Pro-public service legislation introduced by Assemblymember Tina McKinnor’s (D-Inglewood), Assembly Bill (AB) 1, moved closer to becoming law when it was passed by the Assembly with a 66-3 vote in late last Month. It is now under consideration in the Senate.
In 2013, as she watched President Barack Obama’s second inauguration, 7-year-old Veronica Bofah decided she wanted to be just like him.
There can be no worse feeling for a parent to not know where their child is. Though it was over thirty years ago the terrifying feeling I felt has never left me. I was in downtown Los Angeles at the garment district with my daughter and three other children who I was babysitting and for what seemed like a brief moment, I was distracted and momentarily lost sight of my daughter.
Malcolm X said, “The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman,” he said. “The most unprotected person in America is the Black woman. The most neglected person in America is the Black woman.”
Black girls, and other girls of color, experience discriminatory, disparate, punitive, and unfair treatment in school, including suspensions, expulsions, referrals to law enforcement and arrests on school campuses, at rates that exceed the public school population in aggregate — and far exceed those experienced by their white female peers.
“…while this nation espouses the valuing of children in general, this does not appear to be the reality as evidenced by the failure to act in the face of the onslaught of mass school shootings from Sandy Hook to Stoneman Douglas where the majority of those killed were middle class white youth,” said Dr. Ronnie A. Dunn, an interim chief diversity and inclusion officer and associate professor of urban studies at Cleveland State University.
Sheqweshu Clark, who is black, alleges that she was terminated in January 2016 for complaining that her Latino co-workers were given preferential treatment by management and that a supervisor told her after she spoke out that “black girls always have an attitude.” But Chipotle maintains Clark lost her job at the El Segundo store for allowing a worker to be on duty an entire shift while drunk, endangering both fellow employees as well as the public.
The study surveyed 325 adults from many different backgrounds and education levels in the United States. They were recruited through an online service that made sure the community sample was diverse.
Why should this matter to you? Sex trafficking is sexual slavery and disproportionately affects young Black girls in America. Family members, acquaintances, pimps, employers, smugglers, and strangers traffic children. Pimping or sex trafficking, is a multi-billion-dollar industry and predators are likely to make anywhere from $150,000 to $300,000 each year selling and exploiting the bodies of Black teenage girls. According to the U.S. Justice Department and National Center for Missing and Exploited children, the average pimp has four to six girls and many are ages 13-14. These young ladies are, raped, beaten, branded, contract sexually transmitted diseases within six months