An Empty Slogan
Andrew’s experience is the experience of hundreds of thousands of Black children throughout this country, and it stands out as a shining example of the hypocrisy of the #BlackLivesMatter slogan.
Consider the chain of events. Each day, under the pretext of schooling, hundreds of thousands of Black children are subjected to the abuses of uncaring adults and the harassment of maniacal children. A spate of research studies on disparity in school discipline bears this out. Nationally, one in four (25%) African American secondary school students was suspended at least once during the 2009-2010 school year (Ferris, 2013). In fact, Black students are three times more likely to be suspended or expelled than white students (Rudd, 2014). Although school leaders often point to a host of pathologies to explain the excessive discipline of Black children, the reality is that Black children are punished for “less serious and more subjective reasons” (Skiba, 2010). Students who have been suspended even once by ninth grade are twice as likely to drop out of high school (Ferris, 2013). Estimates are that only 59% of Black males graduated from high school with their cohort in 2013 (Schott Report, 2015). Over 70% of African Americans who drop out of high school are unable to secure stable employment .
So, we willfully send our children to schools where they are stigmatized, criminalized, and ostracized. We allow the state to take our tax dollars for education. The state in turn fails to educate over one-third of our children, and mis-educates the rest. We fail to provide any alternative system of education. We fail to provide any alternative system for employment, so that our children become adults who are unable to provide for themselves and their families. And we have the unmitigated gall to proclaim to the world that Black Lives Matter. Unfortunately, by our collective mis-behavior we demonstrate daily to the world that… Black Lives Do Not Matter.