U.S ICE officials are now targeting Minneapolis’s Somali community– the latest target in President Trump’s efforts to “allegedly” stamp out immigrants and disorder. With the arrival of these federal troops, the Somali diaspora, along with other young Black residents and Black girls, are likely to experience a level of officer misconduct and violence that has flourished in our communities and educational systems.
As a public-health researcher, scholar, and activist specializing in maternal and child health, I study the perceptions of safety and violence among Black youth and young adults. I have found that current public safety efforts disregard what actually makes Black youth feel safe. Policing is not among those efforts – and for good reason.
Recently, in Charlotte, North Carolina, a black teenage girl suffered a brain bleed and emotional trauma this past Halloween at West Charlotte High School when a Charlotte Mecklenburg police officer slammed her to the ground in an attempt to break up a fight. To date, that officer is still on administrative leave, with no public updates announced, despite video evidence circulating that shows excessive force.
Force that has no place in the spaces where children should be nurtured, not brutalized and surveilled. This is especially true for young Black girls who are subjects of more than 30 percent of all school police assaults.
It’s time to remove police badges in schools and replace them with compassion.
The attack at West Charlotte High school is not an isolated incident. Assaults against Black girls by white officers are all too common. In 2021, this Florida officer slammed a young Black girl to the ground, and you can visibly hear her head hitting the pavement before she goes limp. In 2015, in South Carolina, this officer first flipped and then dragged a 16-year-old Black girl before arresting her for “disturbing the peace.”
Ironically, however, the real disturbance to schools and Black girls’ safety and peace…is the police.
The presence of police and resource officers in schools is directly related to the number of offenses reported for misconduct, and both are much more likely to be present in predominantly Black schools compared to any other racial/ethnic group. Accompanying their presence, according to the National Women’s Law Center, is harsher treatment and discipline of Black girls, sexual harassment, body policing, and public humiliation.
School districts across the country continue to devote millions of dollars to the placement of armed police and resource officers in schools, despite clear evidence of their negative impact on Black girls, other students of color, and the overall learning environment. This prioritization of police in schools wreaks havoc on Black girls and students everywhere when alternative student support services, such as counselors, nurses, social workers, psychologists, and other community-based interventions, could improve school climate and offer more long-term, comprehensive safety, reducing the need for any police altogether.
Some might argue that uniformed officers wouldn’t be there if they weren’t doing their job to bring peace. But peace is not what we see in these videos and news stories. We see screaming, fleeing, astonishment, and the same fear once beaten into Black women. We see history.
Policing in the U.S. against Black girls and women has historical roots in slave patrols, who violently abducted and terrorized Black people. The whips, lynchings, bushwhackings, branding, and tackling didn’t guarantee “public safety” then. And it definitely doesn’t guarantee it for Black girls now. There is no amount of violence in schools that warrants overpolicing or the use of excessive force against Black girls’ bodies. In fact, research shows that Black students are not more likely to misbehave than other students, yet they are punished longer and more harshly. Black girls, specifically, are six times more likely to be referred to school resource officers and almost four times more likely to be arrested at school, compared to white girls. This results in Black girls dropping out, being pushed out, and creating a barrier to safety, as opposed to facilitating it.
Black girls deserve safety.
They deserve to be lifted up…instead of being slammed down. And above all, they deserve an education in a system that can be reimagined without police and overly punitive measures. This world can exist if we invest in positive supports that actually help Black girls and funnel them into their dreams instead of bodily harm and suspensions.