The Most Dangerous Place For Black Children Can Be In The Classroom

9 Recent Stories Of Black Child Abuse

As a Black male child attending public school in the American South, I was a victim of what I now see as abuse.

I was paddled bare-assed by white teachers. I was shuttled into special education classes. I was humiliated, miseducated, and dismissed.

Once I moved out of the American South to (the less racially repugnant) North, I was re-classified as an ‘Advanced Placement’ student. But the damage to my confidence as a student had already been done.

The most dangerous place for Black Children can be in the classroom. Thats is where a child’s belief about who they are and what they are capable of is shaped and tested.

In affirming environments, Black students statistically do well. And when those students have teachers who understand the uniqueness of the Black experience, they thrive.

But what happens to the students who aren’t so lucky? In many Western schools, narratives (that equate to child abuse) tell Black children:

• That Blacks are intellectually inferior to other races
• That the Black story began with slavery
• That slavery wasn’t all that bad