The school-to-prison pipeline is a worrying trend as children move from state schools into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. For a growing number of students, the route to prison includes such ‘stops’ as failing state schools and zero tolerance and segregation in school (Walton et al., 2017). The school-to-prison pipeline is also negatively affected by the transfer of disciplinary activities by the school to the police and the low level of students’ self-discipline.
William Dubois and Booker Washington were influential African American leaders. Du Boi’s autobiographical books contained a principled polemic, a dispute about the ways to solve the Negro problem, which Booker Washington expounded in his biography “Out of Slavery”. They were two opponents and antipodes. Unlike Dubois, who was born into a free and wealthy family, Washington knew about slavery from his own experience. However, he drew particular conclusions from it, believing that he had found his way to a better life.
The pickaninni was the dominant racial caricature of black children throughout much of the country’s history. The first known pickaninni was Topsy, a poorly dressed, unattached, neglected slave girl. She was an indomitable wild child who had been indelibly corrupted by slavery. Golliwog is the least known of the major anti-black caricatures in the United States. Golliwogs are grotesque creatures with very dark, often jet-black skin and large, white-rimmed eyes. They are usually male, dressed in a jacket, trousers, bow tie, and stand-up collar in a combination of red, white, and blue.
Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X were advocates for oppressed people around the world. However, they had different ideological goals. Dr. King initially wanted to remove legal barriers to black civil rights and integrate southern society to coexist races. However, his later frustrations with whites prompted him to shift his focus from integration to broader social justice issues such as anti-poverty and anti-war campaigns. Malcolm X initially saw white society as irredeemably corrupt and separate from awaiting divine punishment and for blacks to learn to love themselves independently. Later, he developed his position that immoral values governed white society and that black society should eradicate them.
Stereotypes about African Americans and their culture originated in American society during colonial times and continue to exist in the 2020s. Though less intensely than before, they manifest themselves in news reports and fiction (films and TV shows). These stereotypes are diverse, widespread, and have a long history. The three modern stereotypes about African-Americans are doing drugs, robbing, and working in low-paying jobs. All of these stereotypes stem from the fact that African American communities frequently live in disadvantaged areas. Society automatically stigmatizes people from such neighborhoods as criminals and drug addicts who cannot find decent jobs.
The Black Panthers emerged in 1966. African-Americans Hugh Newton and Bobby Seal founded a left-wing party by that name in Oakland. They aimed to promote and defend civil rights and freedoms for African-Americans. The Black Panthers advocated armed insurrection against social injustice. The leaders of the movement held revolutionary-socialist views and promoted the philosophy of Maoism. The Black Panthers are known for several successful social initiatives. In 1969, the party organized free hot lunches for poor African-American schoolchildren in Oakland. Gradually the free lunch program spread to 45 cities but was closed down by the state in 1975. That year, however, the government launched a national school lunch program. The Panthers were also instrumental in introducing free clinics and ambulance services.
Reference
Walton, H., Smith, R.C., & Wallace, S.L. (2017). American politics and the African American quest for universal freedom (8th ed.). Routledge. Web.