Punished for Dreaming by Dr. Bettina L. Love
09/22/24Punished for Dreaming: How School Reform Harms Black Children and How We Heal
by Dr. Bettina L. Love
Sep 18, 2018
In Punished for Dreaming, Dr. Bettina Love chronicles how the Reagan era ushered in a systemic War on Black Children, parallel to the War on Drugs.
Policies under the guise of educational reform led to increased policing, school closures, and defunding, paving the way for private "reformers" to gain influence. Black children, labeled as low-performing at best, or super-predators at worst, were disproportionately affected, leading the nation to turn a blind eye to their devastatingly high rates of illiteracy, underachievement and incarceration. Today, superficial changes in education are presented as justice, but they are often rooted in anti-Blackness, with little attention to the need for real structural reform.
"Punished for Dreaming" is a must-read for anyone looking to end systemic injustice before it impacts another generation of our youth.