The criminalization of black youth has been a menace affecting the United States of America for a long time (Hope, Skoog & Jagers, 2015). The issue of the criminalization of the young African American students has been taking place even in the schools where the students are supposed to be safe from the practices.
Marshée Doss, 17, narrates the ordeal involving eight police officers who randomly searched her school within Los Angeles. The police officers claimed that Marshée fits a particular type or profile. According to Marshée, the police officers picked one of her hand sanitizers, and upon insisting that it should be given back to her, the officers said that they know her type. They insinuated that she was going to use it to get high. Being labeled as a type made Marshée feel targeted, and the subject of racial discrimination, an issue that has dominated the headlines of the American media for a long time now. The random searches made Marshée not want to go to school again. However, she encouraged herself that she was not going to give up on her dreams.
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According to experts, black people in the US are not targeted for their involvement in criminal activities, but for the belief that they are going to be involved in criminal activities. Thus, the analysts of racial discrimination in the US have pointed out that the psychological harm impacted on the students by other issues such as police harassment reduces their ability to study and excel in academics (Sykes, Piquero & Gioviano, 2017). Black people are born amidst prejudice based on their skin color and have a hard time accessing amenities such as schooling.
In retrospect, the issue of racial discrimination has caused various impacts on the people in the US, especially students. A more in-depth insight into the story of Marshée leads to the conclusion that racial discrimination has made the African American students more of a target of police brutality, which has increased the cases of school dissatisfaction, low grades, and the eventual dropping out of the students.
References
Hope, E. C., Skoog, A. B., & Jagers, R. J. (2015). “It’ll Never Be the White Kids, It’ll Always
Be Us” Black High School Students’ Evolving Critical Analysis of Racial Discrimination and Inequity in Schools. Journal of Adolescent Research , 30 (1), 83-112.
Sykes, B. L., Piquero, A. R., & Gioviano, J. P. (2017, December). Adolescent Racial
Discrimination and Parental Perceptions of Safety in American Neighborhoods and Schools. In Sociological Forum (Vol. 32, pp. 952-974).
