WEBVTT - Reclaiming Black Girlhood 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:25.796 Pushkin Getting Even is produced by Pushkin Industries. Subscribe to 0:00:25.836 --> 0:00:29.316 Pushkin Plus and you can hear Getting Even and other 0:00:29.356 --> 0:00:35.596 Pushkin shows add free and receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign 0:00:35.756 --> 0:00:39.756 up on the Getting Even show page in Apple Podcasts 0:00:39.956 --> 0:00:46.116 or at Pushkin dot Fm. Black girls are often the 0:00:46.116 --> 0:00:49.916 most consistent and fervent articulators of injustice because we are 0:00:49.996 --> 0:00:54.196 uniquely positioned to see lots of ways in which this 0:00:54.276 --> 0:01:00.276 oppression manifests. Doctor Monique Morris is an author, advocate, and 0:01:00.396 --> 0:01:04.836 founding president of the National Black Women's Justice Institute. I 0:01:04.876 --> 0:01:08.476 believe in a justice that doesn't lead to oppression of 0:01:08.516 --> 0:01:11.356 any kind. I write about it, and I work for it. 0:01:12.036 --> 0:01:15.276 She's a pioneer in the field of black girlhood studies 0:01:15.556 --> 0:01:19.756 who examines how economic and social factors intersect in the 0:01:19.836 --> 0:01:23.596 lives of black and brown girls. I anchor my work 0:01:24.116 --> 0:01:29.036 in my own experiential knowledge, having been a black girl 0:01:29.596 --> 0:01:33.036 in the society. This work, to me is really sort 0:01:33.076 --> 0:01:36.276 of less an academic inquiry and really more about a 0:01:36.316 --> 0:01:40.236 reclamation of self in order to undo the structural oppressions 0:01:40.276 --> 0:01:43.476 that so many black girls live with. By working directly 0:01:43.516 --> 0:01:47.236 with black and brown girls, she better understands the harsh 0:01:47.236 --> 0:01:52.516 scrutiny they face, and doctor Morris is taking what she 0:01:52.636 --> 0:01:56.716 has learned and offering solutions to educators. And I think 0:01:56.716 --> 0:01:59.436 Black Girlhood Studies is a way to push past the 0:01:59.516 --> 0:02:02.556 stereotypes and tropes that have informed so much of how 0:02:02.556 --> 0:02:05.756 we've come to understand and construct black girlhood. Black Girlhood 0:02:05.756 --> 0:02:08.596 Studies allows black girls to reclaim that and reshape it. 0:02:21.756 --> 0:02:26.036 I'm Anita Hill. This is Getting Even, my podcast about 0:02:26.076 --> 0:02:30.076 equality and what it takes to get there. On Getting Even, 0:02:30.436 --> 0:02:34.156 I speak with people who are improving our imperfect world, 0:02:35.036 --> 0:02:40.036 people who took risks and broke the rules. In this episode, 0:02:40.556 --> 0:02:45.996 I'm speaking with doctor Monique Morris about the adultification, sexualization, 0:02:46.516 --> 0:02:51.836 and criminalization that black girl's face. Doctor Morris is the 0:02:51.916 --> 0:02:57.196 author of five books, including her most recent, Cultivating Joyful 0:02:57.356 --> 0:03:03.236 Learning Spaces for Black Girls. Can you explain what some 0:03:03.436 --> 0:03:06.516 of the issues are in the way the world sees 0:03:06.636 --> 0:03:12.276 black girls? Yeah, black girls are seen as available to 0:03:12.316 --> 0:03:18.236 the public. Black girls are in their bodies, in their language, 0:03:18.516 --> 0:03:23.756 in their creativity treated as if they are disposable and 0:03:23.996 --> 0:03:28.076 that their being is negotiable. And that plays out in 0:03:28.116 --> 0:03:30.476 a lot of different ways. It plays out in the 0:03:30.556 --> 0:03:34.036 reading of their behaviors as more adult like we now 0:03:34.076 --> 0:03:38.236 talk about as adultification of Black girls, and the way 0:03:38.316 --> 0:03:41.116 in which that then leads to the reading of their 0:03:41.156 --> 0:03:45.156 behaviors as worthy of harsher punishment than their white counterparts, 0:03:45.196 --> 0:03:49.716 mostly because it erases their childhood and denies them an 0:03:49.716 --> 0:03:52.796 opportunity to express their fullness as a growing young person. 0:03:53.276 --> 0:03:57.316 Doctor Jamelia Blake and Rebecca Epstein at the Georgetown Center 0:03:57.356 --> 0:04:00.396 on Poverty and Inequality did a report that looked at 0:04:00.396 --> 0:04:04.196 adultification and found that Black girls experience this reading of 0:04:04.236 --> 0:04:07.116 their behaviors as more adult like from the age of five, 0:04:07.236 --> 0:04:08.916 and it peques when they're between the ages of ten 0:04:08.916 --> 0:04:13.036 and utine, and that then means that the adults around 0:04:13.036 --> 0:04:15.716 them are seeing them as in need of less protection, 0:04:15.836 --> 0:04:18.436 less comfort. They are seen as more independent to know 0:04:18.516 --> 0:04:22.196 more about a subject matter like sex than their white counterparts, 0:04:22.236 --> 0:04:25.556 and so that leads to how we then understand their 0:04:25.596 --> 0:04:29.196 capacities around and experiences with trauma, whether we recognize their 0:04:29.196 --> 0:04:31.836 trauma or not. So many black girls are seen as 0:04:31.876 --> 0:04:35.356 combative and sassy. You know the tropes around the loud 0:04:35.396 --> 0:04:38.796 black girl with the attitude quote unquote the attitude for me, 0:04:38.876 --> 0:04:42.436 the black girl attitude is an open inquiry and really 0:04:42.516 --> 0:04:46.676 is a statement about black girls amazing capacity to identify 0:04:46.756 --> 0:04:52.036 injustice in a society that is grounded in the principles 0:04:52.236 --> 0:04:57.596 of white men's priorities, and that when we don't articulate 0:04:57.756 --> 0:05:01.836 our happiness and well being along those constructs, oftentimes there's 0:05:01.916 --> 0:05:05.836 a punishment assigned to that. And so black girls who 0:05:05.876 --> 0:05:09.596 do have some volume, who do have some agency in 0:05:09.956 --> 0:05:14.996 what they know, are often received as problematic. It's something 0:05:15.036 --> 0:05:18.716 that I have been mapping in educational spaces for some 0:05:18.836 --> 0:05:21.676 years now, but there are others who have been looking 0:05:21.716 --> 0:05:25.836 at how adultification plays out in communities, how it plays 0:05:25.916 --> 0:05:29.916 out in health scenarios, how it plays out across the board, 0:05:30.316 --> 0:05:34.316 to help us better understand the construct of what black 0:05:34.356 --> 0:05:37.196 girls are supposed to be doing in this society, how 0:05:37.196 --> 0:05:40.836 they're supposed to behave, quote unquote, how they're supposed to speak, 0:05:41.316 --> 0:05:45.036 and what constitutes then a good girl if she's in 0:05:45.076 --> 0:05:47.876 a black body. I'm going to back off a little 0:05:47.916 --> 0:05:50.236 bit because I mean, there is so much going on. 0:05:50.436 --> 0:05:54.156 But you said that you come into this work from 0:05:54.156 --> 0:05:56.756 a personal point of view. Do you feel like your 0:05:57.196 --> 0:06:01.996 experience adultification as a girl. Oh, I was definitely an 0:06:02.036 --> 0:06:08.836 adultified child, and my behaviors and my body were absolutely 0:06:08.876 --> 0:06:12.596 treated in the problematic ways that I've described. That seems 0:06:12.596 --> 0:06:14.836 to be more routine for other black girls. You know, 0:06:14.916 --> 0:06:16.596 me showing up to school in a tank top and 0:06:16.636 --> 0:06:19.076 being told I have to go home because I'm too provocative. 0:06:19.236 --> 0:06:22.316 But I'm watching my white and Asian counterparts we're the 0:06:22.396 --> 0:06:25.316 same thing that I'm wearing, and be allowed to stay 0:06:25.316 --> 0:06:28.596 at school or not told that they're provocative. These kinds 0:06:28.596 --> 0:06:31.956 of experiences that I had, you know, in the nineteen eighties, 0:06:31.996 --> 0:06:36.396 are still happening today. And what's different, I think is 0:06:36.476 --> 0:06:39.596 that you know, when it was said to me in 0:06:39.796 --> 0:06:43.196 the eighties, I dismissed it as something that was only 0:06:43.236 --> 0:06:46.436 happening to me, right. I didn't understand that this was 0:06:46.476 --> 0:06:49.956 part of a pattern of black girlhood that was being 0:06:49.996 --> 0:06:53.876 experienced across the country. When you're walking through school, to 0:06:53.996 --> 0:06:59.076 have your body consistently viewed as something that needs to 0:06:59.116 --> 0:07:04.756 be examined for its appropriateness in the learning environment is 0:07:04.796 --> 0:07:08.356 deeply problematic. We call that the policing of black girl 0:07:08.436 --> 0:07:12.156 bodies in the sense that it's other adults who are 0:07:12.196 --> 0:07:15.276 looking at the clothing the way that the clothing fits 0:07:15.316 --> 0:07:18.796 on the bodies of our girls, the way that the 0:07:18.916 --> 0:07:22.276 clothing is in the appropriate color. A lot of it 0:07:22.316 --> 0:07:24.236 has to do with the enforcement of school dress codes. 0:07:24.636 --> 0:07:27.596 But the enforcement of school dress codes invites adults to 0:07:27.676 --> 0:07:31.676 be looking at the bodies of girls, many of whom 0:07:31.716 --> 0:07:36.116 are experiencing early onset puberty, many of whom may just 0:07:36.196 --> 0:07:40.316 have fuller figures, and many of whom don't, but still 0:07:40.316 --> 0:07:45.476 experience this regular routine surveillance of their bodies in a 0:07:45.516 --> 0:07:48.756 way that suggests to them that how they look in school, 0:07:48.876 --> 0:07:52.036 how they show up to school with their own bodies, 0:07:52.436 --> 0:07:54.516 is more important than the fact that they're there to learn. 0:07:55.156 --> 0:07:57.316 You know, I used to joke that I can walk 0:07:57.316 --> 0:07:59.116 into a focus group or talk to a group of 0:07:59.156 --> 0:08:01.436 girls across the racial groups, and the second I start 0:08:01.476 --> 0:08:05.036 talking about the dress code, everyone comes alive. Because girls 0:08:05.076 --> 0:08:09.116 inherently understand the dress codes to be a sexist structure, 0:08:09.276 --> 0:08:13.996 inherently understand that the enforcement is different for girls and boys. 0:08:14.076 --> 0:08:16.996 The enforcement is different for non binary young people. The 0:08:17.196 --> 0:08:21.916 enforcement is one that leans into the biases of adults 0:08:22.196 --> 0:08:26.596 and the structures that you allow for these biases to 0:08:26.636 --> 0:08:29.916 be supported. Many many schools do not have dress codes. 0:08:29.956 --> 0:08:31.916 They're more concerned with the fact that young people are 0:08:31.956 --> 0:08:36.516 there present in school. They're more concerned with having conversations 0:08:36.516 --> 0:08:40.116 about respect than having young people wear clothes that they 0:08:40.196 --> 0:08:43.996 feel will be less provocative to the boys, you know, 0:08:44.236 --> 0:08:46.956 or make girls bodies less provocative to the boys. When 0:08:46.996 --> 0:08:49.196 we talk about this policing of black girl bodies, it 0:08:49.196 --> 0:08:51.356 certainly has to do with that. But there's another piece too. 0:08:52.156 --> 0:08:58.356 How we normalized this expectation that black girls will be loud, sassey, combative, 0:08:58.356 --> 0:09:02.636 and sexualized without talking about remedy. And so I have 0:09:02.796 --> 0:09:05.636 brought my own experiences and my experiences as a mother 0:09:05.676 --> 0:09:09.436 to two black girls, right. That is about how we 0:09:09.476 --> 0:09:12.516 have honest conversations about some of these things, How we 0:09:12.636 --> 0:09:16.996 talk about protections from oppressions not just through a lens 0:09:17.076 --> 0:09:20.476 of race alone, but race and gender right and sexuality, 0:09:20.556 --> 0:09:23.196 and get more complex with our young people who are 0:09:23.196 --> 0:09:26.756 ready for those conversations. All of that informs how I 0:09:26.796 --> 0:09:29.796 approach my work. You know, I really think that this 0:09:29.836 --> 0:09:32.036 lived experience that I had in a black girl body 0:09:32.076 --> 0:09:35.876 has absolutely made me receptive to some of the new 0:09:35.956 --> 0:09:38.556 language and emergent language that girls are bringing to this work. 0:09:38.596 --> 0:09:41.476 I think the other scholars in this space are absolutely 0:09:41.516 --> 0:09:45.236 doing the same thing. The work of Dominique Hill around Working, 0:09:45.316 --> 0:09:48.076 for example, and some of the other scholars who have 0:09:48.156 --> 0:09:52.756 been deeply exploring black girl movements and the ways in 0:09:52.796 --> 0:09:55.756 which these are expressive healing modalities as opposed to being 0:09:55.916 --> 0:10:00.476 hypersexualized in our popular culture to facilitate a deepening of 0:10:00.516 --> 0:10:04.556 the oppression. All really important work. It's also can take 0:10:04.636 --> 0:10:08.676 us some time to unpack what this movement really means, 0:10:09.196 --> 0:10:12.396 right and what's on the other side of this movement 0:10:13.636 --> 0:10:17.476 before we can even begin to get to the other 0:10:17.516 --> 0:10:21.916 side to the solutions. I still think people don't understand 0:10:21.916 --> 0:10:26.756 the severity of the issues. You've talked about adultification, and 0:10:26.836 --> 0:10:29.916 that can have consequences in terms of the responsibilities that 0:10:29.956 --> 0:10:36.276 we place on children, but it can also lead to criminalization, 0:10:37.116 --> 0:10:41.716 yes of girls. Yes. The way that this adultification then 0:10:41.836 --> 0:10:49.156 leads to criminalization is that it denies black girls the 0:10:49.236 --> 0:10:54.676 opportunity to have the root causes of their behaviors explored. 0:10:54.996 --> 0:11:00.596 When there is disruption, there's a different treatment of black 0:11:00.596 --> 0:11:04.156 girl behaviors because there's this assumption that they should know better, 0:11:04.676 --> 0:11:08.236 because there's this assumption that they don't need protection or nurturing, 0:11:08.716 --> 0:11:13.716 because there's this assumption that they can handle whatever punishment 0:11:13.876 --> 0:11:19.276 is deemed necessary, and there is this historical construct around 0:11:19.396 --> 0:11:24.596 the need for black children to be experiencing surveillance and 0:11:24.716 --> 0:11:29.996 punishment as the remedy for whatever student behavior is deemed 0:11:30.076 --> 0:11:34.076 undesirable at that time. In other words, it's an invitation 0:11:34.196 --> 0:11:38.116 for state intervention. Yes, And that's where the disposability of 0:11:38.116 --> 0:11:41.516 black girl bodies comes in. That's where this question about 0:11:41.956 --> 0:11:45.956 how black girls are experiencing school discipline and a removal 0:11:45.996 --> 0:11:48.636 from school come into question. One of the things that 0:11:48.716 --> 0:11:50.836 I and other folks have mapped is that black girls 0:11:50.836 --> 0:11:54.516 are the only group of girls who experience an overrepresentation 0:11:55.196 --> 0:11:58.276 at every stage of discipline in the school and at 0:11:58.316 --> 0:12:01.796 every educational level. So across the spectrum of discipline and 0:12:01.836 --> 0:12:05.396 at every educational level, we see black girls experiencing a 0:12:05.396 --> 0:12:08.676 heightened degree of contact. And that is not because black 0:12:08.716 --> 0:12:12.196 girls are more likely to make mistakes than other children. 0:12:12.836 --> 0:12:15.476 It is largely attributed to how adults are reading the 0:12:15.516 --> 0:12:18.156 behaviors and how they are designing structures in the schools 0:12:18.156 --> 0:12:21.876 where black girls are that are deeply punitive, that are 0:12:21.916 --> 0:12:26.156 not responsive to trauma, and that don't recognize what these 0:12:26.236 --> 0:12:29.036 children actually need, you know. And so one of the 0:12:29.076 --> 0:12:32.396 ways that I think our society continues to play into 0:12:32.436 --> 0:12:38.396 that narrative is by allowing our conversations about black girls 0:12:38.556 --> 0:12:41.396 to refer to them as young women. And sometimes we 0:12:41.436 --> 0:12:43.396 don't mean it, you know, probably mean it in a 0:12:43.436 --> 0:12:47.036 way that honors her agency. But with black girls, it's 0:12:47.116 --> 0:12:50.756 it's really important to recognize the child that is in 0:12:50.796 --> 0:12:53.996 front of you. Of course, there is the issue of 0:12:54.276 --> 0:12:58.236 police officers within schools, yes, and there is the physical 0:12:58.316 --> 0:13:03.676 policing of black girls. But there's also the emotional policing, yes, absolutely, 0:13:03.716 --> 0:13:08.956 of black girls that not only law enforcement takes party, 0:13:09.236 --> 0:13:12.796 but also the teachers take part in. That's right. Can 0:13:12.836 --> 0:13:15.836 you talk about that and how you respond to that. 0:13:16.076 --> 0:13:19.596 There's also this policing of black girl expressions of joy, 0:13:19.636 --> 0:13:22.156 like we saw this incident and upset New York where 0:13:22.316 --> 0:13:27.196 girls were actually strip searched because they were laughing and 0:13:27.316 --> 0:13:29.876 giddy and they were assumed to be on drugs. It's 0:13:29.916 --> 0:13:32.316 again rooted in this perception that black girls just can't 0:13:32.356 --> 0:13:35.156 be happy, that they have to be on something if 0:13:35.156 --> 0:13:37.516 they're going to be loud, and you can walk into 0:13:37.596 --> 0:13:41.436 rooms and experientially talk to people about what it has 0:13:41.436 --> 0:13:44.716 been like to laugh in your fullness and be told 0:13:44.756 --> 0:13:46.716 that your laugh is too loud, or your laugh is 0:13:46.716 --> 0:13:51.196 too disruptive, that your expressions of joy are problematic. And 0:13:51.276 --> 0:13:56.036 so there's this routine way that black girls are told 0:13:56.356 --> 0:13:59.916 outright and sometimes through other signals, that their presence in 0:13:59.996 --> 0:14:04.476 school is problematic, and certainly that that applies to their 0:14:04.516 --> 0:14:08.836 anger as well, no question, no question, there's always this 0:14:09.116 --> 0:14:12.316 reception that you have to trade off either being traumatized 0:14:12.476 --> 0:14:18.076 or angry, right, and black women, black girls will often 0:14:18.076 --> 0:14:21.236 tell that I can be both. I can be both 0:14:21.276 --> 0:14:25.556 experiencing trauma and angry about it, right, and in my 0:14:25.676 --> 0:14:29.556 expression of anger. That doesn't mean that you then say, oh, 0:14:29.596 --> 0:14:33.956 she's aggressive, she must not be experiencing pain. That people 0:14:34.036 --> 0:14:36.916 manifest pain in different ways and express pain in different ways. 0:14:37.356 --> 0:14:41.036 We saw this play out with Makayah Bryant in Columbus. 0:14:41.116 --> 0:14:43.516 There was an attempt to talk about what happened with 0:14:43.516 --> 0:14:46.836 this fifteen year old girl who had been shot fatally 0:14:46.956 --> 0:14:49.756 shot by a police officer in response to an altercation 0:14:49.796 --> 0:14:52.956 she was having at her Foster home, and the way 0:14:52.956 --> 0:14:55.796 that people were talking about her as a larger bodied 0:14:56.036 --> 0:14:59.876 quote unquote young woman was deeply problematic to us in 0:14:59.876 --> 0:15:02.036 this work because we were like, no, no, no, we 0:15:02.116 --> 0:15:04.756 see a child. What we see is a fifteen year 0:15:04.796 --> 0:15:08.076 old girl who was afraid. And if you've worked in 0:15:08.156 --> 0:15:11.396 spaces and underst stand that black children are children and 0:15:11.476 --> 0:15:13.916 not young adults, then you recognize all the ways in 0:15:13.916 --> 0:15:17.676 which they are cognitively children and adolescence the same way 0:15:17.716 --> 0:15:21.956 that we can see the adolescence and childhood of other children. 0:15:22.156 --> 0:15:24.876 And that's really, you know, part of how we engage 0:15:25.076 --> 0:15:28.236 in this question of equity and justice for our girls 0:15:28.436 --> 0:15:34.916 is to stand in fierce protection of their childhood, fierce 0:15:34.996 --> 0:15:40.476 protection of it. Do you believe that the police officer 0:15:40.676 --> 0:15:46.036 who killed mccayah could have avoided his aggression toward her, 0:15:46.236 --> 0:15:49.516 No question, There's not a question in my mind. There 0:15:49.516 --> 0:15:51.876 has never been a question in my mind. I along 0:15:51.916 --> 0:15:56.556 with others who had been in response to conditions that 0:15:56.596 --> 0:16:00.876 were similar, where there's a fight that involves a weapon, 0:16:01.156 --> 0:16:04.716 not a gun but a knife, and we could tick 0:16:04.756 --> 0:16:08.356 through two or three interventions that didn't require her being 0:16:08.356 --> 0:16:12.076 shot to death right in ways of de escalating that scenario. 0:16:12.716 --> 0:16:14.956 Part of the problem is that we rely on law 0:16:15.036 --> 0:16:18.756 enforcement to respond to every single condition, and they are 0:16:18.836 --> 0:16:22.956 not equipped to do that. The other problem is that 0:16:23.516 --> 0:16:27.036 there was a failure to see a child who was 0:16:27.076 --> 0:16:30.276 afraid in that scenario, and there was only a response 0:16:30.316 --> 0:16:34.796 to a person who was perceived as an aggressor with 0:16:34.916 --> 0:16:38.236 a weapon, and so it was reduced to aggressor with 0:16:38.276 --> 0:16:42.676 a weapon as opposed to disregulated child who is afraid 0:16:42.796 --> 0:16:46.996 because she's actually defending herself from some adults around her. 0:16:47.516 --> 0:16:50.076 The whole situation was unfortunate. So I have to say that, 0:16:50.356 --> 0:16:51.876 you know, we never want to see those kinds of 0:16:51.916 --> 0:16:55.436 conditions take place in our communities or any communities. But 0:16:55.516 --> 0:16:58.676 at the same time, I have talked through conversations with 0:16:58.836 --> 0:17:01.156 folks who have worked in foster homes who are like, 0:17:01.276 --> 0:17:04.596 I've disarmed girls who have been in fights, you know, 0:17:04.716 --> 0:17:07.276 five or six times a month, Right, I know how 0:17:07.316 --> 0:17:10.076 to talk to people in a way gets their attention 0:17:10.316 --> 0:17:13.076 that can disarm. If he was going to arrive with 0:17:13.116 --> 0:17:15.156 the tool he had available to him, which was a gun, 0:17:15.516 --> 0:17:17.356 he's a sharpshooter. He knows how to shoot. He could 0:17:17.396 --> 0:17:19.516 have just shot her legs, but they're not taught to 0:17:19.516 --> 0:17:22.236 do that, and so not that training is the issue, 0:17:22.596 --> 0:17:26.196 But there are absolutely several ways where there could have 0:17:26.276 --> 0:17:28.396 been a disarming and where there could have been a 0:17:28.476 --> 0:17:31.276 de escalation of the issue and the tensions in that 0:17:31.316 --> 0:17:34.996 fight that would preserve life. It's always hard for me 0:17:35.036 --> 0:17:39.716 to watch the videos whenever these incidents happen. There's this 0:17:39.756 --> 0:17:47.556 way that society has now made it routine to display 0:17:48.076 --> 0:17:51.276 this level of black pain in our efforts to talk 0:17:51.316 --> 0:17:55.876 about these conditions that impact black girls. Again, you know, 0:17:55.876 --> 0:17:58.636 there's a replaying of the video or replaying of the scenario, 0:17:58.676 --> 0:18:01.556 but they go viral also because some people see this 0:18:01.556 --> 0:18:04.716 as a form of entertainment. Unfortunately, I wrote an article 0:18:04.876 --> 0:18:07.316 years ago that was like, let's we gotta fall out 0:18:07.356 --> 0:18:10.396 of love with black girl fights, right, Like, we have 0:18:10.476 --> 0:18:15.116 to understand that that is not entertainment, That this is 0:18:15.436 --> 0:18:20.316 no different than the ways that black communities were set 0:18:20.396 --> 0:18:22.716 up by design to be in conflict with each other 0:18:22.756 --> 0:18:25.876 for the entertainment of those who participated and benefited from 0:18:25.916 --> 0:18:29.516 their oppression, and that we have to consider all the 0:18:29.596 --> 0:18:32.356 other tools that we have available to us when there 0:18:32.436 --> 0:18:34.996 is conflict to engage some of these other modalities and 0:18:34.996 --> 0:18:38.476 to bring other people into our communities who love us fundamentally. 0:18:39.556 --> 0:18:43.956 The way to deal with conflict is love. I believe 0:18:44.036 --> 0:18:46.276 that all the work that I've done with young people 0:18:46.676 --> 0:18:49.796 at various stages of their contact with the juvenile court 0:18:49.836 --> 0:18:52.636 or criminal legal system, at various stages of their own development, 0:18:53.076 --> 0:18:55.396 if you can lead with love and make connections and 0:18:55.476 --> 0:18:59.316 understand and love this group of people, then your inclination 0:18:59.436 --> 0:19:03.556 is not first to harm them. And so I think 0:19:03.676 --> 0:19:08.196 what's exciting in this world are the ways that communities 0:19:08.196 --> 0:19:12.196 are thinking innovative about strategies that do not involve law enforcement, 0:19:12.316 --> 0:19:15.876 strategies that do not involve others who don't love us. 0:19:16.996 --> 0:19:18.996 So I believe there's a lot of work to be 0:19:18.996 --> 0:19:22.516 done there, but we've got to continue to elevate conversations 0:19:22.556 --> 0:19:25.516 like the one we're having around you know, adultification and 0:19:25.556 --> 0:19:28.316 the way that it has shaped our understanding of what 0:19:28.476 --> 0:19:30.996 is at the root of some of this conflict or 0:19:31.676 --> 0:19:34.236 what are some of the interventions that we can engage. 0:19:34.236 --> 0:19:35.716 And that's that's been a lot of my work within 0:19:35.756 --> 0:19:38.676 schools to talk to you know, educators about some of 0:19:38.676 --> 0:19:41.436 these issues, because in my mind, those are the first 0:19:41.436 --> 0:19:50.716 responders to children. After the break, Doctor Morrison I explore 0:19:50.796 --> 0:19:55.196 how she is working to undo structural barriers and empower 0:19:55.436 --> 0:20:08.716 black girls. You're listening to getting even I'm Anita Hill. 0:20:09.596 --> 0:20:13.516 I'm speaking with doctor Monique Morris, who works directly with 0:20:13.596 --> 0:20:17.916 black and brown girls to understand the denial of their childhood. 0:20:19.076 --> 0:20:23.116 Let's talk a little bit about the historic roots. One 0:20:23.156 --> 0:20:27.756 thing that I can recall from a documentary that I 0:20:27.796 --> 0:20:31.156 saw just a few years ago but that stuck with me, 0:20:32.156 --> 0:20:35.796 is that it was taken from one of the slave narratives, 0:20:35.876 --> 0:20:40.316 and I recall this person who had slavery. It ended 0:20:40.436 --> 0:20:44.676 when she was a child, but she said that during 0:20:44.716 --> 0:20:49.076 slavery there were no such things as children. There were 0:20:49.076 --> 0:20:57.356 only smaller slaves. And that to me triggered something that 0:20:57.876 --> 0:21:02.076 helped me to think that the roots are in slavery 0:21:02.476 --> 0:21:06.756 of this process that we're taking girls through, this denial 0:21:06.956 --> 0:21:12.116 of their personhood, their child Absolutely, there's no question about that. 0:21:12.556 --> 0:21:18.836 I had an opportunity actually to visit one of the 0:21:18.836 --> 0:21:22.356 they call them slave houses in West Africa in two 0:21:22.396 --> 0:21:25.356 thousand and eight. I went to Goree Island and saw 0:21:25.436 --> 0:21:29.076 the dungeons and saw the spaces where you know, many 0:21:29.076 --> 0:21:32.756 of our ancestors were held and they separated them according 0:21:32.796 --> 0:21:36.916 to adult male, adult female, and the children altogether, but 0:21:36.996 --> 0:21:42.956 they absolutely were trafficked the same and they were received 0:21:43.356 --> 0:21:48.876 as property the same. Recently visited one of the ports 0:21:48.876 --> 0:21:53.916 in South Carolina this year where those Africans who had 0:21:53.956 --> 0:21:57.716 been enslaved and captured were brought to these shores. And 0:21:57.916 --> 0:22:02.876 it's worth spending time in these historical moments because when 0:22:02.876 --> 0:22:06.676 we look at the way that human bodies were trafficked 0:22:07.156 --> 0:22:11.356 to support the economy and the development of this nation, 0:22:12.076 --> 0:22:15.916 it becomes critically important in how we then understand the 0:22:15.956 --> 0:22:19.996 formation of institutions that are designed to continue to support 0:22:20.596 --> 0:22:24.596 this nation and its understandings of who we are and 0:22:24.636 --> 0:22:27.836 what we are supposed to be about. Black girls have 0:22:28.196 --> 0:22:32.156 long been a part of the spirit of resistance right. 0:22:32.556 --> 0:22:36.596 Black girls are often the most consistent and fervent articulators 0:22:36.596 --> 0:22:40.356 of injustice because we are uniquely positioned to see lots 0:22:40.396 --> 0:22:43.996 of ways in which this oppression manifests not just in 0:22:44.156 --> 0:22:46.916 our own lives, but in the lives of others. And 0:22:46.956 --> 0:22:52.996 that unique positioning comes from this experience of understanding structural 0:22:52.996 --> 0:22:57.196 oppression being treated as just smaller slaves, the way that 0:22:57.276 --> 0:23:00.316 black girls are then seen as little adults. But it's 0:23:00.356 --> 0:23:04.236 also the routine way that our society has accepted that 0:23:04.316 --> 0:23:08.956 and normalized it as something that is acceptable in any way. 0:23:09.196 --> 0:23:12.916 So that's why the adultification question is so critically important, 0:23:12.956 --> 0:23:16.836 but also the ability for us to unpack the historical 0:23:16.836 --> 0:23:20.796 misunderstandings and misrepresentations of black girlhood in terms of reading 0:23:21.236 --> 0:23:24.716 them as loud and sassy and combative without unpacking this 0:23:24.796 --> 0:23:28.236 question of what is going on, what is happening, what 0:23:28.396 --> 0:23:30.716 has been the experience? And when we talk about trauma, 0:23:30.756 --> 0:23:34.196 I don't just talk about the sort of lived, experienced 0:23:34.196 --> 0:23:37.236 trauma of a person. I'm also talking about the collective, 0:23:37.316 --> 0:23:41.636 unresolved grief and historical trauma that being a descendant from 0:23:41.676 --> 0:23:45.436 the institution of slavery has produced in our lives, and 0:23:45.676 --> 0:23:48.396 being the descendant of those who experienced segregation and other 0:23:48.436 --> 0:23:52.076 forms of violence produces in our lives. I'm grateful to 0:23:52.276 --> 0:23:55.996 our Indigenous and Jewish communities that have also been participating 0:23:56.036 --> 0:23:59.476 in research around historical trauma and inherited trauma, because I 0:23:59.516 --> 0:24:01.676 think that there's a lot to learn between our three 0:24:01.716 --> 0:24:06.356 communities about how our bodies are formed and shaped and 0:24:06.436 --> 0:24:11.196 continued to grow under this pressive system of historical trauma, 0:24:11.196 --> 0:24:14.316 and what that means for how we then process and 0:24:14.796 --> 0:24:18.636 engage in interactions with institutions but also with people. And 0:24:18.676 --> 0:24:21.556 so the more we hide it, the more at festers. 0:24:21.996 --> 0:24:24.316 When we come into community and approach it, that's when 0:24:24.356 --> 0:24:27.196 we can begin healing. You know, I learned recently that 0:24:27.796 --> 0:24:33.076 my great great grandparents were publicly beaten in the period 0:24:33.196 --> 0:24:38.196 right after slavery. I learned also that my grandparents were 0:24:39.276 --> 0:24:48.076 systematically stolen from I had their land confiscated through economic exploitation. 0:24:48.756 --> 0:24:51.596 And of course, now that I know that, I think 0:24:51.636 --> 0:24:55.076 about my own work, which at times has focused on 0:24:55.116 --> 0:25:00.996 economic exploitation, and my own experiences of being publicly ridiculed, 0:25:01.676 --> 0:25:06.356 and I start to understand truly how so much of 0:25:06.556 --> 0:25:13.676 our past generational suffering continues to live with us in 0:25:13.916 --> 0:25:18.876 tangible ways in terms of lost wealth, but also in 0:25:19.036 --> 0:25:25.876 emotional ways, and that we try to have media representations 0:25:25.956 --> 0:25:29.596 that make sense of them, but I don't think that 0:25:29.636 --> 0:25:34.956 they fully capture. I think in fact, media representations or 0:25:34.996 --> 0:25:39.716 misrepresentations have actually played a role in the lives of 0:25:39.796 --> 0:25:44.396 some public figures, like you know, the Williams sisters and 0:25:44.556 --> 0:25:49.116 Misty Copeland. So there is that element of public scrutiny 0:25:49.236 --> 0:25:54.436 and that has some really disturbing consequences in terms of 0:25:54.516 --> 0:25:58.956 way these now women, but starting out as girls, have 0:25:59.076 --> 0:26:04.156 been perceived. Can you comment on that. I will say 0:26:04.196 --> 0:26:12.236 transgenerational trauma is real, and the sort of public presentation 0:26:12.436 --> 0:26:16.956 of trauma in black bodies also is triggering for those 0:26:16.996 --> 0:26:19.876 of us who have experienced it, and I would love 0:26:19.916 --> 0:26:22.956 to see some other ways that the media could begin 0:26:22.956 --> 0:26:24.996 to present and discuss some of these issues that don't 0:26:25.036 --> 0:26:28.996 facilitate that kind of harm because there's no regulation around 0:26:28.996 --> 0:26:33.316 it now and it's outrageous. Around the Williams sisters and 0:26:33.396 --> 0:26:37.996 Misty Copeland, I think they unfortunately experienced many of the 0:26:38.116 --> 0:26:42.036 same misreadings of black girlhood and black girl bodies that 0:26:42.156 --> 0:26:44.796 the rest of us have experienced. In so many ways. 0:26:45.396 --> 0:26:47.916 For all three of them, I would say there was 0:26:47.916 --> 0:26:52.676 a masculinization of their bodies, which again you could trace 0:26:52.756 --> 0:26:56.716