themindislimitless:

Aversive Racism and Police Violence. A cartoon by the sometimes controversial Kirk Anderson highlights the circular thinking that can lie behind race-based prejudice and violence. KIRK ANDERSON.

This keeps happening over, and over, and over.

mohandasgandhi:

kemetically-ankhtified:

Bronx Youth of Color Most Vulnerable to School Arrests and Summonses

“Out of a whopping 532 summonses issued to New York City students to appear in court during the last three months of 2011, the Bronx alone accounted for nearly half of all cases. 63% of those summonses were for charges of “disorderly conduct.”

Unbelievably, 93.5% of the nearly 300 students arrested in the same time period were either Black or Latino - and here too, the Bronx topped the list as the borough with the highest percentage of school-based arrests.”

they abducting the children from my community

!!!

This is a problem in more than just the Bronx and it needs to be addressed. These zero-tolerance policies do not work and are criminalizing just being a kid.

Minority students are much more likely to receive discipline than white students and Black individuals, who make up only 18% of the U.S. population, serve 35% of the first-time detentions. White teachers are also more likely than Black teachers to refer minority students to special education classes.

From a recent LA Times opinion piece: Minority students as targets?:

An Education Department spokesman noted that many suspensions are the result of zero-tolerance policies, which require automatic suspensions for certain first-time offenses. But in some cases, the spokesman said, those policies are instituted at largely African American schools by African American principals, and the department doesn’t mean to imply that any form of prejudice is involved. Except that’s what it led the public to believe.

If the real question is how often schools suspend students — which obviously affects black students more than other groups — the answer is simple: far too often. Ordinarily, the public thinks of zero tolerance as invoking consequences for drugs or weapons. But in recent years, it has been applied in alarming numbers to much less serious violations — especially disruptive behavior. The idea is that by removing the troublemaker for a day or more, the school becomes a calmer place where others can achieve.

It makes sense in theory, but subsequent studies have cast doubt on whether it works that way. A 2008 report by a task force of the American Psychological Assn. concluded that suspensions haven’t provided any of the benefits educators had expected.

More on education, zero-tolerance policies, and the increase in arrests

just a reminder

(Source: alamaquina)