Over the last year and a half, discussions of abolition, defunding the police, re-funding social services, etc. have been widely debated, but not unexpectedly, few actual initiatives have to come to fruition. One of the areas, however, where some productive shifting of funding, staffing, and vision has occurred is in relation to school resource officers, also known as cops in the classroom. When police patrol schools, students often face escalated punishments (including suspension and expulsion) and are made vulnerable to being shuttled into the criminal punishment system. Students, and primarily students of color, also face physical , emotional, and psychological violence at the hands of the police in their schools.
At Southwood High School in Shreveport, Louisiana, three days in mid-October saw nearly two dozen students arrested, suspended, or expelled as fights were continually breaking out. Rather than pushing the school board to put more police in the school to try to “control” the situation, a group of dads decided to take action themselves. Dads on Duty formed.
Now, rotating in shifts, the 40 dads roam the hallways throughout the day offering praise, encouragement, and of course dad jokes. In the few weeks since the dads started showing up, not a single fight has broken out. The dads featured in the video are men of color and they discuss how many of the kids at the school do not have “male role models” or much of any male presence in their life. Dads on duty are working to model something positive.
The trope of the “absent Black man” in the lives of Black women and Black children is a direct result of generations of mass incarceration, the pathologization of Black men, and cycles of systemic poverty. These dads are working to build a different image of Black men, and want to carry this model of showing up for their kids and their communities to the rest of Louisiana and beyond. Dads on duty is abolition in action.
Original video via CBS Evening News.
– Brett S. Goldberg
