Pushout Book Review - Grade: A PDF

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For Professor Mesinas's class...

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Mesinas Pushout Book Review 2nd May 2019 Pushout Book Review Pushout is a book written by Monique Morris to discuss how the experience of black girls are important to the conversation of youth criminalization. These experiences are different in numerous ways compared to a black girl’s white peers. Black girls are treated older than they are but also looked at as older. These girls have had to grow up with discrimination unlike most of their peers. Not only does race have an impact but class also has an effect along with the race and gender issues which this book further discusses. These hardships were eye opening to someone who is not familiar with in person experiences of gender, racial, or class discrimination. Many of these black girls are incarcerated at earlier ages or put into the school to prison pipeline for disorderly conduct. They are also more likely to be punished harshly for the same offence done by another student who got a lesser punishment. There were many stories told and ways to change brought up and here are a few important aspects that stood out to me. Learning about the meaning of cultural competence was extremely crucial to understanding the foundation of the book. Cultural competence is the ability to interact effectively with people of different cultures it also means to be respectful and responsive to health beliefs and practices, cultural and linguistic needs, and diverse population groups. Cultural competence may look like schools implementing fair rules to all their students and not singling out a specific race or gender. Many schools actually single out black girls or girls in general with

their dress codes. Some school rules such as you may not have hair that is deemed distraction to others around you is specifically targeting black girls in most school. Most schools make it so that black girls and boys are taught at an early age that their hair is distracting and unprofessional. This toxic mindset ruins and breaks down a child’s self confidence and makes the student feel un-welcomed into their own school. There are also the rules that take into consideration expelling black girls and boys for smaller offenses like talking back to a teacher and fighting whereas their white peers would only be punished and sent to detention. This specifically is targeting black youth when there is a clear discrimination between the two races when enforcing punishment. Having set punishments for specific actions would help level out the playing field. If these rules were implemented they would help decrease the amount of youth criminalization in schools. Fewer students would be arrested over minor offenses such as the ones discussed above. It is unfair that these students are being pulled out of school for something that should have been punished by detention or a phone call to their parent. Not only is punishment in schools a problem for these black girls in school but also their own lives that they can never run away from is causing them problems and forcing them to stay out of school. Morris takes real life experiences of these girls and incorporates them in her book. By using these examples, readers are able to get a better understanding of the situations these girls have had to go through and that some are still going through today. Many authors are starting to use these approaches or similar approaches as Morris does.Victor Rios, who is a college professor and ex gang member, uses the stories of real life experiences from the boys that he meets in his study. This kind of information in the books can really make a difference between

just reading and listening to the words of the book to actually understanding what these kids have to go through on a day to day basis. Some advantages to this approach would be for a closer look on how traumatic events affect teenage girls and how their community treats them specifically from Morris’ book. Since readers get to understand the stories of these young kids there comes the problem of actually getting them the help they need. Many people would say, if asked if they would help these girls, yes they would. However, actions do speak louder than words in most cases such as these. An example would be diamond the 15-year-old girl who was teased and bullied for being sex trafficked. None of her teachers even realized that this was happening which lead to Diamond dropping out of school and not showing up. This may not seem like a common occurrence in some neighborhoods, however, events like this do happen to many girls with varying ages. The 15-year-old girl, Diamond, that was teased and bullied and harassed for being trafficked for sex was a story that stood out to me. It broke my heart to hear that a girl that young was being used for trafficking sex. Although her peers were 15 years old or around that age I felt that at least some of those kids had an idea of what sex trafficking means. It astonishes me that people are made fun of because of their tragedies. Being a former teenager myself, I would sometimes discuss the events that happened at school with my parents because they asked me how my day went. Even the parents may have known something about the misfortune that was taking place to Diamond and could have reached out to administrators. Even her teachers failed to notice that this was happening to her. Although teachers have their hands full most of the time with students there should have been many red flags that Diamond was being bullied for what had been happening to her. Sadly

the issue was never faced head on and Diamond ended up leaving the school. This was a major issue in the book although it was not the main one, it is still a big issue. Black girls are seen as tough, un-lady like, and loud, however the stereotype should not be all that defines a person if it does at all. The issue raised in Morris’ book was that black girls experience life on a whole different level than their white peers. They are more likely to get arrested and thought of as criminals. This issues stands relevant today as many black girls are still being prosecuted, pimped out, or abused by the law or others when they really did nothing wrong or there could have been measures to prevent the teen from getting that far. In conclusion, the book itself was well written with lots of examples of how black girls are treated differently in society. I would highly recommend this book to others due to the intensive details of each of the girl’s stories. This book connected really well with what we discussed shortly in class about the disproportionate events society sometimes pushes on to black girls. Although we did not focus very long on the issues of black girls due to time in class I felt that this book was able to give a better understanding of what we were unable to get to in class. I would also recommend this book be read by non-criminal justice students or criminal justice community so that society may be able to understand what others go through....