BLACK GIRLS THE

Research by Stella Igweamaka & Nana Appah for Black Canadian

Women in Action (BCW)

“I once wore leggings to school and my teachers called me aside saying that it was inappropriate dressing. Meanwhile, all of my white friends always wear leggings and they have never called them aside. Mentally, it doesn’t feel right to be treated differently. I am of the same age as my peers. I find it very unfair”.

-Black girl, 14 years old.

This was one of the heart wrenching stories ‘Titi’ shared with us as part of her experience with being adultified at school. We had all sorts of questions in our minds and wondered why a young Black girl would have to go through this. As we delved into the research on the Adultification of Black girls in Canada, we were overcome with a mix of emotions. Anger, frustration, and sadness were just a few of the emotions we experienced as we learned about the stark realities that Black girls face in their daily lives.

The Adultification of Black girls is a form of racial prejudice where children of minority groups, typically Black children, are perceived to be more mature and less innocent than their white counterparts. As a result of this, they are treated differently compared to their white counterparts, usually facing sterner punishments and discipline.

In May 2020, Michigan judge, Mary Ellen Brenan, made headlines when journalists revealed that she detained a 15-year-old Black girl, referred to as “Grace,” for not completing her online homework. Grace joined nearly 25% of public-school students across the United States who had failed to complete their online homework during the global COVID-19 pandemic. Why then did she seem to be the only one that faced such extreme and unmerited consequences?

A ground-breaking study by Georgetown law center on poverty and inequality found that adults believe that Black girls need less nurturing, less protection, less support and less comfort. A related study revealed that Black girls are punished at a disproportionate rate compared to their counterparts in schools and the juvenile justice system. This notion is defined as “Adultification Bias.”

In Canada, we discovered that Black girls also faced similar treatments and there was limited quantitative research on this topic. Black girls knew they were experiencing this but didn’t know the term for it. We launched a quantitative survey to 400 Canadians asking them about their perception of children in the 21st century.

The study revealed surprising results that showed that people tend to think that Black girls as young as 0-9 years old are more grownup than white girls of the same age. As a result, people expect Black girls to behave in a more adult-like way, which can be unfair.

As we took our investigation further, we had the privilege of speaking with 20 Black girls aged between 11 and 15. Through focus group discussions and in-depth interviews, they shared their stories with us, and it was incredibly difficult not to feel their pain. It was heartbreaking to learn about the unequal and often cruel treatment they faced from schools and adults, which stood in sharp contrast to the experiences of their white peers.

“When I was younger, adults frequently treated me as if I knew more than I actually did. My white friend was crying in the corner because she got in trouble, and because I wasn’t crying with her, they assumed I was just more mature, but that wasn’t the case. I simply did not cry because there was no point in crying if I did nothing. Just because I wasn’t crying didn’t mean I was tough or had the mindset of an adult. Adultification, in my opinion, is when you treat a younger child as if they should know the same things that adults do. This is bad because children are meant to be children. They are supposed to be playful and not worry about things that adults are concerned about.”

-Black girl, 13 years old