As he details how the york city is full of the union during the civil war and at 7 45 p. M. Its a look at the lessons us president s learned during their first year in office. At 9 00 p. M. , nadia lopez discusses her work at a school her work as a principal and a school in brooklyn. Alberto gonzales sits down for book tvs afterwards program discussing his new book. Its about his time in the george w. Bush administration. And we wrap up book tv at 11 00 p. M. With political cartoonists discussing his use of donald trump is a character in his comic strip doonesbury. That all happens tonight on cspan2 book tv. This gives me great pleasure to welcome you to this particular conversation this evening. The center for arts and culture teams up with the new press to present pushout the criminalization of black girls. This conversation is deeply meaningful to both restoration and the new press as we share a commitment to amplify and spotlight marginalized voices and stories. We want to thank diane and the new press team, particularly for their incredible partnership in tonights conversation. Thank you so much. A round of applause, please. [applause]. Also want to note that books are for sale following tonights conversation to my left and drove right. Gloria steinem, activist, writer and journal wrote about pushout, if you ever doubted that supremacy crimes, those who voted to maintaining hierarchy are rooted in both and sex, read pushout. Monique morris tells us exactly how schools are crushing the spirit and a talent that this country needs. Guiding us through tonights conversation is Cheryl Watson harris, Senior Executive director for new york public schools. She will be speaking with tonights author, doctor Monique Morris, please join me in giving these two women a real warm welcome. [applause]. Tonights conversation would not be complete without hearing some of the voices of the young women from doctor morses research. To bring us these voices is actress Colby Christina from restoration youth arts academy. We present, pushout the criminalization of black girls. [applause]. This was the cry of 14year old Jerry A Becton who in the summer of 2015, was thrown to the ground as well as physically and verbally assaulted by corporal after she refused to leave her friends at the mercy of this Law Enforcement officer in texas. A video, which later went viral showed him pushing her face in the ground as it she, a slight framed barefoot bikiniclad teenager who presented no physical threat or danger screamed for someone to call her mother for help. The video showed him grinding his knee into her bare skin and restrain her by placing the full weight of his body onto hers. The incident was violence and reeked of sexual assault. Overtones that were later deemed inappropriate, out of control and inconsistent with the Police Departments policies, training and articulated practice. Though he resigned in response to the public outcry and internal scrutiny associated with his actions, the image of her helpless, frightened body under his had become one of the snapshots that call her public consciousness to examine the overzealous policing and criminalization of black youth. Though, media, and advocacy efforts have focused on the extreme and intolerable abuse cases involving black boys such as 17year old trey von martin and ford and 12year old to mere rice in ohio a grooming going above cases involving black girls have service to review what many of us have known for centuries. Black girls are also directly impacted by criminalizing policies and practices that render them vulnerable to abuse, exportations, dehumanization and under the worst of circumstances. Dot. Example, 18year old should make what proctor died in Police Custody after she was arrested for disorderly conduct. Even in highprofile cases involving boys we often fail to see the girls who are there alongside them. After the Fatal Shooting of tamir rice the officers tackled his 14 euros for searches ground and handcuffed her. Not only had she just watch her little brother die at the hands of the officers, but she was forced to greet his death from the backseat of a police car. Addressing these problematic narratives have proved difficult in the current social environment, one that embraces punitive responses to expressions of it dissent and increasing surveillance of the home where families live, communities where Children Play in the schools where children are educated. Welcome everyone to pushout, a conversation with doctor Monique Morris. As parents, educators, sisters, brothers, Community Leaders i know we are all excited to engage in the thoughtful and powerful conversation with dr. Morris. As we examine the injustice that black girls experience in schools and beyond and also have the opportunity to hear her thoughts about how we change this narrative. Is my true pleasure and honor to introduce doctor Monique Morris. Doctor Monique Morris is an author and social justice scholar with more than 20 years of professional and volunteer experience in the areas of education, civil rights, juvenile and social justice to dr. Morris is the author of africanamericans by numbers in the 21st century, too beautiful for words and pushout. She has written dozens of articles, chapters and other publications on social justice issues and lectured widely on Research Policies and practices associated with improving juvenile justice, educational and social Economic Conditions of black girls, women and their families. Dr. Morris is the cofounder and president of the National Black justice institute. She is also the former Vice President s for economic programs , advocacy and research at the National Association for the advancement of colored people in the former director of research for the Henderson Center for social justice at Uc Berkeley Law School your current work has informed the development and implementation of improved cultural, culturally competent and gender responsive continua. Doctor morris is a Research Interest xrays, gender, education and justice to explore the ways in which black communities and other communities of color are uniquely affected by social policy. I think i speak for everyone in the room when i say thank you to doctor morris for writing this book and beginning this very very important conversation. So, tonight we will have the opportunity to ask doctor morris some questions about the book and i will engage in a conversation with doctor morse and at the end of the program we will open it up to the audience who i know also has probably a lot of questions they would like to ask about the book and some of doctor morse is thoughts on how we change this narrative. Hello, everyone. Welcome. In pushout you reference Edward W Morris in the 2007 study it is found that black girls in the classroom are perceived as unladylike and loud talk about your thoughts on combating the stereotypes of the loud black women. Its interesting how we have come to understand the identity of black women and girls and much of the discussion about pushout is centered in a critique of the way in which the black amendment in identity has been presented publicly and also in our scholarship and unconsciousness. When i talk about school push out i talk largely about the policies, practices and prevailing consciousness that underlies how we approach girls in our spaces and how we understand who they are, what theyre capable of and who they ultimately will become. That study is a profound one for me because it does begin to agitate much of the consciousness around how we understand these attendees as they have a lined with historically constructive stereotypes especially in the age of social media where it dominates our understanding of whats occurring. We see a way in which the identity of black girls and women is presented as again either consistent with being hypersexual, consistent with being loud and a sassy or being consistent with being the masquerading angry presence and also the latest one which is some common nation of all, which we have referred to as ratchet, but can also be interpreted in many different ways and so this way in which we have misrepresented and misunderstood the black feminine identity plays into our subconscious, our unconscious biases about how we read behavior, so when girls are asking questions in class or when girls are questioning material it is often perceived as being an affront to the authority of the adult in that space are being combative or defined in ways that are inconsistent with their true intention and in some ways again, given the legacies and misreadings that accompany the behavioral patterns we also see this way in which this hyper sexualization of black girls prevents us from responding to their trauma and victimization and thats problematic. Im just curious with those of you the audience, how many of you have had a similar experience . Does that resonate resonate with you . Again, we had a great conversation even before the session about these are the conversations that have been happening outside of the meeting and now hopefully this will be a platform of conversation that can really affect policy. So, thank you again for that. The next question, in the book the book talks about girls with kinky hair and how it violates the dress code and discipline parents. How should we address racist dress code forbidding natural hair, punishing curvy women and how should these girls dress . So, this is a tricky question about how girls should dress. Its always interesting when i talk about and when i revisit how i used it to dress and when i think about my two daughters and their presentation and how i recognize that much of the way in which adults enforce the dress code is done through what they perceived to be a spirit of love, so there are places in this country where schools have dress codes that disallow natural hairstyles to be, natural hairstyles if you are of african descent, so no afros, no cornrows, no locks took many of this people in this room would not be able to go to school with our hair the way it is and is so obviously and i say this pretty explicitly in the bill, those policies need to be removed to. There is no place for there to be a regulation of individual cultural practices around here and has nothing to do with how individuals learn and it disproportionately impacts black girls. The dress code is an interesting piece. Got a different component to it because not only is it about whether girls are showing up in short shorts or have shirts for a spaghetti desperately step tank top its about pleased him girls bodies in many ways and much of what i discuss in push out is related to how there is a differential implementation of the dress code, not necessarily that the dress code exists, but how that adults are enforcing the dress code that renders black girls vulnerable repletion of their body, not necessarily their clothing, so there are girls who tell stories about arriving in school in short shorts. They have a white or asian counterpart wearing the same shorts, but its a problem on her body and she is sent home and when girls protest against this treatment the way that many girls are inclined to do they get an additional reprimand and so that to me is critical for how we come to understand what the dress codes are intending to do versus what they are actually doing and how we abuse the dress code to determine who is capable of entering this space of learning and use it as a way to turn certain populations away. I recently i have a Research Project that we are working on a partnership with the Georgetown Law Center on poverty at and inequality and we are having a discussion about School Resource officers and girls in color, so we went to a Southern City to begin to conduct research and many of the Police Officers in the school talk about how they are asked to intervene in dress code violation cases or where they will informally engage with girls and interact about whether they are dressing appropriately and some administrators will say i will turn go away if she does not come with a pink shirt, our dress code is pink, not blue, so in my mind really what are we emphasizing here . We have lost prioritization of learning and have come to prioritize enforcement of rules around address and that is taking us away from the true intentions of schools and certainly the role and function of an institution. I talk in pushout about what schools are capable of being in the life of young people and critical to this conversation for me is the understanding that education is a critical protective factor in the legal system, so that is rarely notice we should be doing everything we need to do to keep girls in school, not finding creative ways to turn them away and so when we are doing this and we are having these conversations about dress codes and whether a girl is showing up in a hat and thats reason for her to leave, we have taken this conversation about the true intention of schools and turned it into you know, its important for us to think through these constructs as they emerge, but also critically examine the function of what schools are. Schools can either reinforce social norms and societal norms or they can engage young people in the practice of learning skills to combat their own oppression and the internal lives. Many schools that are century of thinking, better instilling in our children the knowledge that they need to be productive members of our society and citizens in our spaces are not the schools that are enforcing dress codes and turning people away because they are showing up with a hat on and for black girls in their particular nuances around that because a black girl may show up with a hat on because her hair is in the process of being braided and for those of us who have braids in the past or singles know that that can be a two day process and so if a girl shows up with a hat on, but have her hair is done and you tell her to take that had off, she will not take that hot off, so she will opt not to be in class and we dont have these conversations around the competencies, cultural competencies as well as the unintended or i wont even say unintended because at this point we have enough information to know so i was a undesired consequences associated with implementing dress code the way we have been doing across the country. I wont even ask you to raise your hand at that because i can tell that the nodding of the head. I think parents and educators can tell you a story for every story that you told us there, so thank you so much for starting the conversation. In the section asking the tough questions you mentioned that we live in a mans world and how would this oppresses strong women. The book talks a lot about White Society and what role black men play in the systematic oppression of black women. We heard that. Let me back up as i answer that question. I was in a detention facility talking to girls while researching pushout and before i could say much of anything i came in contact with this girl who i call faith in the book and that was her opening question to me, so she said you know that song this is a mans world and i said yes and she said i dont like about song and i said i dont like it either. Why dont you like it and she said because what does that say to a strong girl like me and i processed that for years thinking about what was she trying to tell me; right . I processed it with my friends and one of my friends had an interesting perspective saying she was tried to tell you to recognize her strength pitch she was telling you i see you and i want you to see me. Im a strong girl to thats why she hit tea with that first. Shes like i have feelings, do you see me and once i acknowledge that i saw her, then she was able to question whether that song was reinforcing norms in our society and in our community and in our homes about the focus of power and control and the ways in which our Public Discourse has even embrace this idea that in order for a family to be whole, a person to be whole there has to be a male presence. This girl did identify as a gay girl thats what she called herself. She had had detention in the detention facility around that and so i think for her she was processing a lot about identity. One of the things i intentionally do in the spaces engage in intersectional lands lands to understand that there are multiple experiences guiding ones engagement with systems, with people and that for this girl having to sit in a space where the conversation publicly was about the conditions of males, the priors pride towards his station of dollars in the community and the absence of men in conversations about girls was also present in her life. Really, to me, plays out in her asking that question and the exchange we had about that. Many times, you know, historically i say historically because its been within the last 10 years when i have been one of maybe three women who has been asking the question what about the girls, what about the girls, what about the girls and its match with silence and there has not been a robust engagement among men to engage in no space and in many ways the pushback that i have received has come from men who want me to be quiet while we prioritize the boys and others in the space to engage in the conversation about supporting men and boys. I have long said that the investment that was made in men and boys of color, black men was a necessary investments and i think it was important to have these conversations and he continues to be important that these conversations. Its also important to have the conversations about the women and girls and thats where i have been in this space and where i will remain until we bridge conversations about the communities that we share, the institutions we share, the surveillance we share and the acknowledgment that while the structures are impacting both of us or anyone along the gender continuum in similar ways the impact is different and our responses have to be tailored to those impacts. They have to be gender responses they have to engage in the own functioning around intersection a