#264: Abolition For The People

Victoria Blanco: “Abuelita was 83 years old when she told us about her desire to be buried next to her family in Juárez. When she had turned 78, her rheumatoid arthritis had swelled her right leg and arm to twice their size. The abuelita of my early youth, who crushed red chiles and stirred a pot until the chile colorado became thick and auburn, who pulled baking trays from the oven filled with her enchiladas and chiles rellenos, who called my brothers and me to dinner and coaxed us to eat more, was becoming quiet and distant. Telenovelas and pills carried her through the evenings until she fell asleep. Throughout my adolescence I heard her cries of pain at night. My mom, exhausted after a full day of work, would run to her mother’s bedside to find that pain made Abuelita moan in her sleep. I became used to hearing the night cries, but my mom was the one who went to her; she spent a decade making sure that her mother remained asleep, if not free of pain.” (18 min)

At a rate even more disproportionate than Black boys, Black girls face more frequent and harsher punishment in school than their white peers. They’re five times more likely to be suspended than white girls and three times more likely to receive referrals to law enforcement. Erica L. Green reports that “adultification bias” among white educators explains the discrepancy and shares how a new lawsuit by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund demands legal recourse. (12 min)

+ Thank you to loyal reader Morenike for sharing this article with me.

Educators already know that GreatSchools, which gives each public school a score based mostly on standardized tests, isn’t so great. It’s really not great when these scores are plastered on Redfin as code for school demographics. CEO Jon Deane is open to changing his company’s algorithm to be more fair but maintains that parents deserve access to information about neighborhood schools. Plus, he adds, he can’t personally prevent potential homeowners from being racist. (17 min)