Tamir Rice, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, and Honestie Hodges. These are just a few of the names of Black children we’ve come to know because of police violence. The details of these occurrences is troubling, but data highlights a larger picture that’s just as horrific.
Researchers at the Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC looked at national data from death certificates and found that Black children were SIX times more likely than white children to be shot to death by police officers. This is not just a coincidence.
Research has shown that negative perceptions of police grow as children age, and for Black children the growth is more constant and begins earlier – at around 7 or 8 years old, according to one study. The criminal legal system affects Black youth everywhere they go.
Wherever Black children are, the problem persists. The school-to-prison pipeline puts Black kids at risk in what’s supposed to be a sacred learning environment. Black girls are the most “at-risk” student group in the nation, and Black kids generally face disparities in punishment at school.
We have to protect our young people from the racist system of policing that’s threatening their lives at every turn! We have to build outside of the system of policing, instead of relying on it to do what it’s always done: brutalize, imprison, and kill Black youth.