Black Girls and the Talk? Policing, Parenting, and the Politics of Protection

Abstract

Black girls are marginalized from mainstream discourses and familial discussions on policing, and little is known about how families conceptualize strategies for mitigating their risk of police sexual assault and harassment. Through 30 in-depth interviews with black mothers, this article explores how social class shapes protective care strategies for reducing girls’ risk of police contact and sexual violence. While the primary police talk emphasizes black boys’ vulnerability to lethal and physical violence, I identify two additional socialization practices, or “talks” for black girls: The respectability talk is a middle-class socialization strategy that avoids direct associations between black girls and police; this talk works to minimize risk through teaching black girls how to be “ladies” by embodying racialized gendered norms that constrain their behavior and autonomy. The predatory talk is a predominantly working-class socialization strategy which aims to equip black girls with an awareness of police sexual violence and the tools for avoiding sexual assault and harassment from officers when alone or at night. The article illustrates how protective care strategies for black girls are intertwined with social class and have divergent consequences for understanding agency and responsibility for police sexual violence.

“…[T]his is What We are Missing”: The Value of Communicating Infant Feeding Information Across Three Generations of African American Women

“…Bonding has been associated with trust, and positively affects overall self-esteem in African Americans ( Causey et al, 2015 ). As mentioned earlier, mothering while Black requires constant concern for protection that includes various socialization strategies ( Malone Gonzalez, 2020 ). Future breast/chestfeeding promotion efforts may benefit from reframing our current approach to including protection language and not solely support language.…”

How Do Incarcerated Parents Explain the Criminal Justice System to Their Children?: Narratives of Parental Identity, Individual Autonomy, and Structural Inequality

“…This finding is distinct and compatible with findings about how parents teach older children and young adults about the criminal justice system. A number of studies examine "the talk" that Black parents have with their adolescent children about policing (see, for example, Whitaker & Snell, 2016;Elliot & Reid, 2019;Malone Gonzalez, 2020). In these conversations, Black parents teach their children practical strategies to stay safe during police stops or other encounters.…”

“…Teaching and Learning about the Criminal Justice System Parents, both those who are incarcerated and those who live with their children in the community, often must lead difficult conversations with their children about the criminal justice system. This conversation has become so routine for Black families that it is often simply referred to as "the talk" (Whitaker & Snell, 2016;Jones, 2018;Malone Gonzalez, 2020). "The talk" focuses on teaching Black adolescents how to cautiously navigate interactions with law enforcement to protect themselves from police brutality.…”

An Intersectional‐Contextual Approach to Racial Trauma Exposure Risk and Coping Among Black Youth

“…Similar messages regarding the physical safety of Back girls were absent. It is possible that Black parents’ heightened concerns for the safety of Black sons relative to their daughters will, in part, be due to gender disparities in media coverage of police violence that shapes Black parents’ concerns for their daughters (Malone Gonzalez, 2022; Samuels et al., 2021).…”