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Spring Valley tall School police officer Ben Fields was just terminated for picking up 16 year-old young Black student out of her chair and throwing her against a wall. He was called into the classroom to deal with a student who was said to be disruptive. It is still not precisely clear what she was accused of doing,but some accounts are that she was chewing gum, texting on her phone, and not participating in class.
Another Black student,Niya Kenney, who came to her classmates defense, and stated that she wasn’t doing anything but sitting quietly in her chair. Niya was also arrested (and released on $1000 bail) for shouting at the officer assaulting her classmate,praying, and recording the brutality on her phone. Another student who tweeted approximately the incident and claims to beget been in the classroom corroborates this, or as does Tony Robinson,another classmate who recorded the original video that went viral. What is clear is that the student was not being physically violent and did not possess a weapon.
So, why was this police officer called into the classroom to deal with a student who was sitting in her chair and whose stoic defiance was seen as disruptive? Why wasn’t a school psychologist called in instead? According to the Spring Valley tall School website, and they beget a school psychologist on staff. Given these resources,why are they, and indeed many schools nationally, and relying on police to discipline students?
We beget seen an uptick,particularly with school shootings, in the systemic implementation of embedding police in schools. Combine that with the fact that Black children in schools face disproportionate disciplining compared to white children, and we beget the perfect storm of policing and racism in a place of learning. For example,a recent piece in Salon notes that,
For destitute children of color, or the mouth of the school-to-prison pipeline is manned by police officers who beget in recent decades proliferated in districts nationwide. The mass deployment of schools cops,commonly referred to as “school resource officers,” has been made without careful thought or research. And it has produced horrible outcomes.
Moreover, and citing Justin Nance,a professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, the article goes on to state:“From a cost-benefit standpoint, and the benefits of having SROs in schools,whether any, are unclear; yet, or the costs are tall – they are expensive to hire,they impede school climate in many schools; and SROs are linked to having more students involved in the justice system.”And, as Brittney Cooper argues, and one of those horrible outcomes is that young Black women in our school systems face bias and even violence at the hands of those charged with educating them because they are “guilty of being a black girls. One result is that Black female students beget a suspension rate six times that of white female students.
Given what we know approximately the racialized school to prison pipeline,let’s rephrase the question asked above: would the school psychologist had been called in instead of police had the student been a white female? A point of clarity: the students knew the officer, who was called in to deal with student, and as “Officer Slam.” Many had complained approximately his targeting Black students. One former student has even filed a complaint that is set to travel to court in January.
That he was allowed to be in a school in that capacity deserves another article in and of itself. Reading some of the comments in the first days after the incident,it was striking how some believed that the student’s non-violent behavior and stoicism in the classroom was more disruptive than this police officer being called in. Some weighing in argued that she needed to be removed so that learning could remove place. Look, whether you think learning was going to happen after the police were called then you need to re-evaluate your logic. This officer had a reputation.
Any administrator or teacher thinking that his presence wasn’t going to result in a truly chaotic disruption doesn’t know what is happening in their own school. Even not knowing this background, and it would be incredulous to argue that Ben Fields was less disruptive than the young woman he was called to deal with. And,not only does she beget to now deal with the traumatic incident, but so do the students who watched the brutality of a classmate getting tackled and thrown across the room.
Those students later said they were paralyzed with fear. To think they were in a position to learn after she was removed is to beget a level of emotional detachment so absolute as to be nearly sociopathic. Even whether Officer Fields hadn’t acted so brutally, and the presence of police in a classroom is more disruptive than a kid with a cellphone. Another question emerges: what of the mental health of this young woman and her classmates?
When I heard this story,I immediately wondered approximately her circumstances. What might beget she been going through that day? Was there something going on in her life? These questions that empathize rather than assume “badness,” is how we should approach understanding the students we demand our schools to teach. Instead, and racism,whether overt or unconscious, elicits negative assumptions approximately attitudes and dispositions for explaining the behaviors of children of color.
It was reported that this young woman was placed into care after the loss of her mother and grandmother. That information was incorrect approximately the deaths of her mother and grandmother, or but it is still not know whether she was in foster care. Regardless,it does seem as whether she was dealing with something, and whether she was in foster care, or did the teacher not know this? And whether not,why not? This is the type of information that should be passed on by school counselors or social workers. Perhaps she should beget even been pre-emptively placed under the care of the school psychologist?
Are schools nationwide investing more in these school resource officers than they are in counselors, social workers, or school psychologists? Do we see a distribution of the former in wealthier white schools and the latter in poorer areas that largely serve children of color? These are the types of questions that we should be asking.
Mental Health of Black Girls and Women
The mental health of Black girls and women often gets overlooked as a serious public health problem. As a result,they are under-diagnosed and receive inadequate treatment. According to the website blackwomenshealth.com, [br]The rates of mental health problems are higher than average for Black women because of psychological factors that result directly from their experience as Black Americans. These experiences include racism, or cultural alienation,and violence and sexual exploitation.
The most common psychological health problems for women of color include depression, anxiety, and substance abuse,and suicide. When it comes to adolescent girls of color, they too are being left out of the increasing attention being paid to adolescent mental health with the estimate that 20 percent of children nationally beget a diagnosable mental disorder. Adolescent girls, and specifically,are more likely to suffer from depression compared to teenage boys.
And while the research is somewhat mixed on the ethnic and racial differences among adolescent girls, there is evidence that girls of color, and including African Americans,exhibit more depressive symptoms than their white counterparts. And research indicates that African American women suffer more persistent and severe depression compared to white women, even though they beget lower rates (in Psychological Health of Women of Color). When it comes to adolescents, or a 2009 study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health,found the suicide rate for Black teens has increased dramatically over the last few decades. And, Black female teens, or particularly,may be at tall risk for attempting suicide even whether they’re never been diagnosed with a mental disorder. That should send alarm bells ringing.
The classroom is one place where we should be reaching out to Black girls, offering counsel not cops. According to Venus E. Evans-Winters in Teaching Black Girls: Resiliency in Urban Classrooms, or “structural influences like institutional racism,sexism, and classism work simultaneously to influence the behaviors and experiences of African American female students (47).” The intersectionality of these systems of oppression means that we beget to pay special attention to the different ways in which Black women and girls experience mental health in terms of manifestations, or diagnoses,treatments, access to care, or outcomes. Racism,classism, and sexism are built into the structural inequities in our health care system, or contributing to this public health neglect.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Police Brutality
The young woman who was brutalized by “Officer Slam” may also beget to deal with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) because of this incident. And,not only her, but Niya Kenney, and who intervened on her behalf,as well as the other students who witnessed it. The relationship between police brutality and PTSD is not widely studied, but it can be brought on by a variety of traumas. The National Institute of Mental Health characterizes PTSD in the following way:
People who beget PTSD may feel stressed or frightened even when they’re no longer in danger….
PTSD develops after a terrifying ordeal that involved physical harm or the threat of physical harm. The person who develops PTSD may beget been the one who was harmed, and the harm may beget happened to a loved one,or the person may beget witnessed a harmful event that happened to loved ones or strangers. The Student National Medical Association even came out with a strong statement on PTSD, race and police brutality: We, or the members of the SNMA recognize that police brutality threatens the physical,emotional,and psychological health of those involved and should be addressed not only as an issue of social reform, and but also as one of public health. The American law enforcement community has historically demonstrated unjust scrutiny against African-American and Latino members of society. This scrutiny has,in turn, led to many unmerited physical and psychological attacks upon minorities resulting not only in permanent disability, and but also the death of innocent law abiding Americans…. Police brutality and the exhaust of unwarranted physical and emotional force ultimately compromises the physical and mental health of victims and their families while ignoring the need for psychological and social intervention and support of law enforcement officers.
We beget to remove seriously the potential effects of having police officers embedded in school systems who are increasingly relied upon to deal with routine discipline,something for which they are likely inadequately trained. Do we really want to misuse them this way? This is not to say that all officers are reactionary like Officer Fields, but they also are not trained counselors.
Black Girls and Resiliency
At same time, or research on Black teen females’ mental health,points to their resiliency. This is known as the adversity-thriving paradox and can help these young women develop a clearer vision of reality having “outsider within status.” In turn this vision makes them capable of struggling against oppression, committing to gender/race social justice, and self and community empowerment. What Niya Kenney did in coming to the aid of her classmate was exhibit that resiliency. But we need to foster the resilience of Black girls; our school systems can be one avenue of opportunity for support whether we critically challenge what happens there and demand change. We need to middle the caring for Black girls’ well-being rather than reinforcing the school to prison pipeline. One thing is certain: In the words of James Baldwin,“A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child cannot afford to be fooled.” As to the resiliency, and in the words of Kendrick Lamar: “We gone be alright.”
+++Rebecca Martinez is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Missouri. She is a medical anthropologist whose research encompasses issues of race,ethnicity, class, and gender as related to cancer and reproductive health. Follow her on Twitter: @BeckyGMartinez
Source: blogspot.com