Post 4: Relevance

    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 letting the boys feel all on you and stuff,'" (Morris, page 127). When I first read this I was a bit shocked, because why would Deja be wearing shorts to school for that reason? And even if she was, that would definitely not be an appropriate thing for a principal to tell a young girl. "The fear, as suggested by the principal's comment, was that Deja's shorts might elicit inappropriate touching and behavior among the boys," (Morris, page 127). We should be teaching boys to not touch girls inappropriately, rather than teaching girls to not let boys touch them.

    When I read this part of the book, it felt very familiar. I can't fully relate to what Deja went through because I'm White, but I have had experience with being told to "cover up" at school. The argument that clothing distracts boys is so weak. If boys are "distracted" this easily then why are they not being taught about it like girls are?

    I found an article about a school where Black girls were being targeted when it came to the dress code. Fifteen year old twins Mya and Deanna Cook from Mystic Valley Regional Charter School in Massachusetts have experienced a lot of backlash and consequences for no logical reason. They had been given detention, banned from sports teams, clubs, and prom because of their hair. They both got braid extensions to protect their natural hair and apparently this was a problem with the school because it was too distracting.

Mya and Deanna Cook and their mother, Colleen Cook.
Duster

    The school's dress code states: "Students may not wear drastic or unnatural hair colors or styles such as shaved lines or shaved sides or have a hairstyle that could be distracting to other students (extra-long hair or hair more than 2 inch in thickness or height is not allowed). This means no coloring, dying, lightening (sun-in) or streaking of any sort. Hair extensions are not allowed," (Duster). I understand that charter schools may have extra guidelines when it comes to dress code but this is excessive, and as said in the article, targeting Black girls. Mya and Deanna also said that they were questioned all the time if their hair was real. When they said their real hair was added into the braids, they were told they needed to remove them, or else they would experience consequences, which they did (Duster). Looking at the picture above, would anyone consider their hair distracting at all? That seems unlikely, it's just a hair style they chose that is common in the Black community that protects their natural hair. Other stories have come out where kids aren't allowed to have an afro either, even though it is their natural hair! At this point, as Colleen Cook states that schools just don't understand Black culture.

    

    The story from Pushout and the story from the article are about different features, but it all comes down to how poorly Black girls are treated in schools. The dress code is used to control what they wear and how they express their culture. Deja was sent home for wearing shorts that were longer than a White girl's. That gives us a clue that it's not actually about the clothes, it was about her race and how people might perceive her wearing that. For Mya and Deanna, they simply wore a common braid that many Black people do, and were banned from every extracurricular and sent home. Morris wrote this book in 2016 and the event in the article happened in 2017, but it happened before and after that, and it will continue to happen, unless the school system goes through a change.

    Thank you for reading my post! This was my favorite to write so far and I am very interested in this book.

Works Cited

Duster, Chandelis R. "Parents Outraged Over School's 'Discriminatory,' 'Racist' Dress Code." NBC News, 16 May 2017, www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/parents-outraged-over-school-s-discriminatory-racist-dress-code-n759821. Accessed 12 Apr. 2021.

Morris, Monique W. Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools. New York City, New Press, 2016.