Pushout (12 page)

Smart Mouths and Fighting Words

As discussed in Chapter 1, without intentional efforts to combat old ways and norms, schools routinely function as institutions that reproduce dominant social ideas, hierarchies, and systems of oppression. Schools that approach learning as an exercise in classroom management are often preoccupied with discipline—exclusionary discipline, to be exact. Black girls are more likely to
be punished for talking back to a teacher, cursing, or being “loud” in ways that are interpreted as disruptive to the classroom.
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Black girls are also on the receiving end of school-based sanctions associated with who they are as Black girls—whether or not they have behaved “badly.”

In 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita raged through the Gulf Coast, exposing one of the nation's blind spots regarding inequality. Prior to these devastating hurricanes, New Orleans was home to 124 public schools that were part of three distinct school systems. Of these schools, 117 operated under the governance of the Orleans Parish School Board, 5 were under the governance of the Louisiana Recovery School District (a special statewide district created to take over “failing,” schools), and 2 were independent charter schools.
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The hurricanes not only devastated the personal property of many New Orleans residents but also severely damaged schools—at least forty-five schools suffered sewage and flood damage.
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Affected by displacement and ongoing efforts to rebuild after the hurricane, New Orleans reorganized its entire education scheme. As of August 2014, there were eighty-three schools, seventy-six of which were charter schools, most of which were under a new school system: the Recovery School District.
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In the Crescent City, these monumental shifts have come with new rules, but old attitudes about how to treat Black girls. This was of particular concern to eighteen-year-old Gina in New Orleans, who felt that adults in her school were inclined to “talk to you any ol' kind of way”—which triggered her own “bad behavior.”

“One time I was in the computer lab,” she said. “So I raised my hand, and I'm like . . . ‘Can I go to the restroom?' He said, ‘Yeah, go 'head. You're gonna get your education in the hallway anyway.' So I'm like, ‘What?' Like, I clicked out . . . I clicked out.”

Suggesting to Gina that her education was “in the hallway” elicited the same reaction that it did for the girl in the Bay Area who was asked if she had come to school to learn. Gina's teacher's suggestion that she was not equipped to learn in the classroom
and would be better served in the hallway was insulting; she responded using the tools she had available to her at that moment.

“Did you curse at him?” I asked.

She laughed and said, “Yeah . . . I said I was going to call my mama. He said, ‘Call your mama, 'cause we can get it on too. I don't care! I don't care!' So I called my mama. My mama came up there and then it was, ‘See, 'cause I ain't even say it like that . . .' You know, the whole script done flipped once my mama came up there.”

“I feel like teachers try to be on the same level with teenagers sometimes,” fifteen-year-old Francine said. “Sometimes you need to just understand that you're the adult. Like, let them say what they have to say, and you handle it like an adult. That's why I don't like certain teachers like that. That's why they get attitude, because they try to come back at you. Like, you're not going to seem cool, you're just going to seem immature and childish, and I'm not going to want to learn from you because you're trying to be on the same level as me and I don't want that. And then they want to be, ‘Oh, I'm the teacher, you got to listen to me' . . . If you're going to be a teacher, be a
teacher
.”

Gina and Francine were not the only girls to express feeling triggered by their instructors. In discussions in New Orleans, Chicago, New York, Boston, Northern and Southern California, and other places where I have spoken with girls about “bad” behavior, Black girls have shared that their “attitude” is often a reaction to feeling disrespected. At times that reaction is verbal, and at other times the reaction is physical. However, it is important to understand these reactions in context.

People who have been harmed are the ones who harm others. When Black girls are perceived to be lashing out against others and themselves, what's happening can't be understood without an illumination of what brought them to that place. While teacher-student relationships are paramount and teachers taking time to know their students as whole people can make all the difference,
not every teacher or school official can possibly be expected to be familiar with the particular journeys and backgrounds of each student. What can (and should) be developed and nurtured in educational settings, but almost never is, is a deeper awareness of the numerous social factors—related to race, gender, sexuality, disability status, or other identities—that have the power to trigger Black girls and shape their interactions with people in schools. Every girl is unique, but understanding widely shared experiences connected to structural forces bigger than us all would go a long way toward supporting the success and education of Black girls.

In my conversations with girls and young women across the country, it became clear Black girls interpreted their attitude not as a stagnant expression of anger and dissatisfaction. Rather, it lived along a continuum of responses to disrespectful or degrading triggers in their lives—many of which were present in their learning environments. From the hundreds of scenarios that were collected as part of this exploration, specific themes emerged about what was triggering an “attitude” among Black girls. Most common was the notion that an “attitude” was provoked by incidents of disrespect. In other words, these girls saw the “attitude” as a response to suggestions (overt or implicit) that their identity was an inferior one. This was shared with me in different cities, by very different young women between the ages of fifteen and twenty-three, but the theme was consistent.

“She's Slow. What's Wrong with Her?”

For Shai in Chicago, it was the suggestion that she was not smart.

“[My school is] predominantly White,” she said. “Okay, I'm terrible in math. So when little Suzie gets the question wrong, it's like, “Aww . . . you got the question wrong.” It's funny. When I get a question wrong, it's like, “Oh, she's slow. What's wrong with her?” I get so angry, number one, because I already told them I'm bad at math. Number two, because I'm not slow. Like, don't call me slow at all. I take my education seriously. Do not call me slow.
That's why I'm at school, to learn. . . . 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 that I'm the only Black kid in the school, it's like, ‘Oh, are we back in the 1950s now?'”

Shai's identity as “the only Black kid in the school” produced a degree of anxiety that she would be received as embodying a lower status than her White counterparts. To her, being called “slow” was a euphemism for “inferior.” Her admitted insecurity about not being good at math could be a true admission of weakness or a reflection of dominant social ideas (which she might have internalized over time) that generally position girls, especially Black girls, as not being good at math. Still, Shai's negative reaction is more than just a response to the teasing of her peers. It is also in response to the
absence
of teasing when her White counterpart gets the problem wrong. Suzie is allowed to make mistakes without being labeled as “slow,” but Shai is not. It is the unfairness that triggers Shai, not just her personal frustration about the difficulty of math.

“She Tried to Put Me in the Corner . . . I'm Just Outspoken”

For Malaika in the Bay Area, it was the suggestion that she should be quiet in the face of perceived injustice.

“I always get suspended . . . [ever since] the first grade,” she said. “I told my teacher, ‘Don't yell at me,' but she kept talking. I was like, ‘Can you call my mom? You're yelling at me and I don't want you yelling at me.' . . . After they got off the phone with my mom, I still had an attitude. She [tried] to put me out of the class, so I got mad.

“I just kept talking,” Malaika continued. “Told her to shut up . . . and then she [tried] to put me in the corner. I'm not going in nobody corner. . . . She tried to put me in the corner. I'm not going in no corner! [Then my mom came up to the school] and had a talk with the teacher. . . . I ended up in the principal's office,
doing my work for three days. . . . I just got a smart mouth. I don't be meaning for it to come out like that, but if there's something on my mind and my heart, I just say it. Even if it don't got nothing to do with me, if one student's getting treated unfair from the next student, I'ma raise my hand and put my input in. You know, like, ‘Why'd you do that?' They'll be like, ‘You is not the teacher, why are you talking?' . . .

“I'm just outspoken. . . . They're always telling us to voice our opinions, but then when we voice our opinion, we're going to get in trouble. So that's irritating. And I think they're just mad 'cause I'm telling the truth, you know?”

Malaika's narrative reflects the complicated nature of speaking one's truth as a Black girl in the United States. The messages that she received regarding her duty to speak up and the reactions to her resistance to an oppressive silence or humiliation were confusing. They would be for any of us! As with Shai, the absence of fairness underscores Malaika's desire to speak up, but it was her resistance to being marginalized, to being physically placed in the corner, that set her off. Malaika was aware of how being placed in a corner is both a punishment for individual behavior and also a warning to other children about what might happen to them if they engage in similar behavior. Malaika was fundamentally trying not to become the symbol of “bad behavior”—particularly since she felt that she was speaking her truth. It is the idea that her truth has no place in the classroom that triggers Malaika.

“The Moment You Call Me a Bitch, I Will Lose It”

For Dee in Chicago, it was being teased about her physical disability, laughed at, or called a “bitch.”

“There are several things that trigger me,” she said. “If I get something wrong in class and people laugh at me or ask me if I'm dumb or say, ‘Oh, you have a disability so you're not supposed to be in this class, you're not smart . . . blah blah blah,' well, the next day I might get something right. You might see me get an A or a B
on a test and now you want to talk to me to ask me to help you. No, I'm not helping you. . . .

“Another thing is if someone calls me a ‘bitch' instead of Dee. You either call me Dee or by my nickname, or you don't call me anything. Because the moment you call me a ‘bitch,' seriously or prank, I will lose it. I will get very quiet at first and then I can feel my face turning red, like seriously turning red. My eyes will get bigger and I'll have tightness in my arms and both of my legs and then I'll start yelling. I'll scream [and] do anything. People will say, ‘Oh, she's crazy, so get away from her.' It's like, ‘Okay, you can call me crazy, but don't mess with me. Don't trigger me because I will curse back at you even though it's immature and inappropriate. I'll just keep going and going. I'll never shut up. That's just how I am.'”

Dee was aware of her vulnerability and the stigma that followed her as a Black female student with a physical disability. Her trigger was ridicule—whether it was being laughed at, called by something other than her name, or regarded as less intelligent than her peers. No child wants to be teased in this way. Her hostile reaction to the teasing from her peers is a predictable reaction from someone who may have been conditioned to make it clear that she will command respect. It's the assault on her dignity, the disrespect, that triggers Dee.

“I Got a Smart Mouth”

For Stacy in the Bay Area, it was the suggestion that she was weak.

“I'm a fighter,” she said. “When I was in elementary, this girl said I couldn't play double-dutch with her. So I got mad at her and I pulled her rope, like if I can't jump here, nobody else going to jump here. So, so, um . . . she started chasing me. I'm thinking she playing with me. Then I said, ‘Hold on, let me stop,' 'cause I'm not scared of her. So I stopped. She [was] tryin' to, like, run up on me, feel me? I just took off on her. Afterward, 'cause her hair was ugly, I just pulled her hair . . . and all of her hair came out. Like, all of it. But, I didn't really do it that hard. I mean, all her
hair came out. I was, like, in the third grade or the fourth—and everybody was like, ‘You going to have to go to the office. You 'bout to get in trouble.' I [was] like, ‘I don't care.'

“But they should have let me come back to school, 'cause I was hecka young. Why would they expel me? And then I got expelled out of [another] middle school 'cause . . . like I'm a problem child, so every school I go to, I have problems. . . . Also, see, I know how to dress hecka good. . . . Like, I have fresh shoes on. And then, like some drunk, they'll step on my shoes or whatever. I get hecka mad, like . . . and they don't be sayin' excuse me. Like somebody bump me. That's hecka rude. I'll be hecka mad, like, ‘You ain't going to say excuse me?' So then I'm like, ‘You can say excuse yourself' . . .'cause I got a smart mouth. So I'm like, ‘You can say excuse yourself,' but if they [don't] want to say it, I just take off on them 'cause I'm hecka mad.”

Stacy took pride in her fighting ability. A competitive spirit, she enjoyed a challenge, but she—like so many other girls—was conflating her fear of being perceived as weak or a “punk” with her identity as a “problem child.” That any child would refer to him- or herself as a problem is heartbreaking. Our most basic hope for children should be that they see themselves as sacred and loved, not problematic. She drew her “respect” from outward manifestations of prestige—looking “cute” or fighting—but she was also responding to her fear of not being seen or highly regarded in some way. Stacy framed her behavior as a tendency to get in trouble, but I see her trigger as anything (or anyone) that might interfere with her own visibility politics. Stacy was triggered by a fear of being ignored.