The School-to-Prison Pipeline: Can We Create More Equitable Pathways for Black Students?

For the purpose of this book, the author explores how the humanity of young Black men and boys is stripped away in schools. Moreover, the author seeks to investigate the effects of dehumanization on young Black males in spaces of learning. As a result of this exploration, the author argues that Black educators must teach Black pupils to resist the forces designed to neutralize Black children. White teachers arrogantly bragging to a classroom of Black students about whites’ so-called superiority only perpetuates the lie of Black inferiority among young pupils. The news article “Black student describes anger he felt when his White teacher told class his race is ‘the superior one,’” reported a teacher in Pflugerville, Texas, who was caught on recording engaging with Black students in a way that exceeded the boundaries of suitable decorum (to say the very least). “In one video posted online, the teacher can be seen saying to his multi-racial class, “Deep down in my heart, I’m ethnocentric, which means I think my race is the superior one,” as students audibly react both on- and off-camera”