Fighting the School to Prison Pipeline One Child at A Time: A Clinical Tale of Race and Advocacy

ABSTRACT This article recounts my treatment of David, an African American child of 12 who faced suspension and removal from his school in a wealthy, mostly all-white school district in the suburbs. During the treatment, David was primarily silent. The paper discusses his silence from two perspectives: (1) his need to protect and support his emerging self from the fear of abuse and (2) from the racism he experienced in his school district and from White people in general. I discuss how I worked with his silence and how our work reflected several racial enactments. The resolution of which furthered our relationship and his treatment. In this vein, I illuminate some of the ingredients of successful Cross-Racial work. I move onto a broader discussion of African-American children’s racialized school experience as they and their teachers struggle to mentalize each other constructively.