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Speaker 1: up on the Getting Even show page in Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: or at Pushkin dot Fm. Black girls are often the
Speaker 1: most consistent and fervent articulators of injustice because we are
Speaker 1: uniquely positioned to see lots of ways in which this
Speaker 1: oppression manifests. Doctor Monique Morris is an author, advocate, and
Speaker 1: founding president of the National Black Women's Justice Institute. I
Speaker 1: believe in a justice that doesn't lead to oppression of
Speaker 1: any kind. I write about it, and I work for it.
Speaker 1: She's a pioneer in the field of black girlhood studies
Speaker 1: who examines how economic and social factors intersect in the
Speaker 1: lives of black and brown girls. I anchor my work
Speaker 1: in my own experiential knowledge, having been a black girl
Speaker 1: in the society. This work, to me is really sort
Speaker 1: of less an academic inquiry and really more about a
Speaker 1: reclamation of self in order to undo the structural oppressions
Speaker 1: that so many black girls live with. By working directly
Speaker 1: with black and brown girls, she better understands the harsh
Speaker 1: scrutiny they face, and doctor Morris is taking what she
Speaker 1: has learned and offering solutions to educators. And I think
Speaker 1: Black Girlhood Studies is a way to push past the
Speaker 1: stereotypes and tropes that have informed so much of how
Speaker 1: we've come to understand and construct black girlhood. Black Girlhood
Speaker 1: Studies allows black girls to reclaim that and reshape it.
Speaker 1: I'm Anita Hill. This is Getting Even, my podcast about
Speaker 1: equality and what it takes to get there. On Getting Even,
Speaker 1: I speak with people who are improving our imperfect world,
Speaker 1: people who took risks and broke the rules. In this episode,
Speaker 1: I'm speaking with doctor Monique Morris about the adultification, sexualization,
Speaker 1: and criminalization that black girl's face. Doctor Morris is the
Speaker 1: author of five books, including her most recent, Cultivating Joyful
Speaker 1: Learning Spaces for Black Girls. Can you explain what some
Speaker 1: of the issues are in the way the world sees
Speaker 1: black girls? Yeah, black girls are seen as available to
Speaker 1: the public. Black girls are in their bodies, in their language,
Speaker 1: in their creativity treated as if they are disposable and
Speaker 1: that their being is negotiable. And that plays out in
Speaker 1: a lot of different ways. It plays out in the
Speaker 1: reading of their behaviors as more adult like we now
Speaker 1: talk about as adultification of Black girls, and the way
Speaker 1: in which that then leads to the reading of their
Speaker 1: behaviors as worthy of harsher punishment than their white counterparts,
Speaker 1: mostly because it erases their childhood and denies them an
Speaker 1: opportunity to express their fullness as a growing young person.
Speaker 1: Doctor Jamelia Blake and Rebecca Epstein at the Georgetown Center
Speaker 1: on Poverty and Inequality did a report that looked at
Speaker 1: adultification and found that Black girls experience this reading of
Speaker 1: their behaviors as more adult like from the age of five,
Speaker 1: and it peques when they're between the ages of ten
Speaker 1: and utine, and that then means that the adults around
Speaker 1: them are seeing them as in need of less protection,
Speaker 1: less comfort. They are seen as more independent to know
Speaker 1: more about a subject matter like sex than their white counterparts,
Speaker 1: and so that leads to how we then understand their
Speaker 1: capacities around and experiences with trauma, whether we recognize their
Speaker 1: trauma or not. So many black girls are seen as
Speaker 1: combative and sassy. You know the tropes around the loud
Speaker 1: black girl with the attitude quote unquote the attitude for me,
Speaker 1: the black girl attitude is an open inquiry and really
Speaker 1: is a statement about black girls amazing capacity to identify
Speaker 1: injustice in a society that is grounded in the principles
Speaker 1: of white men's priorities, and that when we don't articulate
Speaker 1: our happiness and well being along those constructs, oftentimes there's
Speaker 1: a punishment assigned to that. And so black girls who
Speaker 1: do have some volume, who do have some agency in
Speaker 1: what they know, are often received as problematic. It's something
Speaker 1: that I have been mapping in educational spaces for some
Speaker 1: years now, but there are others who have been looking
Speaker 1: at how adultification plays out in communities, how it plays
Speaker 1: out in health scenarios, how it plays out across the board,
Speaker 1: to help us better understand the construct of what black
Speaker 1: girls are supposed to be doing in this society, how
Speaker 1: they're supposed to behave, quote unquote, how they're supposed to speak,
Speaker 1: and what constitutes then a good girl if she's in
Speaker 1: a black body. I'm going to back off a little
Speaker 1: bit because I mean, there is so much going on.
Speaker 1: But you said that you come into this work from
Speaker 1: a personal point of view. Do you feel like your
Speaker 1: experience adultification as a girl. Oh, I was definitely an
Speaker 1: adultified child, and my behaviors and my body were absolutely
Speaker 1: treated in the problematic ways that I've described. That seems
Speaker 1: to be more routine for other black girls. You know,
Speaker 1: me showing up to school in a tank top and
Speaker 1: being told I have to go home because I'm too provocative.
Speaker 1: But I'm watching my white and Asian counterparts we're the
Speaker 1: same thing that I'm wearing, and be allowed to stay
Speaker 1: at school or not told that they're provocative. These kinds
Speaker 1: of experiences that I had, you know, in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: are still happening today. And what's different, I think is
Speaker 1: that you know, when it was said to me in
Speaker 1: the eighties, I dismissed it as something that was only
Speaker 1: happening to me, right. I didn't understand that this was
Speaker 1: part of a pattern of black girlhood that was being
Speaker 1: experienced across the country. When you're walking through school, to
Speaker 1: have your body consistently viewed as something that needs to
Speaker 1: be examined for its appropriateness in the learning environment is
Speaker 1: deeply problematic. We call that the policing of black girl
Speaker 1: bodies in the sense that it's other adults who are
Speaker 1: looking at the clothing the way that the clothing fits
Speaker 1: on the bodies of our girls, the way that the
Speaker 1: clothing is in the appropriate color. A lot of it
Speaker 1: has to do with the enforcement of school dress codes.
Speaker 1: But the enforcement of school dress codes invites adults to
Speaker 1: be looking at the bodies of girls, many of whom
Speaker 1: are experiencing early onset puberty, many of whom may just
Speaker 1: have fuller figures, and many of whom don't, but still
Speaker 1: experience this regular routine surveillance of their bodies in a
Speaker 1: way that suggests to them that how they look in school,
Speaker 1: how they show up to school with their own bodies,
Speaker 1: is more important than the fact that they're there to learn.
Speaker 1: You know, I used to joke that I can walk
Speaker 1: into a focus group or talk to a group of
Speaker 1: girls across the racial groups, and the second I start
Speaker 1: talking about the dress code, everyone comes alive. Because girls
Speaker 1: inherently understand the dress codes to be a sexist structure,
Speaker 1: inherently understand that the enforcement is different for girls and boys.
Speaker 1: The enforcement is different for non binary young people. The
Speaker 1: enforcement is one that leans into the biases of adults
Speaker 1: and the structures that you allow for these biases to
Speaker 1: be supported. Many many schools do not have dress codes.
Speaker 1: They're more concerned with the fact that young people are
Speaker 1: there present in school. They're more concerned with having conversations
Speaker 1: about respect than having young people wear clothes that they
Speaker 1: feel will be less provocative to the boys, you know,
Speaker 1: or make girls bodies less provocative to the boys. When
Speaker 1: we talk about this policing of black girl bodies, it
Speaker 1: certainly has to do with that. But there's another piece too.
Speaker 1: How we normalized this expectation that black girls will be loud, sassey, combative,
Speaker 1: and sexualized without talking about remedy. And so I have
Speaker 1: brought my own experiences and my experiences as a mother
Speaker 1: to two black girls, right. That is about how we
Speaker 1: have honest conversations about some of these things, How we
Speaker 1: talk about protections from oppressions not just through a lens
Speaker 1: of race alone, but race and gender right and sexuality,
Speaker 1: and get more complex with our young people who are
Speaker 1: ready for those conversations. All of that informs how I
Speaker 1: approach my work. You know, I really think that this
Speaker 1: lived experience that I had in a black girl body
Speaker 1: has absolutely made me receptive to some of the new
Speaker 1: language and emergent language that girls are bringing to this work.
Speaker 1: I think the other scholars in this space are absolutely
Speaker 1: doing the same thing. The work of Dominique Hill around Working,
Speaker 1: for example, and some of the other scholars who have
Speaker 1: been deeply exploring black girl movements and the ways in
Speaker 1: which these are expressive healing modalities as opposed to being
Speaker 1: hypersexualized in our popular culture to facilitate a deepening of
Speaker 1: the oppression. All really important work. It's also can take
Speaker 1: us some time to unpack what this movement really means,
Speaker 1: right and what's on the other side of this movement
Speaker 1: before we can even begin to get to the other
Speaker 1: side to the solutions. I still think people don't understand
Speaker 1: the severity of the issues. You've talked about adultification, and
Speaker 1: that can have consequences in terms of the responsibilities that
Speaker 1: we place on children, but it can also lead to criminalization,
Speaker 1: yes of girls. Yes. The way that this adultification then
Speaker 1: leads to criminalization is that it denies black girls the
Speaker 1: opportunity to have the root causes of their behaviors explored.
Speaker 1: When there is disruption, there's a different treatment of black
Speaker 1: girl behaviors because there's this assumption that they should know better,
Speaker 1: because there's this assumption that they don't need protection or nurturing,
Speaker 1: because there's this assumption that they can handle whatever punishment
Speaker 1: is deemed necessary, and there is this historical construct around
Speaker 1: the need for black children to be experiencing surveillance and
Speaker 1: punishment as the remedy for whatever student behavior is deemed
Speaker 1: undesirable at that time. In other words, it's an invitation
Speaker 1: for state intervention. Yes, And that's where the disposability of
Speaker 1: black girl bodies comes in. That's where this question about
Speaker 1: how black girls are experiencing school discipline and a removal
Speaker 1: from school come into question. One of the things that
Speaker 1: I and other folks have mapped is that black girls
Speaker 1: are the only group of girls who experience an overrepresentation
Speaker 1: at every stage of discipline in the school and at
Speaker 1: every educational level. So across the spectrum of discipline and
Speaker 1: at every educational level, we see black girls experiencing a
Speaker 1: heightened degree of contact. And that is not because black
Speaker 1: girls are more likely to make mistakes than other children.
Speaker 1: It is largely attributed to how adults are reading the
Speaker 1: behaviors and how they are designing structures in the schools
Speaker 1: where black girls are that are deeply punitive, that are
Speaker 1: not responsive to trauma, and that don't recognize what these
Speaker 1: children actually need, you know. And so one of the
Speaker 1: ways that I think our society continues to play into
Speaker 1: that narrative is by allowing our conversations about black girls
Speaker 1: to refer to them as young women. And sometimes we
Speaker 1: don't mean it, you know, probably mean it in a
Speaker 1: way that honors her agency. But with black girls, it's
Speaker 1: it's really important to recognize the child that is in
Speaker 1: front of you. Of course, there is the issue of
Speaker 1: police officers within schools, yes, and there is the physical
Speaker 1: policing of black girls. But there's also the emotional policing, yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: of black girls that not only law enforcement takes party,
Speaker 1: but also the teachers take part in. That's right. Can
Speaker 1: you talk about that and how you respond to that.
Speaker 1: There's also this policing of black girl expressions of joy,
Speaker 1: like we saw this incident and upset New York where
Speaker 1: girls were actually strip searched because they were laughing and
Speaker 1: giddy and they were assumed to be on drugs. It's
Speaker 1: again rooted in this perception that black girls just can't
Speaker 1: be happy, that they have to be on something if
Speaker 1: they're going to be loud, and you can walk into
Speaker 1: rooms and experientially talk to people about what it has
Speaker 1: been like to laugh in your fullness and be told
Speaker 1: that your laugh is too loud, or your laugh is
Speaker 1: too disruptive, that your expressions of joy are problematic. And
Speaker 1: so there's this routine way that black girls are told
Speaker 1: outright and sometimes through other signals, that their presence in
Speaker 1: school is problematic, and certainly that that applies to their
Speaker 1: anger as well, no question, no question, there's always this
Speaker 1: reception that you have to trade off either being traumatized
Speaker 1: or angry, right, and black women, black girls will often
Speaker 1: tell that I can be both. I can be both
Speaker 1: experiencing trauma and angry about it, right, and in my
Speaker 1: expression of anger. That doesn't mean that you then say, oh,
Speaker 1: she's aggressive, she must not be experiencing pain. That people
Speaker 1: manifest pain in different ways and express pain in different ways.
Speaker 1: We saw this play out with Makayah Bryant in Columbus.
Speaker 1: There was an attempt to talk about what happened with
Speaker 1: this fifteen year old girl who had been shot fatally
Speaker 1: shot by a police officer in response to an altercation
Speaker 1: she was having at her Foster home, and the way
Speaker 1: that people were talking about her as a larger bodied
Speaker 1: quote unquote young woman was deeply problematic to us in
Speaker 1: this work because we were like, no, no, no, we
Speaker 1: see a child. What we see is a fifteen year
Speaker 1: old girl who was afraid. And if you've worked in
Speaker 1: spaces and underst stand that black children are children and
Speaker 1: not young adults, then you recognize all the ways in
Speaker 1: which they are cognitively children and adolescence the same way
Speaker 1: that we can see the adolescence and childhood of other children.
Speaker 1: And that's really, you know, part of how we engage
Speaker 1: in this question of equity and justice for our girls
Speaker 1: is to stand in fierce protection of their childhood, fierce
Speaker 1: protection of it. Do you believe that the police officer
Speaker 1: who killed mccayah could have avoided his aggression toward her,
Speaker 1: No question, There's not a question in my mind. There
Speaker 1: has never been a question in my mind. I along
Speaker 1: with others who had been in response to conditions that
Speaker 1: were similar, where there's a fight that involves a weapon,
Speaker 1: not a gun but a knife, and we could tick
Speaker 1: through two or three interventions that didn't require her being
Speaker 1: shot to death right in ways of de escalating that scenario.
Speaker 1: Part of the problem is that we rely on law
Speaker 1: enforcement to respond to every single condition, and they are
Speaker 1: not equipped to do that. The other problem is that
Speaker 1: there was a failure to see a child who was
Speaker 1: afraid in that scenario, and there was only a response
Speaker 1: to a person who was perceived as an aggressor with
Speaker 1: a weapon, and so it was reduced to aggressor with
Speaker 1: a weapon as opposed to disregulated child who is afraid
Speaker 1: because she's actually defending herself from some adults around her.
Speaker 1: The whole situation was unfortunate. So I have to say that,
Speaker 1: you know, we never want to see those kinds of
Speaker 1: conditions take place in our communities or any communities. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, I have talked through conversations with
Speaker 1: folks who have worked in foster homes who are like,
Speaker 1: I've disarmed girls who have been in fights, you know,
Speaker 1: five or six times a month, Right, I know how
Speaker 1: to talk to people in a way gets their attention
Speaker 1: that can disarm. If he was going to arrive with
Speaker 1: the tool he had available to him, which was a gun,
Speaker 1: he's a sharpshooter. He knows how to shoot. He could
Speaker 1: have just shot her legs, but they're not taught to
Speaker 1: do that, and so not that training is the issue,
Speaker 1: But there are absolutely several ways where there could have
Speaker 1: been a disarming and where there could have been a
Speaker 1: de escalation of the issue and the tensions in that
Speaker 1: fight that would preserve life. It's always hard for me
Speaker 1: to watch the videos whenever these incidents happen. There's this
Speaker 1: way that society has now made it routine to display
Speaker 1: this level of black pain in our efforts to talk
Speaker 1: about these conditions that impact black girls. Again, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a replaying of the video or replaying of the scenario,
Speaker 1: but they go viral also because some people see this
Speaker 1: as a form of entertainment. Unfortunately, I wrote an article
Speaker 1: years ago that was like, let's we gotta fall out
Speaker 1: of love with black girl fights, right, Like, we have
Speaker 1: to understand that that is not entertainment, That this is
Speaker 1: no different than the ways that black communities were set
Speaker 1: up by design to be in conflict with each other
Speaker 1: for the entertainment of those who participated and benefited from
Speaker 1: their oppression, and that we have to consider all the
Speaker 1: other tools that we have available to us when there
Speaker 1: is conflict to engage some of these other modalities and
Speaker 1: to bring other people into our communities who love us fundamentally.
Speaker 1: The way to deal with conflict is love. I believe
Speaker 1: that all the work that I've done with young people
Speaker 1: at various stages of their contact with the juvenile court
Speaker 1: or criminal legal system, at various stages of their own development,
Speaker 1: if you can lead with love and make connections and
Speaker 1: understand and love this group of people, then your inclination
Speaker 1: is not first to harm them. And so I think
Speaker 1: what's exciting in this world are the ways that communities
Speaker 1: are thinking innovative about strategies that do not involve law enforcement,
Speaker 1: strategies that do not involve others who don't love us.
Speaker 1: So I believe there's a lot of work to be
Speaker 1: done there, but we've got to continue to elevate conversations
Speaker 1: like the one we're having around you know, adultification and
Speaker 1: the way that it has shaped our understanding of what
Speaker 1: is at the root of some of this conflict or
Speaker 1: what are some of the interventions that we can engage.
Speaker 1: And that's that's been a lot of my work within
Speaker 1: schools to talk to you know, educators about some of
Speaker 1: these issues, because in my mind, those are the first
Speaker 1: responders to children. After the break, Doctor Morrison I explore
Speaker 1: how she is working to undo structural barriers and empower
Speaker 1: black girls. You're listening to getting even I'm Anita Hill.
Speaker 1: I'm speaking with doctor Monique Morris, who works directly with
Speaker 1: black and brown girls to understand the denial of their childhood.
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about the historic roots. One
Speaker 1: thing that I can recall from a documentary that I
Speaker 1: saw just a few years ago but that stuck with me,
Speaker 1: is that it was taken from one of the slave narratives,
Speaker 1: and I recall this person who had slavery. It ended
Speaker 1: when she was a child, but she said that during
Speaker 1: slavery there were no such things as children. There were
Speaker 1: only smaller slaves. And that to me triggered something that
Speaker 1: helped me to think that the roots are in slavery
Speaker 1: of this process that we're taking girls through, this denial
Speaker 1: of their personhood, their child Absolutely, there's no question about that.
Speaker 1: I had an opportunity actually to visit one of the
Speaker 1: they call them slave houses in West Africa in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight. I went to Goree Island and saw
Speaker 1: the dungeons and saw the spaces where you know, many
Speaker 1: of our ancestors were held and they separated them according
Speaker 1: to adult male, adult female, and the children altogether, but
Speaker 1: they absolutely were trafficked the same and they were received
Speaker 1: as property the same. Recently visited one of the ports
Speaker 1: in South Carolina this year where those Africans who had
Speaker 1: been enslaved and captured were brought to these shores. And
Speaker 1: it's worth spending time in these historical moments because when
Speaker 1: we look at the way that human bodies were trafficked
Speaker 1: to support the economy and the development of this nation,
Speaker 1: it becomes critically important in how we then understand the
Speaker 1: formation of institutions that are designed to continue to support
Speaker 1: this nation and its understandings of who we are and
Speaker 1: what we are supposed to be about. Black girls have
Speaker 1: long been a part of the spirit of resistance right.
Speaker 1: Black girls are often the most consistent and fervent articulators
Speaker 1: of injustice because we are uniquely positioned to see lots
Speaker 1: of ways in which this oppression manifests not just in
Speaker 1: our own lives, but in the lives of others. And
Speaker 1: that unique positioning comes from this experience of understanding structural
Speaker 1: oppression being treated as just smaller slaves, the way that
Speaker 1: black girls are then seen as little adults. But it's
Speaker 1: also the routine way that our society has accepted that
Speaker 1: and normalized it as something that is acceptable in any way.
Speaker 1: So that's why the adultification question is so critically important,
Speaker 1: but also the ability for us to unpack the historical
Speaker 1: misunderstandings and misrepresentations of black girlhood in terms of reading
Speaker 1: them as loud and sassy and combative without unpacking this
Speaker 1: question of what is going on, what is happening, what
Speaker 1: has been the experience? And when we talk about trauma,
Speaker 1: I don't just talk about the sort of lived, experienced
Speaker 1: trauma of a person. I'm also talking about the collective,
Speaker 1: unresolved grief and historical trauma that being a descendant from
Speaker 1: the institution of slavery has produced in our lives, and
Speaker 1: being the descendant of those who experienced segregation and other
Speaker 1: forms of violence produces in our lives. I'm grateful to
Speaker 1: our Indigenous and Jewish communities that have also been participating
Speaker 1: in research around historical trauma and inherited trauma, because I
Speaker 1: think that there's a lot to learn between our three
Speaker 1: communities about how our bodies are formed and shaped and
Speaker 1: continued to grow under this pressive system of historical trauma,
Speaker 1: and what that means for how we then process and
Speaker 1: engage in interactions with institutions but also with people. And
Speaker 1: so the more we hide it, the more at festers.
Speaker 1: When we come into community and approach it, that's when
Speaker 1: we can begin healing. You know, I learned recently that
Speaker 1: my great great grandparents were publicly beaten in the period
Speaker 1: right after slavery. I learned also that my grandparents were
Speaker 1: systematically stolen from I had their land confiscated through economic exploitation.
Speaker 1: And of course, now that I know that, I think
Speaker 1: about my own work, which at times has focused on
Speaker 1: economic exploitation, and my own experiences of being publicly ridiculed,
Speaker 1: and I start to understand truly how so much of
Speaker 1: our past generational suffering continues to live with us in
Speaker 1: tangible ways in terms of lost wealth, but also in
Speaker 1: emotional ways, and that we try to have media representations
Speaker 1: that make sense of them, but I don't think that
Speaker 1: they fully capture. I think in fact, media representations or
Speaker 1: misrepresentations have actually played a role in the lives of
Speaker 1: some public figures, like you know, the Williams sisters and
Speaker 1: Misty Copeland. So there is that element of public scrutiny
Speaker 1: and that has some really disturbing consequences in terms of
Speaker 1: way these now women, but starting out as girls, have
Speaker 1: been perceived. Can you comment on that. I will say
Speaker 1: transgenerational trauma is real, and the sort of public presentation
Speaker 1: of trauma in black bodies also is triggering for those
Speaker 1: of us who have experienced it, and I would love
Speaker 1: to see some other ways that the media could begin
Speaker 1: to present and discuss some of these issues that don't
Speaker 1: facilitate that kind of harm because there's no regulation around
Speaker 1: it now and it's outrageous. Around the Williams sisters and
Speaker 1: Misty Copeland, I think they unfortunately experienced many of the
Speaker 1: same misreadings of black girlhood and black girl bodies that
Speaker 1: the rest of us have experienced. In so many ways.
Speaker 1: For all three of them, I would say there was
Speaker 1: a masculinization of their bodies, which again you could trace
Speaker 1: back to the institution of slavery, that because one is
Speaker 1: physically strong, their womanhood or girlhood is seen as less present.
Speaker 1: And because of our own deeply problematic ways of understanding
Speaker 1: a gender idea entity and understanding physical representation and the
Speaker 1: diversity of how that can manifest, this society just sort
Speaker 1: of treats black girl bodies not only as if they
Speaker 1: are publicly available for scrutiny, which we saw, you know,
Speaker 1: the Williams sisters and Misty Copeland experience, but that we
Speaker 1: can also then present them as somehow incompatible with this
Speaker 1: nation's understanding of what a good girl representation is. So
Speaker 1: to me, all of this is a part of how
Speaker 1: we reclaim right. I think now we see black women
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, and certainly scholars and advocates
Speaker 1: stepping into the space to say, no, you're not going
Speaker 1: to do that right. These are our girls, These are
Speaker 1: our young women, and they are strong, and strength is
Speaker 1: an asset, strength is in fact a cornerstone of our
Speaker 1: feminine expression. Then we're able to, I think, shift the narrative.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of discussion about narrative shift, but I
Speaker 1: think a lot of this narrative shift work has to
Speaker 1: happen with a deep understanding of how our narratives sometimes
Speaker 1: perpetuate harm because we haven't unpacked the tropes and stereotypes
Speaker 1: and historical conditions that inform widen this nation's presentation of
Speaker 1: black girlhood has been problematic in the first place. So
Speaker 1: I like to think that there's growth in that space. Yes,
Speaker 1: there's still a lot of work to do. Yes, there
Speaker 1: is a lot of work to do. And I think
Speaker 1: we cannot forget the fact that in many ways, the
Speaker 1: way the Williams sisters were portrayed, the way Mystic Hopeland
Speaker 1: was portrayed, were meant to really emphasize some points that
Speaker 1: way black girls and women do not belong in the
Speaker 1: rarefied settings of American tennis or Erican ballet, and therefore
Speaker 1: we will continue to be outsiders even if we are
Speaker 1: inside that's right, and we will be marginalized by the
Speaker 1: public as well as the media. And so we have
Speaker 1: to understand all of the consequences of what is going on,
Speaker 1: and in many cases the motivation, conscious or unconscious about
Speaker 1: what is happening. This whole idea of masculinity and sexualization
Speaker 1: in the sort of combination of the two that gets
Speaker 1: placed on black women's bodies and black girl's bodies in particular,
Speaker 1: really reminds me of the tragedy of the victims of
Speaker 1: r Kelly, ranging over thirty years and involving a number
Speaker 1: of young Black women, and in case of Aliyah, a
Speaker 1: girl maybe fourteen fifteen years old. We are not quite
Speaker 1: sure how old she was, but we know that she
Speaker 1: was not an adult. We need to be looking at
Speaker 1: what was going on and why it took thirty years
Speaker 1: to get a conviction for our Kelly from the point
Speaker 1: of view of the women and girls who were exploited.
Speaker 1: This is actually the first time I'm ever talking about R. Kelly,
Speaker 1: because I don't usually talk about him, but I will
Speaker 1: say this, I recognized the predator in the nineties. You
Speaker 1: know a predator, and if you talk to people in Chicago,
Speaker 1: they all knew. So one of the things that we
Speaker 1: have is as a community and that we have to
Speaker 1: trust in our conversations about combating the adultification of black girls,
Speaker 1: but also the disposability of black girls. There is this
Speaker 1: culture of celebrity in this country that forgives the bad behaviors,
Speaker 1: evil behaviors, predatory behaviors of those who are successful, those
Speaker 1: who have financial wealth, without the deep poverty and the
Speaker 1: deep well of justice that we are willing to ignore
Speaker 1: just because we like the beat of someone's music or
Speaker 1: the way that they talk before a crowd. Black girls
Speaker 1: were all alone in that conversation with R Kelly. That's
Speaker 1: why nobody did anything. It was seen as a problem
Speaker 1: that didn't affect society, but we have to come to
Speaker 1: understand that the issues impacting black girls are issues that
Speaker 1: impact society very much. So I'm always careful because, you know,
Speaker 1: while that's true, I think it's important also for us
Speaker 1: to recognize that black girls are also just worthy of
Speaker 1: protection and worthy of inquiry in their own right. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: our well being shouldn't have to be tied to the
Speaker 1: well being of the nation in order for people to
Speaker 1: see it as justifiable and worthy. Every community is worthy,
Speaker 1: you know. For me, it's really deeply important for all
Speaker 1: of us to deepen our understanding of why this work
Speaker 1: around black girls is so critical, and I think you've
Speaker 1: absolutely made that clear in your work. You are so
Speaker 1: creative about your work. I mean, your ability to communicate
Speaker 1: the urgency of these issues in ways that really resonate
Speaker 1: is so impressive. You know, you've got the book push out,
Speaker 1: You've got the documentary, which is beautifully done. Than what
Speaker 1: else are you doing? Yeah, thank you for asking that.
Speaker 1: I have two new books that are on the horizon.
Speaker 1: One is really designed for teachers about cultivating joyful black
Speaker 1: girl spaces learning spaces specifically, and I have a graphic
Speaker 1: novel that will be coming out to also unpack what
Speaker 1: happens when we support black girls and their gifts. But daily,
Speaker 1: i'm President and CEO of Grant Makers for Girls of Color.
Speaker 1: We are the nation's only philanthropic intermediary that exclusively focuses
Speaker 1: on resourcing organizations that are led by and focused on
Speaker 1: girls of color in the US, and so through that work,
Speaker 1: we're able to build out a series of funds that
Speaker 1: you do grant making in a host of areas that
Speaker 1: impact well being of girls of color broadly, but also
Speaker 1: black girls specifically. We have the Black Girl Freedom Fund
Speaker 1: and actually, you know, in February we have Black Girl
Speaker 1: Freedom Week, which allows us to amplify not just the
Speaker 1: negative statistics and harmful conditions that black girls are experiencing,
Speaker 1: but they're tremendous innovation and investment that is leading to
Speaker 1: well being and new outcomes and organizations throughout the country.
Speaker 1: So there's an opportunity for us to play many different roles.
Speaker 1: For me, it's critically important not just to elevate the problem,
Speaker 1: but to also be part of the solution. And you're
Speaker 1: bringing your solutions to schools. Correct. Yes, Yes, there's a
Speaker 1: growing community of scholars and professional development, technical assistance providers
Speaker 1: who are deeply committed to this question of how we
Speaker 1: engage schools to be learning spaces that do not make
Speaker 1: problematic the bodies of black girls, and that examine and
Speaker 1: assess their policies, but also talk about the practices and
Speaker 1: the pedagogies that impact black girls. Specifically. The book that
Speaker 1: I have sing a Rhythm Dance of Blues, which will
Speaker 1: be out in paperback this summer, really does map through
Speaker 1: some of the ways that schools are uniquely approaching some
Speaker 1: of these issues, the way that they're using arts and
Speaker 1: creative expression as a way to engage in some of
Speaker 1: the healing work that needs to take place in schools,
Speaker 1: but also to provide an opportunity for us to locate,
Speaker 1: when it's appropriate, trauma and respond to that trauma so
Speaker 1: that the diregulation can actually be remedied as opposed to criminalized.
Speaker 1: So I'm excited by the growing body of work. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the pandemic has complicated a lot of how schools are operating,
Speaker 1: but I think what the pandemic has also done has
Speaker 1: provide an opportunity for us to have a broader conversation
Speaker 1: about how to make schools locations for healing. So that
Speaker 1: they can be locations for learning, which is something that
Speaker 1: I've been calling for for years. Now. You're doing so
Speaker 1: so much. Is there something that you dream of doing
Speaker 1: that you haven't done yet? Always of course, so tell
Speaker 1: us what's on the top of your list. I am
Speaker 1: working on a project that is like a life project
Speaker 1: for me. I used to be a competitive stepper on
Speaker 1: my sorority step team. I'm a Delta and I was
Speaker 1: a step mistress for the New York City step team
Speaker 1: for our step team, and we spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time in the world of Black Greek letter organizations and
Speaker 1: the Divine Nine or the Pan Hellenic Council that we
Speaker 1: refer to ourselves as keepers of a culture around stepping
Speaker 1: that is often under explored. You know, people will engage
Speaker 1: it just as a dance without understanding the history. And
Speaker 1: so I'm working on a project that will unpack and
Speaker 1: engage us in a deeper understanding of what it is
Speaker 1: to be a stepmaster and what the possibilities are when
Speaker 1: you are one. Well, there's lots of joy in that,
Speaker 1: lots of way. And this is a final question that
Speaker 1: your last comment raised. You are part of a formal sisterhood,
Speaker 1: the delta Am. I came late in life to being
Speaker 1: an honorary Zeta, so I've had some experience with sisterhood,
Speaker 1: but how important has being part of that sisterhood? How
Speaker 1: important are friendships and what you're doing, and how did
Speaker 1: they inform your work, especially toward healing. I am the
Speaker 1: eldest sister in a family, so my framing and understanding
Speaker 1: of sisterhood was really as caregiver and really located around
Speaker 1: responsibility as a young person. It really wasn't until college,
Speaker 1: until I started to actively crave sisterhood that I was
Speaker 1: able to understand the value and the healing power and
Speaker 1: having a crew, having your people with like mind be
Speaker 1: able to be a part of whatever circles you need
Speaker 1: when you need them. Sisterhood is something that I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people say, but it's actually a practice, right,
Speaker 1: and it is an essential part of well being. Has
Speaker 1: always been right. There have always been opportunities for us
Speaker 1: to engage in the expressions of love that have been
Speaker 1: embedded in hair braiding, that have been embedded in just
Speaker 1: sitting around and talking or back in the day, talking
Speaker 1: on the phone. Nowadays, I don't know, snapping each other,
Speaker 1: chat social media, but I do think when you're in
Speaker 1: community with each other and able to really uplift a
Speaker 1: deep sense of belonging and shared experience, that that in
Speaker 1: and of itself is healing. And so at this point
Speaker 1: in my life, I prioritize sisterhood, and we recognize that
Speaker 1: when we provide opportunities for black girls to have these
Speaker 1: experiences younger in their lives, that they're less likely to
Speaker 1: engage in the use of aggressive language and behaviors with
Speaker 1: each other because they recognize that between them is a
Speaker 1: love that is greater than what society is telling them
Speaker 1: they should be in conflict about. And so I'm grateful
Speaker 1: for the question because it does elevate the opportunity to
Speaker 1: really talk about the deep necessity of sisterhood. And we
Speaker 1: have a fun holding a sister right because it is
Speaker 1: about not just your birth family, but also the chosen families,
Speaker 1: the chosen sisterhoods that allow us to thrive in a
Speaker 1: society that is rooted in sis, gender heteronormative conditions that
Speaker 1: are problematic for so many of us. Thank you, thank
Speaker 1: you so much in a wonderful way to end, but
Speaker 1: do you have any questions for me? You know, my
Speaker 1: deepest question for you is looking back at your black
Speaker 1: girl self, what would you tell twelve year old Anita. Well,
Speaker 1: I'll tell a quick story. You talk about school a lot.
Speaker 1: At the only time that my mother was ever called
Speaker 1: to my school was I was younger than twelve. My
Speaker 1: mother was called to school because something I had said
Speaker 1: had made my teacher cry, And my mother came to
Speaker 1: the school and she did what she did, and then
Speaker 1: the years later she laughed about it. So what I
Speaker 1: would tell my twelve year old self is that maybe
Speaker 1: you're on the right track. That maybe when you were
Speaker 1: emboldened to speak your mind, that was the track to
Speaker 1: be on, and so don't be afraid of that. That's
Speaker 1: part of who you are, and it's part of what
Speaker 1: you should be. I'll shay all the yeses to that.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you, thank you for that question. It's
Speaker 1: hard for me to accept that black girls routinely face
Speaker 1: these toxic misconstructions. I'm distressed by how often we blame
Speaker 1: black girls who are victims. But doctor Morris's solutions allow
Speaker 1: black and brown girls to reclaim and discover their identities
Speaker 1: for themselves. She undertakes her work in an exacting, creative
Speaker 1: and compassionate way, and doctor Morrison's manifesto is clear. With
Speaker 1: the right support, school environments can be places of healing
Speaker 1: for black and brown girls and can offer them the
Speaker 1: childhood they deserve. Next week, I'm talking with iconic art
Speaker 1: curator Belmont Golden. As a young child, I was so
Speaker 1: encouraged in my imagination. I was an early reader, and
Speaker 1: the librarians at the Queensboro Public Library allowed me at
Speaker 1: a very young age. You know, they'd lift those big,
Speaker 1: large art books off the shelf of the art section
Speaker 1: and let me sit there and look at them. Getting
Speaker 1: Even is a production of Pushkin Industries and is written
Speaker 1: and hosted by me Anita Hill. It is produced by
Speaker 1: Mola Board and Brittany Brown. Our editor is Sarah Kramer,
Speaker 1: our engineer is Amanda kay Wayne, and our showrunner is
Speaker 1: Sasha Matthias. Luis Gara composed original music for the show.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Mia Lobel and Lee Taal Malod.
Speaker 1: Our director of Development is Justine Lane. At Pushkin, thanks
Speaker 1: to Heather Fane, Carly Migliori, Jason Gambrel, Julia Barton, John Schnarz,
Speaker 1: and Jacob Weisberg. You can find me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Anita Hill and on Facebook at Anita Hill. You can
Speaker 1: find Pushkin on all social platforms at pushkin Pods, and
Speaker 1: you can sign up for our newsletter at pushkin dot Fm.
Speaker 1: If you love this show and others from Pushkin Industries,
Speaker 1: consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Subscribe to Pushkin Plus and
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