Watching them march our children into concentration camps

How the public school system leads Black boys into concentration camps

I raised a Black son, who recently graduated from high school; he became the first male to finish high school across three generations—my grandfather, father, and brother. His journey in public education was never easy; he took an AP English class, for the first time, his senior year and barely made it out. He did not have the opportunity to begin taking honors or college prep courses until high school—after we advocated for his placement in “more challenging” courses. From third to eighth grade, his performance on statewide exams was abysmal and he participated in numerous support programs.

His father is an educator; I am a professor who has been doing research on school suspension issues and interventions over the past five years. To some degree, as his parents, we were savvy enough to navigate the public school system and advocate against some of the school practices and policies that would have induce major psychological damage to his self-worth and identity.

When my son graduated from high school, he became a survivor, he emerged from the public school system, slightly scathed, desensitizing himself to the other Black male bodies that lined the floors or whose names had been forgotten—they did not survive, they did not graduate.

I wonder what it would feel like to watch him fail and never graduate; to feel helpless and hopeless.

Many of us are silent observers, watching the public school system incinerate the identity, spirit, and kill the dreams of Black males in classes that never challenged them; in policies that continue to remove them; in school resource officers who push their arms into handcuffs and in teachers who question their brilliance and suppress creativity. We are content with a system that acknowledges its obligation to educate Black children however, the policies and practices in the public school system in the United States still disenfranchises Black children by creating barriers that slowly chip away at their optimism.

School suspensions prevent Black males from accessing academic support, when practices of removing children from school through suspension begins as early as pre-Kindergarten, we see harsh punishment perpetuates pain and despair.

Standardized tests, designed specifically around a set of standards that have no relevance to the experiences of Black children, serve as metrics of intellectual capital and produce results that place Black males at the bottom. Our children hear the whispers, watch media, and listen to the messages over and over again—their minds are charred and burn through a narrative of academic failure.