Black & LatinX Femmes at the Front
We can all agree there’s a gap in the development and leadership of young Black and Latinx womxn. There’s a stigma that Black and Latinx girls lack the confidence to step into leadership roles. However, we spoke to Girls Leadership‘s NY training manager Jordan Nia Elizabeth about their newfound research which proved the opposite, that in fact these girls are ready to lead.
When society fails to recognize their potential to lead and is received one-directional, it limits the ability for these girls to lead in an adaptive format. Read our interview with Jordan as she breaks down the research and her own experiences in these situations.
Can you tell us a little bit about your role as NY Training Manager at Girls Leadership?
As NY Training Manager, I modify and develop Girls Leadership’s social-emotional learning curriculum to be culturally responsive and trauma-informed. I work at a network of all-girls public schools in New York City called The Young Women’s Leadership Schools, where I conduct research with diverse populations of girls to determine their definitions of leadership, the social-emotional skills they want to develop or strengthen, and what they need to be supported in their leadership aspirations. I also conduct public and private trainings for professionals who work with girls on how to be culturally responsive and trauma-informed in their environments; specifically, how to interrupt their own biases such that girls of color are not penalized for displaying the leadership qualities we encourage them to develop.
Girls Leadership recently released research in a report by Dr. Charlotte Jacobs that showed Black and Latinx girls internally hold the confidence and leadership skills, yet externally face bias, discrimination and often in the school environment, punishment. How can we take action to eradicate these barriers and pivot our Black and Latinx girls?
Girls Leadership interviewed 2,012 girls, their parents and 601 teachers to identify the personal, societal and structural factors that impact Black and Latinx girls’ leadership identities, aspirations and skills development. One of the key findings is that Black and Latinx girls are more likely to self-identify as leaders than White, Asian and Multiethnic girls.
As a Black woman, I was not surprised to learn that Black and Latinx girls scored high on the RRSL Leadership Scale. The scale includes such statements as, “I have strong convictions about things,” “I like to be in charge […]” and “I can speak to persons in authority.” Growing up, I learned that White society views Black and Latinx girls more as adults than as children. In response, my communities intentionally instilled maturity, strength and independence in Black and Latinx girls, including myself, to help us navigate this injustice. This “adultification” was a tool for my survival, and an identity marker for the generational trauma my ancestors endured. I was expected to exhibit adult qualities – leadership being one of them.
The behaviors on the RRSL Leadership Scale, however, are the exact behaviors that Black and Latinx girls are disproportionately disciplined for, resulting in Black girls experiencing suspension at six times the rate of White girls for the same infractions (12% vs. 2%, as outlined in 2015 DOE report). We know this – our society paints opinionated Black and Latinx girls as “aggressive,” “defiant” and “sassy” – thus, actively assigning a deficit where there is none. This results in fewer opportunities for Black and Latinx girls to step into the fullness of their leadership.
In terms of actions to eradicate the racial and gender discrimination that girls face, the Girls Leadership’s study concludes with the following recommendations:
Awareness: Develop the awareness that systems and behaviors informed by White dominant culture passively reward White and Asian girls for compliance, passivity and silence, while actively punishing Black and Latinx girls for demonstrating behaviors associated with leadership.
Activation: Invest in professional development of antiracist education and gender equity to activate educators to combat bias and discrimination.
Action: Institute and adhere to a mission-driven commitment to ensure that leaders and decision-makers at all levels within schools and other organizations evaluate implicit and explicit systems of bias and oppression, mitigate these forces and produce measurable results based on the needs of those directly impacted.
Michaela DePrince for Glamour Magazine
Do you share this experience of having felt that your leadership and confidence skills were shut down and if so what was the cause?
This is a difficult question because I imagine there were many instances when I was discouraged from leadership without knowing it. Whether consciously or subconsciously, my teachers behaved according to their biases and according to the ways that systems are designed to operate. Unfortunately, any system informed by our White dominant culture, including the U.S. education system, is designed to uphold the supremacy of White people. One piece of the research reveals that one in six Black girls report experiencing racial discrimination from their teachers or school administrators, and I would argue that number is probably higher than one in six. Because this is self-reported, these girls would have to be sufficiently self-aware and socially-aware to recognize discrimination when they see it. There’s also an element of self-protection in not disclosing, even to oneself, that you have experienced discrimination.
In addition, after years of conditioning to be quiet and compliant as well as getting to know the consequences of being seen as “loud” or “aggressive,” I learned to “code switch” as a means of survival. One Black teacher in the study shared that the “[…] underlying belief that colored women get chosen last […] prevents us from going for the top positions in the first place.” Author Brittney Cooper writes in her book, “Eloquent Rage,” that something that Black women live with every day is “the sense that you are a woman before your time, that your brilliance and talents are limited by the historical moment and retrograde politics within that moment in which you find yourself living. Black women, from slavery to freedom, know that struggle so much more than any White person ever will.” We are told “you have to be twice as good to get half as far,” and after generations of Black ancestors who have strived for “excellence," I can still look to the White girls I grew up with who are now thriving in their mediocrity.
Can you explore the ways that emotional learning and bias have an impact on girls of color?
Dena Simons, the Assistant Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, has referred to social-emotional learning programs as “White supremacy with a hug,” in that they do not take power, privilege or oppression (by gender, race, class, etc.) into account. In many social-emotional learning programs, the “why” changes depending on the students served. With Black, Latinx or under-resourced students, the “why” tends to be about compliance and behavior management. With White, Asian or other privileged students, it tends to be about college readiness and career enhancement. If the “why” changes based on the audience, social-emotional learning programs are complicit in injustice; they become prescriptive and make invisible the role identity plays in the implementation of SEL skills. For example, a Black child using the same “assertive” script to navigate conflict may be received differently than her White peers.
Given Covid-19, distance learning may become more common for educational institutions. Can you explain to us the benefits of teachers facilitating healing centered engagement and what this looks like in the setting of virtual school?
Healing Centered Engagement is informed by the idea that if someone is in fear or if their basic needs are not met, their brain cannot prioritize learning. While Healing Centered Engagement is something any educator can commit to, particularly when we are talking about students’ social-emotional lives, we want to create a healing-centered foundation, so students aren’t harmed by our conversations. You can implement three things right now to create a healing-centered environment for yourself and your students:
Create a sense of hope by incorporating imagination and future-focused activities.
Create a safe space by modeling vulnerability and co-creating the learning environment with your students (including co-creating community agreements, feedback protocols and the direction of your lessons).
Create connectedness by encouraging students to look inward – strengthening their muscle for introspection.
What are some ways that you unwind and practice healing?
I recently wrote a blog for the Girls Leadership website entitled, “Wellness: Can You Afford It?” In this article, I talk about my once-deeply held belief that I was unworthy of wellness. It’s a belief that I finally recognized I had adopted from my society, and it had been ingrained in me by White and Black folks alike. Throughout this country’s history, Black women have been tasked, at various times, with picking cotton; cooking, cleaning and caring for the families our abusers; and holding the sexual fantasies of men. Our bodies have borne the brunt of both emotional and physical labor. Therefore, what does wellness look like when you’ve been told you don’t deserve it? What is a culturally responsive approach to wellness? I outline that a culturally-responsive approach to wellness is explicitly political, holistic, collective and emotional.
My approach to wellness is political because caring for my Black body is a form of activism. It is holistic because I confront the conditions that contribute to my feelings of un-wellness in the first place. It is also collective because I take comfort in sharing with loved ones. Finally, it is emotional because I allow my body to move through my feelings, releasing trauma.
What are the ways in which you remain hopeful about the findings from the report?
As a Black woman, I get asked about “hope” a lot when talking about race in America. I interpret this to mean, “Are you optimistic?” But, as antiracist scholar Austin Channing once said, “Black people connect hope to duty, legacy and the good fight.” The liberation movement cannot survive on optimism; there is too much work to be done. I am optimistic that there is data to back up the experiences of so many Black and Latinx girls who have lived through discrimination in school. However, information alone is not what causes changes in behavior – people have to be willing to change. That willingness remains to be seen.
Is there someone whether it was a family member, teacher, mentor that helped you realize the extent of your potential as a leader?
Black and Latinx girls named their mothers as the biggest sources of support for their leadership aspirations. I echo their sentiments. In 2015, I honored my female lineage by changing my last name to Elizabeth – a name on my mother’s side of the family in all five generations we have records or memory of. I feel very connected to the leadership of my Black and Indigenous female ancestors. The miracle of my existence is a testament to the horrors they must have endured, the resilience they must have developed and the leadership of spirit they must have exhibited.
Jordan Nia Elizabeth
