Right to Be Hostile: Schools, Prisons, and the Making of Public Enemies

by Erica R. Meiners

In Right to be Hostile, scholar and activist Erica Meiners offers concrete examples and new insights into the "school to prison' pipeline phenomenon, showing how disciplinary regulations, pedagogy, pop culture and more not only implicitly advance, but actually normalize an expectation of incarceration for urban youth. Analyzed through a framework of an expanding incarceration nation, Meiners demonstrates how educational practices that disproportionately target youth of color become linked directly to practices of racial profiling that are endemic in state structures. As early as preschool, such educational policies and practices disqualify increasing numbers of students of color as they are funneled through schools as under-educated, unemployable, 'dangerous,' and in need of surveillance and containment. By linking schools to prisons, Meiners asks researchers, activists, and educators to consider not just how our schools’ physical structures resemble prisons— metal detectors or school uniforms— but the tentacles in policies, practices and informal knowledge that support, naturalize, and extend, relationships between incarceration and schools. Understanding how and why prison expansion is possible necessitates connecting schools to prisons and the criminal justice system, and redefining "what counts" as educational policy.

Genres: Nonfiction, Education, Race

224 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 1, 2007

Reviews

[Cara G · Rating 5 out of 5]

I basically really really loved this book. I appreciated how careful she was in constructing arguments almost as if anticipating the usual responses you get when you talk about abolition. I really loved the investigation of Oz/pop culture in general and the parallels she draws between pedagogical theorising and the PIC. This is a great book which you should definitely read if you get the chance.

[Antonio · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fabulous book. Anyone who is an educator or a PIC abolitionist absolutely must read it. It is a shame that this is not more widely known. The book could use some editing but the content is superb.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

so far, so fucking on point. and despite not being under any illusions about my potential future in CPS, it is still disconcerting to read as a pre-service teacher.

being a teacher is, in part, being complicit in the prison industrial complex. as meiners says, "...the profession of teaching, myself included, is complicit in the construction and maintenance of systems of structural violence, and a kind of 'soft extension' of the security or the prison state" (p. 4-5).

further, "...this book project also extends this conception of public enemies to examine, more broadly, EDUCATION'S INVESTMENTS IN PRODUCING 'PUBLIC ENEMIES" (p. 5).

book group?

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

fckng brilliant basically

way to critique (thru historicised analyses) contemporary manifestations/expressions of white supremacy, misogyny, ableism, heteronormativity, neoliberalism and HBO's 'OZ' all in one book about the school-to-prison nexus... AND reaffirm community/social-justice organising with horizons of abolition

this book is such a winner: R E A D it