Pushout Blog RL

    Welcome back to my blog. In this post I will be discussing how events in  Pushout ,  The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools  by Monique Morris relate to current events.     What I will be focusing on today is strict dress codes and how they are unfair towards Black girls in schools. Morris talked to a girl named Deja and she shared her experience with the dress code at her school. She said how on the first day of school, the weather was unbelievably hot, so she was wearing a pair of shorts. She walked into the school office for some other reason but Deja was told she needed to go home and change her shorts. She then explained that a White girl walked in with shorter shorts than her, but the people in the office didn't say anything to the White girl. Deja questioned them about why they didn't tell her to go home, but they had no reason. After complaining about the unfair situation, the principal gave her a pass and said "'but please don't be ...

    Welcome back to my third blog post. Today I will be discussing how Monique Morris develops her argument in the book  Pushout ,  The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools.      One of Morris' biggest points is that there a double standard for young girls in school. She interviewed another girl from Chicago named Shai. She explained to Morris that she lives in a prominently White school. Shai described a situation where she was in math class and a White girl got a question wrong. The teacher nurtured her and didn't think anything of it, but if Shai got it wrong, the teacher would say that she's slow and ask what was wrong with her, and not in a concerned and helpful tone. Morris writes that this is frustrating for Shai because they both got it wrong, but somehow only she feels worse. "That triggers it. It does not only make me want to fight them, it makes me want to...it makes me want to ask them, why would they say something like that? The fact ...

 Hello and welcome back to my blog. In this post, I will be discussing the rhetorical analysis that Monique Morris uses in the novel.       In this section of the book, Morris continues to interview young Black girls about their experiences. She establishes the appeal of ethos right away. The way she asks the girls questions make them more comfortable, and the fact that she is also a Black woman gives them more to relate to, so they understand each other on another level. Morris was interviewing a girl named Destiny who was labeled as a juvenile delinquent, so she was put into a juvenile facility instead of regular school. While Morris is talking to her, she asks her a question but lets Destiny speak for as long as she can get her message out. It's a healthy conversation and Morris asks her phrases like "do you feel safe in school?" and "how do you feel about being called ratchet and ghetto?" (Morris, page 45). These kind of questions allow Destiny to truly expr...

Hello and welcome to my first blog post about Monique W. Morris’ novel Pushout , The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools . This book discusses problems that young Black girls face everyday in school, whether it’s suspension, expulsion, or physical violence. Morris begins the book with an introduction, highlighting several examples of young Black girls who have been attacked or harassed at school. For instance, a sixteen year old girl in Alabama, Ashlynn Avery, fell asleep reading in her suspension. Instead of waking her up, her teacher threw a book at her head. After being ordered to leave the room, a cop “allegedly slammed her face into a file cabinet and then arrested her,” (Morris, page 3). This is not only a problem of violence, but of clear racism. Nothing should institute a teacher throwing an object at a student’s head. It says in the book after the girl didn't respond, the teacher automatically went to violence. Perhaps this teacher was a violent person, but there co...