The Devastating Case Of Child Q
The devastating case of Child Q: How adultification bias affects Black children
Trigger warning: bias, harassment humiliation and racial profiling ⚠️ We are shocked and devastated by the story of Child Q which broke last night in the UK. Child Q is a 15-year-old Black school girl who was inappropriately strip-searched by police because she 'smelled of weed' while menstruating, without proper support from her teachers. Nothing was found on her. We have SO many questions:
Why did her teachers call the police?
Why was the strip search conducted without proper safeguarding?
Why was she sent home with minimal pastoral care and follow up?
Why did the police believe it was okay to do this to a child?
...and would this have happened if she were white?
Adultification bias plays a HUGE part in this ordeal. It is a type of bias that affects Black children more than others[New York Times]&[Vox].This is a moment for all of us to check the assumptions we make about which children are worthy of protection and who we see as 'mature' and in need of punishment. It starts with each of us, we need to continuously manage our bias.
Adultification bias is "a stereotype in which adults view Black girls as less innocent and more adult-like than their white peers, devoid of any individualized context.
In other words, adultification bias is not an evaluation of maturity based on observation of an individual girl’s behaviour, but instead is a presumption — a typology applied generally to Black girls" — The Initiative on Gender Justice and Opportunity
As we learned last week, bias spills out from one realm to another. The adultification of Black children causes serious, long-lasting trauma. These biases also evolve into other prejudices that Black adults experience in the workplace and wider society.
What next? Writing this newsletter was emotionally exhausting for us and tackling systemic bias can make us feel helpless. But we aren't, there's power in our collective action, so here's what to do next.
If you're based in the UK, write to your local MP
If you're based outside of the UK, join the conversation, write about it, comment, share and raise awareness
We can't let this get swept under the rug.
National Deaf History Month (US) — meet Saïda Florexil
This National Deaf History Month we're spotlighting tech founder Saïda Florexil, who is making history today.
Saïda founded Imanyco, an organisation that aims to make socialising in the world accessible anytime and anywhere, to people with hearing disabilities.
Imanyco created a real-time transcription technology called Comunify that assists deaf and hard-of-hearing people during in-person group conversations.
Female founders need money, not more mentoring💸
The 200bn club is launching a new mentoring programme to tackle the underinvestment in female founders. However, founder Tessa Clarke, co-founder of Olio, amongst others are not convinced that the 200 Billion Club will have any meaningful impact on the lack of investment in female founders - read Tessa's article here. The mentoring programme suggests that the root of the problem lies with female founders not being up to scratch, rather than the VC industry being structurally biased.
London Business School's Dr Dana Kanzee has identified in her Ted talk to add to the many biases female founders face, they are also asked “prevention” questions by investors of either gender, whereas male founders are asked “promotion” questions. Promotion questions and answers lead to a more successful result.
Rather than trying to “fix” female founders, we believe the VC industry needs structural reform. We'd love to know your thoughts on this, tweet us @hustlecrewlive.
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