#50
Although their plight is less discussed than that of black boys, African-American girls too are grappling with increasingly challenging lives.
By Cynthia E. Griffin
With research assistance from Greg Reese - OW Staff Writer
Addict. Dope dealer. Unwed mother whose first crush lands her in jail.
These are the lives and choices of three teenage girls chronicled in an independent film, On the Outs, that opens in theaters January 13.
While only one of the characters in the stark and gritty movie portrays an African American, the paths all of these girls take and the eventual devastating consequences of their decisions echo the actions, lifestyles and some would argue “choices” of far too many black girls around the nation.
According to the United States Census Report “The Black Population in the United States: 2002,” and the 2000 “We the People” special report, more blacks were younger than the population in general. About one-third of all African Americans in the nation are under age 18 and girls represented about 30 percent of the overall black population.
In 2001 according to the Census, 30.7 percent of black females under 18 lived in poverty and black women overall earned less than African-American men.
On the other hand, the Census found that more black women attended college than black men, and they were more likely than men to be employed in management, professional and related occupations: 30 percent versus 20 percent.
A look at the statistics and research reveals that many African-American girls face a daunting task growing from a child into adulthood. They are more likely to encounter health problems such as obesity, exposure to HIV/AIDS and domestic battery. A growing number are also being channeled into a juvenile justice system that is ill-prepared to address the unique needs that girls have. And by virtue of the racist and sexist strains that are still pervasive in America, because they are black and female, as a group they continue to live at the bottom of the heap.
Education a Mixed Bag
Educationally, black girls seem to be facing a mixed bag of sorts.
Girls are more likely to go to college than their male counterparts. According to Dierdre Glenn Paul in her 2003 book Talkin’ Back: Raising and Educating Resilient Black Girls, 35 percent of black women compared to 25 percent of black men are enrolled in college and have earned associates, bachelors, masters, doctorate or professional degrees. She also notes that only 13.5 percent of young black women drop out of high school.
But Paul cautions that these statistics tell only a partial story. She goes on to note that women in general have higher college-going rates than men, so the larger percentage of African-American women in higher education is not out of sync with national trends. She adds that the information must also be put into an economic context.
In 1997, Paul noted that the mean income for a black woman with some college or with an associate degree was $19,643, whereas a black man with only a high school degree had a mean income of $22,400, and this is a gap that holds true as educational attainment increases.
Louise A. Rice, an educator by profession and currently national president of Delta Sigma Theta says the data overall is “alarming.”
“We have a high dropout rate among young girls, and a lot of them have low expectations, low self-esteem, and low test scores, particularly, in math and the sciences.”
This is particularly troubling because research indicates that girls are academically extremely capable. For example, a 1998 American Institute for Research study found that “black girls demonstrate academic strengths at every assessment point. In the fourth grade, they outpace black male classmates in science, reading, geography and history. In eighth grade, they retain an advantage in science, reading and history. In the twelfth grade they score equally with black boys in math and retain an advantage in reading, yet they still do not feel good about the schools they attend.”
However, that is just the icing on a truly crumbling cake because, according to the 2002 National Assessment of Education Progress, 63 percent of black fourth graders read below grade level compared to 27 percent of white children. Even Hispanic and Asian fourth graders have better reading scores, although English is their second language.
Research indicates that children unable to read at grade level by fourth grade face a downward spiral in America. They won’t be able to compete in reading and writing assessment or pass tests that help them move onto higher grades or into high school. These kids will often end up in special education.
Researchers also found that black girls, as a group, seem to more frequently suffer from the effects of low academic self-esteem, while black youth generally have positive self-esteem related to attractiveness and social worth.
Paul points out research that indicates that this lowered academic self-esteem, particularly of elementary school girls, may directly correlate to acknowledgement by their white teachers.
And according to author and educational consultant Jawanza Kunjufu in his book State of Emergency: We Must Save African-American Males, white women make up about 83 percent of the nation’s elementary school teachers.
Paul also reported that while elementary school girls initiate interaction more often than other racial groups, they are often ignored and receive less reinforcement from their teachers than other children.
The positive feedback that is received is typically focused on social rather than academic skills, and assisting teachers with non-academic tasks.
This sense of invisibility and lack of academic self-confidence, particularly in the areas of math and science, persists and even grows in the middle school years, according to the research Paul documented in her book. It grows to the point where a young black girl’s choice of schoolwork and career path can be narrowed.
There is also the issue of lowered expectations of black children. “When I asked what causes the achievement gap (between blacks and whites), they say it’s genetics, low income and fatherlessness,” said Kunjufu in a Black Issues Book Review of Why Jamal Still Can’t Read.
But the real answer is that regardless of gender, white teachers in both public and private schools often have low expectations of black children and may be biased in their thinking about what African-American children are capable of achieving academically, noted the Black Issues article.
Researcher Ronald F. Ferguson found similar results-race plays a key role in how teachers perceive the academic potential of black and white students. He believes that this sort of racial bias may stem not from any dislike of one group or another, but may be simply based on the teacher’s previous experience with different types of students.
Ferguson also noted that research has found that teachers are fairly accurate in predicting how students will perform in their classes. This accuracy only becomes a problem when the expectations impact a child’s performance.
And the performance levels of African-American students appear to be more susceptible to teacher expectations than that of their white counterparts, noted Ferguson.
Researcher Robert B. Hill, who has written about the strengths of black families and is a consultant with the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State University in Maryland, noted that one of those strengths is black children, who despite lower test scores have higher educational and occupational aspirations than white children of similar economic status.
Unfortunately, Hill found that as many bright inner-city children advance through the public school systems, they encounter “misguidance” counselors who determine that their goals are “unrealistic” and work to lower their aspirations and self-esteem. Unfortunately the change is so drastic that black children end up dropping out of school in record numbers.
According to statistics released by the National Women's Law Center in 2000, the dropout rates for women of color exceed that of white women. An estimated 8 percent of white girls dropped out before completing high school compared to 32 percent for Native Americans, 28 percent for Latinas and 11 percent for African Americans.
School: The Road to Jail?
The changing educational landscape in America, according to one researcher, is also contributing to another escalating problem that is snaring African-American girls in a web from which they find it hard to escape.
Since the 1980s, there has been an increasing imposition of Zero Tolerance Policies in urban school districts, where most black youth attend school, that according to Columbia University researcher Anne Eller has resulted in the criminalization of what was once considered typical adolescent behavior.
Using New York City Schools as her base example, Eller wrote in her paper “Walking on a Tight Rope: Black Youth and the Culture of Control” that with the advent of the New York Police Department as the security force in certain Big Apple schools, and despite the fact that overall youth crime has dropped, the number of young people, particularly blacks, who have had documented encounters with the juvenile justice system increased.
And girls are increasingly represented in this mix. Teachers and students themselves have noted that girls are becoming increasingly physically aggressive and in some cases downright mean to one another.
Other girls are seen as competition, a phenomenon some researchers are attributing to the examples they see set by their mothers, who must compete for the scarce number of “eligible” black men available.
A Center on Juvenile Criminal Justice report postulated that the increasing number of girls pouring into the justice system, which is the exact opposite of what is happening with boys, may be related to gender stereotypes. “Boys are expected to be aggressive and violent, and society expects to be protected from them. Girls are expected to be passive and well-behaved and society doesn’t expect to need protection from them,” notes the “Girls in the Juvenile Justice System” report.
A joint report, “Justice by Gender” issued by the American Bar Association and the National Bar Association (black lawyers’ national organization) concluded much the same thing.
“A fundamental issue underlying this report is whether the growth in the numbers of girls in the delinquency system is a result of an increase in their violent and aggressive behavior. Although further research into this proposition is required, preliminary studies suggest that what has changed is our response to their behavior.”
“Some experts have found that this growth is due in part not to a significant increase in violent behavior, but to the re-labeling of girls’ family conflicts as violent offenses; the changes in police practices regarding domestic violence and aggressive behavior; the gender bias in the processing of misdemeanor cases; as well as a perhaps fundamental systemic failure to understand the unique developmental issues facing girls of today.”
One of the keys to understanding the increase in girls’ involvement in crime is knowing the reason for the behavior, which researchers say often stems from histories of physical, emotional and sexual abuse, family problems, as well as physical and mental disorders.
Girls in delinquency, said the ABA/NBA report, have experienced academic failure and tend to succumb more easily to the pressures of domination by older males. Their problems are also often connected to conflicts in familial and social relationships.
This correlates to what is behind the increase of black women in the justice system. African-American women in prisons often had similar traumas, such as physical and sexual abuse in a dysfunctional family throughout their lives, said Syracuse University law professor Paula C. Johnson in her book Inner Lives: Voices of African American Women in Prison ( NYU Press, 2003) Consequently, in many cases, criminality was a coping mechanism or escape from abusive circumstance, she wrote.
The Black Women’s Health Imperative reports that violence is an everyday occurrence in the lives of many black women. These women are four to six times more likely than white women to be killed, and most violent acts against African-American women are done by black men.
Among the statistics:
Almost 40 percent of Black women report coercive contact of a sexual nature by age 18.
Women in households with incomes of $15,000 or less are three times more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted. Black women are more likely to be poor.
The impact of violence, as pointed out by Johnson, is an increase in criminal behavior such as drug abuse and alcoholism.
The Black Women’s Health Imperative also found that abuse (particularly from a partner) has been associated with lower self-esteem, lower health status and lower life satisfaction. Additionally these women are also at a higher risk for symptoms of depression, unhealthy behaviors and difficulties in interpersonal relationships.
Women in violent domestic situations are more likely than other women to smoke or drink, and are almost twice as likely to use illicit drugs.
The Imperative reports that domestic violence is also seriously linked to alcoholism (about 50 percent) and suicide (about 10 percent of cases).
All of this can frequently lead to involvement in the criminal justice system, which presents challenges of its own.
In California, “get tough on crime” laws like Proposition 21 passed by voters in 2000 increased the probability that troubled teen girls will end up in a juvenile justice system that is not prepared for them.
Among the changes wrought by Prop. 21 were: increasing the number of juveniles who will be tried and sentenced to adult prisons; changing the types of probation available for juvenile offenders, reducing the confidentiality protections of youthful offenders; increasing the penalties for gang-related crimes, as well as requiring convicted gang members to register with local law enforcement agencies.
Because the legislation has been tied up in the courts since it passed, the impact is just now beginning to be felt.
If and when it is fully implemented the initiative is expected to have annual costs of more than $330 million on the state level and $10 million to more than $100 million on the local level.
Imprisonment of women, the majority of whom in California are in lock-ups because of substance abuse issues, also victimizes their children and can create a cyclical downward spiral for the kids, believe some researchers.
Women in California prisons are mothers to nearly 20,000 children, and researcher Charlene Wear Simmons found that nearly two-thirds were the primary caregiver for at least one child prior to arrest. Denise Johnston, Director of the Center of Children of Incarcerated Parents at Pacific Oaks College in Pasadena, said an estimated 30 to 40 percent of their male children will end up in jail themselves. The figure for girls is three to five percent.
What are the Numbers?
A Children’s
Defense Fund report said that a black preschool girl has a 1 in 17 chance of
going to prison in her lifetime.
Girl Trouble.org, on its website, adds
that the ethnic bias in juvenile arrest and incarceration rates is evident.
The site notes that, while whites constitute 65 percent of the population of
at-risk girls, they account for only 34 percent of girls in secure
detention. African Americans make up nearly half of all girls in secure
detention and Latinas constitute 13 percent. Black girls are also more
likely to receive a more severe disposition at the arrest, intake hearings
and in court, pointed out the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention in 1998.
Additionally seven of every 10 cases involving white girls are dismissed
compared with three of every 10 cases for African-American girls.
When added to the overall statistics for girls the situation is especially
troubling:
* Girls are
30 percent more likely than boys to be detained for minor offenses such as
public disorder, probation violation and traffic violations.
* As a result of gender biases in the juvenile justice system, many girls
are repeatedly detained during their juvenile years even though they have
been convicted of only one crime.
* And, finally, there is a critical lack of juvenile delinquency programs
available to girls. They receive only 2 percent of services even though they
represent 28 percent of the U.S. juvenile detention population.
Researchers point out that those services they do receive have typically not
been specifically designed for them. They are instead scaled-down versions
of efforts that target women or retrofitted programs that were initially
created with boys in mind.
Fostering Family Breakup?
Another
problem that has had a pervasive impact on many black girls is the overall
participation rate of African-American children in the foster care system.
While black children represent only 17 percent of the nation’s youth, they
are 42 percent of all children in foster care, nationwide. Once in the
system, they remain there longer, are moved more often, and are less likely
to return home or be adopted.
This shift away from preserving families and toward “freeing” children in
foster care for adoption by terminating parental rights has been especially
devastating to poor families, and black families who make up a
disproportionate percentage of the poor, according to Dorothy Roberts.
Roberts is a Northwestern University law professor, who, in 2001, wrote the
book Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare. Roberts goes on to
say in her book that most African Americans are acutely aware that whatever
their individual character and efforts, their personal well-being and
chances of success are inextricably tied to the advancement of African
Americans as a group.
Consequently, she adds that excessive state interference in black family
life damages African Americans’ sense of personal and community identity.
Placing large numbers of children in state custody also interferes with
critical functions served by families. It weakens the community’s social
capital, as well as its ability to form productive connections among its
members as well as with people and institutions outside the community.
Hill, in his discussion of the strengths of the black family unit, notes
that, while conventional wisdom says the extended family has declined
sharply in urban areas, the reality is that the proportion of black extended
families increased. The researcher noted that, in 1990, two out of five
black households were three-generational. What’s key about these extended
kinship bonds is that they provide daycare for working families, offer
support to unwed mothers and informally adopt children. This last fact is
particularly critical as more black females are sucked into the justice
system.
Additionally, families or "the home space" as Paul names it, is the place
where black children learn the discernment necessary to know when to
attribute lack of success to individual effort, and when to attribute it to
societal forces. The home space, said the Montclair State University
associate professor of early education, elementary education and literacy.
There are other problems associated with being part of the foster care
system for girls. A report by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen
Pregnancy notes that teens in foster care are at a greater risk than other
teens for pregnancy, and many become parents either while in the system or
shortly after transitioning out. Although there are no known national
statistics on the pregnancy rates in foster care, The National Casey Alumni
Study found that the birth rate for girls in foster care was 17.2 percent
compared to 8.2 for their peers outside of foster care. Another report from
the New York City Public Advocates Office found that one in every six girls
in foster care in New York City are either mothers or pregnant.
Exacerbating the situation is the fact that African-American teens, in
general, have a higher pregnancy rate than all the major racial/ethnic
groups in the country. In 2000, (the latest year available) the Campaign
found that black girls 15 to 19 had a pregnancy rate of 153.3 per 1,000,
which was well above the national average of 83.6 per 1,000. Additionally,
NCPTP found that 58 percent of African-American girls became pregnant at
least once as a teen, compared to 34 percent of all girls in the United
States.
The good news about this situation is that between 1990 and 2000, the black
teen pregnancy rate decreased more than the overall U.S. teen pregnancy rate
during that time period-31.5 percent versus 28.5 percent. That trend
continued through 2003 going from 114.8 per 1,000 to 63.8 per 1,000.
However, it is still the highest of all groups. The overwhelming majority of
black teen mothers are unwed, 96.1 percent versus 81.3 percent of all teens.
The higher
pregnancy rate among African-American teen girls has a direct connection to
their higher levels of sexual activity and lower use of contraceptives.
According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, in 2002, 46.8
percent of all girls 15 to 19 reported never having had sexual intercourse
compared to 57.0 of all black girls in the same age category. These
youngsters, on average, also have more sexual partners. The study also found
that between 1995 and 2002, contraceptive use at first sex increased from
58.7 percent to 71 percent for black girls 15 to 19.
The consequences of teen pregnancy are well documented. The Black Women’s
Health Imperative on its website points out that:
* Babies born to young mothers are more likely to be low birth weight, to
have childhood health problems and to be hospitalized. This is due in part
to the fact that one-third of teen mothers receive inadequate prenatal care.
* Young mothers tend to be poorer and remain that way. About half of mothers
receiving Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) were younger than 17
years old when they had their first child.
* Nearly 25 percent of adolescent mothers have a second child within 24
months of their first child. And black women are 1.6 times more likely than
white women to have a time span of less than 18 months between deliveries.
More Health Concerns
In addition
to high levels of teen pregnancies, there are a number of other critical
health issues impacting African-American girls. According to the Black
Women’s Health Imperative, HIV/AIDS is the number one killer of black women
25-34, which means given the development course of the disease they
contracted it as a teen. Black girls are also more likely to be overweight
or obese and the problem begins as early as age six. And, while the
African-American community’s greater tolerance of different body sizes
provides some protection, a report by the Office on Women’s Health at the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services notes that as black girls enter
adolescence, particularly those who live a more middle-class lifestyle,
there is an increased rate of body dissatisfaction that can manifest itself
as eating disorders.
A Few Solutions
While all the
problems impacting black girls might seem overwhelming, there are many
programs that exist which are helping to strengthen and change their lives
for the better. Many of these are operated by the myriad of women’s
organizations in the nation, such as the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.
“Our aim is to work with young black women between the ages of 9 and 18, and
of course we do have leadership programs for young women in college as
well,” explained Rice, the Delta’s national president.
“We have the Delta
Teen Lift program, which was initiated in 1963, and is still being
implemented by some of our 900-plus chapters. This program is designed to
build self-confidence in high school students, and expose them to the world
through travel across the nation,” Rice pointed out.
Teen Lift, which typically happens during spring break, Christmas vacation,
or at the end of the spring semester, also allows the at-risk girls it
targets to meet successful African Americans at historically black colleges
and universities where they have a chance to talk and learn.
In addition to Teen Lift, Rice said the Betty Shabazz Delta Academy which
began operations in 1997 is a program for at-risk 10 to 14-year-olds that
operates after school and on the weekends. The academy emphasizes tutoring
and teaching math, science and technology, and helps the young girls think
about pursuing careers in these non-traditional areas. Delta GEMS (Growing
and Empowering Myself Successfully), which was launched in 2004, is an
extension of the academy which targets girls 14 to 18. Rice said this
program focuses on the importance of academics, planning for the future, and
being community service minded. It also focuses on building self-esteem.
“I always say that mentoring is so important,” points out Rice about what it
will take to improve the future for black girls. “The community now is so
different than it was 40 or 50 years ago. So it’s going to take mentoring. I
also say to my sorors as I travel that we as professional women need to tell
our stories more.”
“In the classroom, they look at us and think we’ve always been middle class
or whatever. But what they don’t know is that many of us have the same
background (as they do),” added Rice, who said her upbringing by a single
black mother always surprises girls, when she tells them her story.
Author Hill also pointed to the historical role of the black church as a
community strength. He noted that 71 percent of all black parents send their
children to Sunday school regularly. In addition to the growing list of
social services and economic development programs black churches nationwide
operate, Hill said that just having this strong religious foundation gives
African Americans higher social and economic attainment. He also said a deep
religious commitment had the strongest correlations with lower school
dropout rates, delinquency, out-of wedlock births and drug abuse.
Some researchers also credit the resiliency of the African-American family
to its extended family network. This network plays a huge part in helping
raise children including girls, infuse ethnic pride, care for the elderly
and in many cases serve as an economic foundation. Consequently, some
professionals are coming to understand that there is a need to first
recognize the often unique configuration of the black family and build upon
the strengths of this unit.
There is also a requirement to understand that instead of considering some
actions pathologies inherent in the black community, they are reactions to
decades of oppression, racism and “blaming the victim” that has happened to
African Americans in America. Consequently, to combat these requires
providing emotional support, recognizing the non-economic accomplishments in
a family; reinforcing and teaching about the African heritage; better
recognizing the distinctive signs of stresses and strengths and suggesting
the appropriate interventions; and the development of formal and informal
networks to provide support.
Paul, the Montclair State University professor, also offers a number of
individual suggestions. She writes that black parents must continue to raise
girls who are able to fend for themselves because the marriage rate in black
communities is much lower than average. At the same time they must also help
their daughters learn a sense of balance that allows them to operate
interdependently with black men in particular and men in general. They must
start early instilling a sense of self-worth in their girls and cultivating
the belief that women have something of value to offer that is not related
specifically to the pleasure their bodies can potentially offer, added
Glenn.
“Girls should be regularly complimented on their intellect, confidence and
capabilities. This process begins with the way we speak to our children and
the messages we send forth about them,” writes the New Jersey professor. She
also notes that girls should be given opportunities to explore options that
are not defined by constricting gender roles, as well as determine their own
interests, strengths and ambitions. If all of this can happen, it will not
do so overnight and will in fact take a small but determined army to
accomplish. But black history in America, and indeed the world, is ripe with
examples of how a tiny group of committed people have changed the tide of
many a battle.
