to apologize following each transgression, offering some variant on the standard refrain: we regret any offense…this is not us…we are not racist…we will take appropriate action. And to be fair, these chants are brief, spontaneous, and passing utterances. They lack sanction and surely do not represent the image that these schools hope to project. Their apologies to the contrary, in an historic moment marked by the rhetoric of color blindness, but not the alleviation of structural racism, the eruption of overt bias, particularly in the guise of clichéd hate speech and “jokes,” far from being abnormal actually reveals the norm, offering keen insights into historically white institutions and the persistence of white supremacy.

While taunting a fellow American citizen by inquiring about his green card exposes great ignorance (Puerto Ricans are US citizens and have been since 1917) and reflects deep antipathy toward Latinos, it is actually in keeping with the history of the University of Southern Mississippi (and countless other colleges and other universities). In fact, USM epitomizes the arc of white supremacy in college sport. Founded in 1910 as an institution devoted to training teachers, USM was like most peers in the South segregated. And like many other public spaces in the USA, students at USM were enamored with Indianness, despite (or perhaps because of) the historic removal of embodied Indians to make way for settler society in southern Mississippi. They choose Neka Camon, “a Native American term meaning ‘The New Spirit’,” as the title for the school’s yearbook. Later, the student body opted to formalize the moniker of the sport teams, selecting the Confederates in 1940. A year later, a slight modification, the Southerners, was substituted. Although in light of the better known history of Ole Miss, this is not surprising, the mascot chosen for athletics a decade later is: USM did not name an anonymous rebel or plantation owner; no, it enshrined Natan Bedford Forest, the infamous leader of the Ku Klux Klan, as its mascot. Desegregated in 1965, USM changed its moniker and mascot to the Golden Eagles in 1972. USM is a quintessential institution of higher learning: historically white, segregated, playing Indian, and celebrating the Confederacy in defiance of the civil rights movement.

The jeer from members of the pep squad (or band) also suggests that USM remains typical, and, despite protestations from administrators, that what is chanted at a basketball game says much about the social landscape of Mississippi today and much about all of us today.

The students chanting, “where’s your green card” were not alone this day, with the state’s politicians legislatively demanding the same of Latinos throughout the state of Mississippi. The state’s House of Representatives passed the “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhood Act,” a copycat bill to Arizona’s anti-immigrant legislation. Among other things, the bill mandates the police verify immigration status for any person arrested

continue reading @ SLAM ONLINE | » Ballers, Political Shot Callers and the ‘Show Your Papers’ Movement.

SLAM ONLINE | » Remember the Alamo (Heights)

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Remember the Alamo (Heights)

How an inflammatory chant at a high school game is deeper than basketball.

by David J. Leonard and C. Richard King

The Texas Region IV-4A high school boys basketball championships that pitted San Antonio Edison High School against Alamo Heights High School ended with a handshake and a celebration. It also ended with a racial and nationalist taunt from several fans from Alamo Heights, who chanted “USA, USA, USA” to celebrate its primarily white team and the school’s victory over the mostly Latino squad. While the Alamo coaches tried to quiet the crowd, the damage was done.

“Our kids try real hard and work extra hard to get to the regional tournament, and then we have to worry about them being subjected to this kind of insensitivity,” noted Edison coach Gil Garza. “To be attacked about your ethnicity and being made to feel that you don’t belong in this country is terrible. Why can’t people just applaud our kids? It just gets old and I’m sick of it. Once again, we’re on pins and needles wondering what’s going to happen.”

This incident was not the first anti-immigrant outburst on the floor in San Antonio. In 2011, Cedar Park High School, a predominantly white school with an equally white basketball squad, battled Lanier, a high school with an all-Latino squad. During the course of the game, Cedar Park fans chanted a myriad of anti-Latino chants, including “USA, USA.” They also cheered “Arizona, Arizona,” a clear reference to SB 1070, legislation that institutionalized anti-Latino racism. And, fans yelled “this is not soccer, this is not soccer” clearly linking their teams success (and ultimate victory) to their whiteness over and against a group of foreigners, marked as such because of their project affinity for and ability at an un-American game. Stereotypes about Latino and soccer reduced the basketball court to nothing more than a competition for racial superiority, another opportunity to police the border through the assertion of white nationalism.

The chant represents a brief, local reiteration of the long-standing equation where USA equals White within the national imagination. It reflects and is a consequence of the vitriol and the anti-immigrant sentiment that dominated the national landscape in recent years. The chant should not be surprise in a moment when presidential candidates “joke” about immigrant deaths or wish they would just deport themselves, when state legislatures make culture and skin color probable cause, and when public officials declare ethnic studies illegal. The chant reflects the same sentiments as those articulated by Rush Limbaugh, who has described America’s immigration in the following way: “[S]ome people would say we’re already under attack by aliens—not space aliens, but illegal aliens.” It is an outgrowth of a historic sentiment that imagines Latinos irrespective of citizenship as foreigners and undesirable. It reflects an increasingly ferocious anti-Latino sentiment that both represents and treat Latinos as “illegal aliens” neither welcome nor deserving of the legal protections of the United States. It should come us no surprise given this larger history and the ramped up anti-immigrant sentiment in recent years. It embodies as Tanya Golash Boza, assistant professor of sociology at University of Kansas, told one of us: “In the white American mindset, the only group that gets an unhyphenated American identity is white.” It should come us no surprise given this larger history and the ramped up anti-immigrant sentiment in recent years.

According to Alexandro José Gradilla, an Associate Professor in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at Cal State Fullerton, the chant embodies “a new political climate of ‘papers please’” where all Latinos are presumed to be outsiders, threats to the national success of the United States. The racial hostility and the nationalist celebration at these high school basketball games, notes Gradilla, “signal a new racializing paradigm of conflating Mexican Americans with Mexican Immigrants—hence the chants of USA USA were appropriate to use against these possibly ‘illegal’ and ‘alien’ people.” Given the history of sports, so often a place to authenticate national superiority, play out racial tensions, and exhibit masculine prowess, the efforts to nationalize the basketball, to use the victory as evidence of national/racial superiority, is reflective of the political orientation of sports.

The staging of anti-immigrant sentiments at a basketball game and the ease with which chanting for a predominantly White team slides into rooting for America is not surprising. The outrage and the ultimate apology from the school district (“Unfortunately, after the game, we had a handful of students who made a bad decision and we’re very sorry it happened. They made a mistake and we’re going to use this as a learning experience…”) has prompted conservative commentators to argue political correctness run amuck and to otherwise deny any racial animus.

via SLAM ONLINE | » Remember the Alamo (Heights).

[OPINION] Is KONY 2012 for Real? – News & Views – EBONY

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Is KONY 2012 for Real?

David J. Leonard

With close to 30 million viewers on YouTube, multiple days trending on twitter, domination of Facebook newsfeeds, and captivation of the national (global) imagination the “Stop Kony 2012” campaign is a lesson in the potential and pitfalls of new media activism.

Others have already offered valuable critiques concerning factual problems presented in the video, the economic practices of “Invisible Children,” the erasure of Ugandan voices, and the overall simplicity of its presented story, one that paints it as a struggle between good and evil. It is a story straight from Hollywood, with (White) Western heroes and a disgusting enemy in the form of Kony whose defeat will purportedly lead to harmony and peace irrespective of persistent poverty, AIDS, and a myriad of other problems.

Yet, what is striking here is not simply the recycling of “White saviors” and the pathologizing of Africans as either helpless/invisible victims or evil murders, but how new media fosters apolitical consumption. The “Stop Kony” viral video is an example of an emergent strain of social justice activism rampant in the United States and throughout the Western world. Described as click-through activism (“clicktivism”), cyber activism, and essentially based on apathy, limited knowledge and overall disengagement with social/political issues, the Kony campaign is a telling example of the ways new media technology can undermine struggles for justice. Urban Dictionary, usually not a source of theoretical insights, nails it in its definition of “Facebook activism”:

The illusion of dedication to a cause through no-commitment awareness groups. Specifically in reference to Facebook groups centered around political issues.

Dave: Man, this genocide in Darfur is terrible. I sure wish I could make a difference.

Jenna: Well, I made a Facebook group about it. We have almost one million members!

Dave: That’s great! Are you all going to donate money to refugees or something?

Jenna: No, but now those murderers will really know how sad we are!

Dave: Sounds like you’re really into your Facebook activism!

With Kony, although part of its agenda clearly is getting people to donate to the Invisible Children organization or to buy their “tool kit” (for 30 dollars), the video frames the issue as one of awareness where global pressure will lead to justice. In other words, merely “sharing” the video on Facebook, via Twitter or tumblr, will bring about change. Chris Csikzentmihalyi, co-director of the Center of Future Media at MIT, compares “click-through activism” to “dispensations that Catholic Church used to give.” Whether posting the video online, donating to the organization, or raising funds or awareness, participation in the Kony campaign becomes absolution for a history of wrongdoing and even any potential complicity in the problems facing the world. That is since people are “doing good,” by demanding justice, by raising awareness about Kony, war crimes, or any number of issues, they are absolved from responsibility; they are absolved from taking action in the real world.

Continue reading @ [OPINION] Is KONY 2012 for Real? – News & Views – EBONY.

NewBlackMan: The “Reasonable Fear” of a Black Male: The Trayvon Martin Tragedy

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The “Reasonable Fear” of a Black Male:

The Trayvon Martin Tragedy

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

In 2008, 20/20 conducted an experiment to examine how people would respond to criminal activity. Inside a New Jersey park, three white youths gleefully vandalized a car. Without concern for the people walking throughout the park, they destroy the car with a bat and spray paint. In the course of the experiment, only a few individuals call the police or even challenge the kids, with some even joking around with them. When 20/20 swapped out the three white youth for three black youth, the public response was drastically changed, with many more calls to the police. Highlighting the ways race and criminality interact through stereotypes and daily behavior, the most telling aspect of the experiment resulted from an unplanned development. As the white youths wreaked havoc on the car, three black youth waited in another car. These boys, relatives of one of the black actors who were taking part in the experiment, were asleep. In the first instance, the caller suggests that the boys looked like they were going to rob someone. In a case of ‘sleeping while black’ there were two 911 calls (compared to one 911 call about the white youth).

Given persistent stereotypes, news media and popular culture, and a culture of dehumanization, it is no wonder that the 20/20 experiment found that irrespective of behavior black youth convey fear and animosity driven by their presumed criminality, an experience dramatically different from that of white youth. Writing about research on imagery and criminalization, Joe Feagin, in The White Racial Frame, highlights the profound issues at work here. “These researchers conclude that the visual and verbal dehumanization of black Americans as apelike assist in the process by which some groups become targets of societal ‘cruelty, social degradation, and state-sanctioned violence” (p. 105). From a history of slavery and lynching, up through the persistent realities of racial profiling, mass incarceration, and daily instances of violence, the connection between dehumanization and criminalization has been central to white supremacy.

I thought about this experiment when I first heard about the murder of Trayvon Martin. The connection became especially powerful after continually hearing references to “reasonable fear,” the fact that George Zimmerman called 911 because he saw a suspicious person in his gated community, and the purported “perceived threat”; all of this led me back to this study and the countless amount of research that illustrates the power and saturation of the “criminalblackman.” As evident here, it is hard, if not disingenuous, not connect this case and the ideas of fear, suspicion, and threat (and whiteness as innocence), to dominant ideologies of race.

On March 12, 2012, Stanford Police Chief, Bill Lee announced that Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense fit with the evidence of their investigation. During a press conference, he made this clear over and over again: “We don’t have anything to dispute his claim of self defense at this point with the evidence.” He additionally defended the decision not to issue an arrest warrant because of a lack of probable cause: “Until we can establish probable cause to dispute that, we don’t have the grounds to arrest him.” Given recent reports about the investigation, one has to wonder if this even possible.

Similarly, the news media has emphasized that Zimmerman had a bloody nose, that the back of his t-shirt was wet, and that reports indicate an argument all as potential explanation for what happen. We can see an emerging narrative that explains (rationalizes/justifies) the situation as if an argument or even a “fight” justifies the use of a gun on an unarmed teenager.

At the same time, likely responding to this growing anger about this injustice, the media coverage has increasingly emphasized the legal context. In Florida, because of the “stand your ground law,” which Jeb Bush signed into law in 2005, individuals who believe they are under attack can use deadly force. If a person feels in danger and if a person has “reasonable fear” they are legally allowed to use deadly force. According Joëlle Anne Moreno, “under the new law, if you are not engaged in an illegal activity, you can stand your ground by ‘meeting force with force, including deadly force’ if you ‘reasonably believe it is necessary’ to prevent death, great bodily harm, or the commission of a forcible felony.” In other words, if you reasonably believe you or others are in danger you are entitled and empowered to use force irrespective of the actual threat. It is about belief and perception.

Continue reading @ NewBlackMan: The “Reasonable Fear” of a Black Male: The Trayvon Martin Tragedy.

NewBlackMan: Two Visions of ‘Black’ Evil, One White Gaze: Reading Kony 2012 and the Murder of Trayvon Martin

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Two Visions of ‘Black’ Evil, One White Gaze: Reading Kony 2012 and the Murder of Trayvon Martin

by David C. Leonard | NewBlackMan

In the wake of 9/11 and the ongoing war on terror, the United States has increasingly relied on national narratives that offer certainty, comfort, and security. In catchphrases and sound bites, pundits and politicians remind Americans of the importance of protecting the homeland, the role of all Americans in safeguarding national space and American democratic values, the need to guard against the enemies of freedom and civilization, and the promise of spreading democracy throughout the world. As countless bodies fell, injured and dying, shattering families and communities over here and over there, multinational corporations have profited on an increased militarism, diminishing natural resources, and public panics. Within this climate, many in the United States have sought refuge in comforting narratives of good versus evil, civilization versus savagery. The power and cultural importance of these narratives has been evident with the murder of Trayvon Martin and in the spectacle of Kony 2012.

Prior to the start of the 2012 All Star game (I previously wrote that it was at halftime but based on timeline that appears to be incorrect), Trayvon Martin, a 17-year African American, decided to walk to the local store to get some candy and drinks. Tragically, it appears that he died because he was walking while black in a gated predominantly white community in Florida. Shortly after calling 911 to report a “suspicious” person within his community, George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain, confronted Martin, who was armed with skittles and an Arizona Ice Tea. What happened next is unclear, yet what is without much doubt is that Zimmerman shot Martin dead with a Kel Tek 9mm semi-automatic gun. Identified as a “threat” Martin fell victim at the hands of a gun.

In a world where African Americans, particularly black male youth, are consistently represented as threats, to the security, peace, culture, calm, and order, how can “threat” be seen outside of the context of race? In a world where racial profiling is routine and where explicit and implicit bias has created the criminalblackman, is it even possible to think about the confrontation and ultimate death of Martin outside of the paradigm of a criminalized of black body? The 911 call, the confrontation, and the ultimate death fits a larger pattern whereupon blackness is consistently imagined as threat, as danger, and as EVIL; as a cultural and social pariah blackness needs to be controlled, discipline, and ultimately punished. According to Michelle Alexander, “Just as African Americans in the North were stigmatized by the Jim Crow system even if they were not subject to its formal control. Black men today are stigmatized by mass incarceration and the social construction of the ‘criminalblackman’ whether they have ever been to prison or not” (p. 194). In a review of Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, Max Kanter describes the specter of criminalization as follows:

This is evidenced in part by dominant media and cultural narratives, institutionalized (and legalized) racial profiling, and police efforts to build mass databases of “suspected criminals” which contain information almost exclusively on racial minorities who have often done nothing criminal at all aside from having been born to black and brown parents. In addition to the numerous studies showing that most white Americans see crime in racial (nonwhite) terms, studies conducted by Princeton University also reveal that white felons fresh out of prison are more likely to get hired for jobs than equally qualified black men with no criminal record. African American men without criminal records are more ostracized and widely perceived as being more criminal than white men who have actually been convicted of felony crimes. That is how deeply black people have been stigmatized as criminals and social pariahs in our society.

This is the context that we need to understand what happened to Trayvon Martin not only on the fateful evening, but also in terms of police response and that of the media and general public.

The death of a child under suspicious circumstances would have thought to have led to Zimmerman’s arrest, yet no charges have levied against him to date. It represents another reminder of whose life really matters. Tracy Martin, Trayvon’s father, told the Huffington Post that the police basically saw Zimmerman as a good guy giving them reason not to arrest him at this point:

They respected [Zimmerman’s] background, that he studied criminal justice for four years and that he was squeaky clean.” He continued: “My question to them was, did they run my child’s background check? They said yes. I asked them what they came up with, and they said nothing. So I asked if Zimmerman had a clean record, did that give him the right to shoot and kill an unarmed kid?”

While Trayvon Martin is not trending on twitter nor eliciting 500,000 views on YouTube, much less 70 million, Kony 2012 has captured the national (global) imagination. With millions of views on YouTube and Vimeo, with ample donations directed toward the film’s producer – Invisible Children – and a national conversation about Joseph Kony and his crimes against humanity, Kony 2012 has elicited an outpouring from all corners of society.

Continue reading @ NewBlackMan: Two Visions of ‘Black’ Evil, One White Gaze: Reading Kony 2012 and the Murder of Trayvon Martin.

Trouble A-Bruin: On UCLA And Who Schools Choose To Redeem | Racialicious – the intersection of race and pop culture

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Trouble A-Bruin: On UCLA And Who Schools Choose To Redeem

By Guest Contributor Dr. David J. Leonard

 

Much of the buzz surrounding Sports Illustrated’s report about the troubles surrounding UCLA men’s basketball program has focused on the players, sporting headlines like “UCLA players undermined discipline, morale,” and “UCLA Basketball Out Of Control.” But the story itself really hones in on coach Ben Howland’s failure to “control” and “discipline” those players.

But if this same story had been about teams like UNLV, Miami or Michigan’s “Fab Five,” the narrative would been less one of shock and disappointment but rather the fulfillment of expectation, which are wrapped in racial and class assumptions that UCLA, celebrated as an example of the nostalgic ideal of collegiate sports entertainment, has benefited from for years.

More specifically, much of the article focuses on Howland and his inability to corral and control Reeves Nelson, who has denied many of the allegations.

The piece gives ample attention to the disruptive influence of Nelson, who is white: injuring three players on separate occasions, getting into a fight with another player away from practice, and otherwise engaging in questionable behavior. I could not help but think how much the story revealed about the state of education, privilege, and inequality within society.

Whereas other players are lamented for drug use and partying in ways that detracted from the team success (victories), Nelson comes across as being at a different level. Noting how Howland “looked the other way” because of his play, SI describes Nelson as a pariah, as a cancer to the program:

Nelson was hardly the player around whom to build a team. He was a classic bully, targeting teammates who weren’t as athletically gifted as he and tormenting the support staff. At the end of practice, he would punt balls high up into the stands at Pauley Pavilion, turn to the student managers and say, “Fetch.” Nelson frequently talked back to the assistant coaches. When they told him to stop, he would remark, “That’s how Coach Howland talks to you.” […]

Nelson showed Howland only slightly more respect. By his own admission, he often ignored the head coach’s phone calls, and Howland resorted to calling one of Nelson’s roommates, asking him to coax Nelson onto the line.

There certainly wasn’t a system of zero tolerance for any of the players, but most certainly Nelson had a level of impunity. It made me think about the ways race infects the process of discipline and punishment as well as how education increasingly operates through a commodity model as opposed to one of education.

This is not say that what is happening at UCLA is all about race or that it is evidence of the failed priorities of today’s educational system but rather that what we see at UCLA isn’t simply a soap opera or a instance to wax nostalgically about the John Wooden era but rather a window, glimpse and teachable moment regarding issues bigger than UCLA.

Beginning in the 1980s and extending to the 1990s, students of color attending American public schools faced increased levels of surveillance, policing, and state-sanctioned violence. For example, in 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the Gun-Free Schools Act, a law requiring a one-year suspension for any student who brought a gun to school. This had both direct and indirect consequences throughout the United States. In Chicago, for example: during the 1994-95 school year, only 23 students were throughout the entire district. By 1996-1997, this number reached 571, surpassing 1,000 by two years later.

Although white youth are more likely to bring a gun to school, sell drugs, and use drugs, the efforts to rid schools of these behaviors have focused on youth of color.

The consequences of a Jim Crowed disciplinary process have been evident since day 1. Consider just these three findings:

  • According to a 2007 study by the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative, black students accounted for 17.1 percent of U.S. student populations in 1998, but represented 32.1 percent of students suspended as a result of rule violations. The study also names this statistic from a national survey of high school students: the number of students who reported the presence of security guards and/or police officers in their schools rose from 54 percent in 1999 to 70 percent in 2003.
  • In a separate study of 15 major American cities, the Applied Research Center found black students “report higher than expected” suspension and expulsion rates in all fifteen. In Chicago, while African American students accounted for just over half the district students, they represented almost 2/3s of the students suspended and close to 3/4s of those expelled.

Continue reading @Trouble A-Bruin: On UCLA And Who Schools Choose To Redeem | Racialicious – the intersection of race and pop culture.