Post 1: Introduction
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...