Jessica Somersall
“She doesn’t look like a six-year-old, I thought she was 11”; “He’s a grown man in a little boy’s body”; “This boy is built like a tank; he must be 16.” There are so many comments and suggestive undertones that try to make Black children older than they are. As I write this, I can vividly remember having a lot of these comments hurled at me as a child or my little sister and brother. Why are Black children for some reason not allowed to be their age? There is always a questioning of "How can this Black child be 6? She must be lying." My little sister is three years younger than me, and from the age of 10 years old, she has gotten comments that her body didn’t look like a regular ten-year-old body, and how she looked 16. While that is clearly sexual harassment from older men and women, there is an innocence that seems to always be taken away from Black children. There is an identification of Black children that seems to take a toll on their childhood, mental health, and development.
In the New York Times article ‘Why Won’t Society Let Black Girls Be Children?’ adultification is explained, stating it “means that teachers, parents and law enforcement are less protective and more punitive with certain children” (Meadows-Fernandez, 2020). Attaching words such as manipulative, deceitful, intentionally disruptive, and malicious to Black children at a very young age stints their development and lessens their interest in school. No child is inherently bad, but attaching such negative words leads Black children into prejudiced stereotypes like "sassy," "ghetto," and "looking for trouble." All of those words allude to criminal stereotypes, which is setting up Black children for failure from a young age. These are all examples of the adultification of Black children because people assume that Black children are more guilty or capable of doing wrong (Meadows-Fernandez, 2020). An example of this is the wrongful conviction of the Central Park Five, which left young Black boys with social, mental, and physical damage, and did not see reparations until recently.
A short recap of the Central Park Five: On April 19th, 1989, a white woman was jogging in Central Park at night. There had been a series of attacks in Central Park, and the woman was found by police after being raped and physically assaulted. The police falsely accused five young Black boys between the ages of 14 and 16, and sentenced them to prison. During their false investigation, the New York Police held and questioned these juveniles without their parents and coerced them into falsely confessing. Years later, the Central Park Five was acquitted and compensated for their wrongful conviction, but too much time had passed. Korey Wise was 16 at the time, tried as an adult, and sentenced to a male correctional facility for 13 years. The New York judicial system put a 16-year-old boy, who was wrongful convicted, in prison with grown men because he looked older. This affected Mr. Wise because he was mentally and sexually abused by grown men, where he shouldn’t have been in the first place. The adultification of Black children is detrimental to the upbringing of their development because it affects how they see themselves. In cases like the Central Park Five, it can create mental and physical trauma that should not have been there in the first place. If you want to find out more about the Central Park Five, I recommended you watch the Netflix miniseries ‘When They See Us.’ A content warning is required though, as the show is graphic and displays mental and physical abuse which traumatized these boys.
Another example of the adultification of Black children was the wrongful killing of Tamir Rice. On November 22, 2014, 12-year-old Tamir Rice was killed by Cleveland police officer Timothy Loehmann (a white man). Officer Loehmann was responding to a 911 call that described that a Black man who was playing with a “probably fake gun” outside a recreation centre. The police officer showed up at the scene, saw the toy gun, assumed it was real, and fatally shot Tamir Rice, who died the next day. Assuming a Black child is older than what they are can cause a deadly narrative that has been repeated countless times.
Sadly, Black children are having to prove their innocence, and because of this, they are growing up a lot faster. Why can’t Black children keep their innocence as long as white children? There is a lot that Black children have to be made aware of because of the world we live in. A Black 10-year girl is not considered the same as a white 10-year-old girl. There are completely different connotations that are attached to the 10-year-old Black child. Assuming that the “Black girl is more aggressive the white girl” is the adultification of the Black child. This unfair treatment and the adultification bias of Black children can expose them more to inappropriate advances made by anyone trying to take advantage. To further understand the difference in gesture, literature, and representation of Black children and white children, please watch this video that was created by George Law’s Center on Poverty and Inequality.
How can we combat the adultification of Black children? It is simple: allow our children to be kids, so that they can hold on to their innocence. The world already makes it hard for Black people to survive or thrive, by objectifying Black children at a young age to stunt their development. I’ll leave you with two quotes to consider:
“Almost all the black girls and women we talked to said they’d experienced adultification bias as children” (Georgetown Law, 2019).
"They overwhelmingly agreed that it led teachers and other adults to treat them more harshly and hold them to higher standards than white girls” (Georgetown Law, 2019).
Sources
Georgetown Law. (2019, May 15). Research Confirms that Black Girls Feel the Sting of Adultification Bias Identified in Earlier Georgetown Law Study. Retrieved November 15, 2020, from https://www.law.georgetown.edu/news/research-confirms-that-black-girls-feel-the-sting-of-adultification-bias-identified-in-earlier-georgetown-law-study/
Meadows-Fernandez, A. (2020, April 17). Why Won't Society Let Black Girls Be Children? Retrieved November 15, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/parenting/adultification-black-girls.html
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