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The Reckoning Will be Incomplete Without Black Women and Girls

Why are Black women seen as more threatening, more masculine and less in need of help?” A 2017 study by the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality found that adults, regardless of their race or education level, believe that black girls ages 5 to 19 are “less innocent and more adult-like than their white

Why Won’t Society Let Black Girls Be Children?

Jamilia Blake, Ph.D., a psychologist and associate professor at Texas A&M University who co-authored the 2019 report “Listening to Black Women and Girls: Lived Experiences of Adultification Bias” and its precursor, the 2017 study “Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood,” said adultification impacts black girls early in life. Read the Full Article at

Schools Get Graded on Racial Equity

Holding districts accountable and closing the racial achievement gap is the long game, but the first step is proving the problem’s scale. “People want to hear about the evidence,” says Rebecca Epstein, executive director of the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality, noting that raw DoE data isn’t adequately disaggregated by race and gender.

Why the approval of the JCPS Females of Color STEAM Academy brought me to tears

In a 2017 research article from the Center on Poverty and Inequality at Georgetown Law, “Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls Childhood,” authors Rebecca Epstein, Jamilia J. Blake and Thalia Gonzalez wrote that often times black girls are seen as being older, louder and more difficult…I can speak from personal experience. I was always

Let Black Girls Be Girls Podcast

On this week’s episode: Dan and Jamilah are joined by poet, performer, and activist Staceyann Chin to field a question from a mom who’s worried she should give her son a year to grow before he starts kindergarten. Scott Brown, author of the YA novel XL and short guy, calls in to help. The hosts

Why Sexual Assault Survivors Of Color Need Their Own Spaces To Heal

Research has found the “strong black woman” stereotypes can have significant consequences for black women’s mental health, including higher likelihood of depression and a lower likelihood of seeking out help. A data analysis from the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality also found people see young black girls as “less innocent and more adultlike

Protect Black Girls Before It’s Too Late

From a young age, adults hypersexualize and adultify black girls; they’re seen as more mature than their white counterparts and, because of this, adults fail to protect them. The lack of protection allows us to become an ignored demographic; this leads to a world of danger for growing black girls. Read the Full Article at

Giving City: Impact Austin announces new grant to address inequity

Last week, Impact Austin, the women’s giving circle that pools individual donations to make large grants to local nonprofits, announced its first grant to a collaborative project to advance equity for women and girls of color in Central Texas. The $110,000 grant will fund the “Innocence Initiative,” an effort led by Measure Austin to address

When ‘Incorrigible’ Teen Girls Were Jailed

Times have changed since the 1930s, and girls’ experiences in the criminal justice system have too. Yet echoes of my grandmother’s time remain. According to the report “The Sexual Abuse to Prison Pipeline,” published by the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality, the Ms. Foundation for Women and Rights4Girls, girls in the criminal justice