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Stacey Patton

Autor(a) de That Mean Old Yesterday

4+ Works 97 Membros 6 Reviews

About the Author

Dr. Stacey Patton is an award-winning journalist, author, and child advocate. Her writing on issues surrounding higher education, child welfare, and race has appeared in the Washington Post, At Jazeera, the BBC News, and the Root. She is also the author of That Mean Old Yesterday and the creator of mostrar mais the anti-corporal punishment organization Spare the Kids. mostrar menos

Includes the name: Stacey Pamela Patton

Obras de Stacey Patton

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Esta resenha foi escrita no âmbito dos Primeiros Resenhistas do LibraryThing.
Stacey Patton’s book Spare the Kids: Why Whupping Children Won’t Save Black America was an engrossing read. She offers compelling statistics that show that the use of paddling does not improve behavior but instead increases the likelihood that students will fall behind in school, have future behavior problems, drop out of school, and become involved with the criminal or juvenile justice system. She says that black parents feel they need to whup their children to keep them safe or out of jail.
I have worked as a social worker with families who are involved with Child Protective Services, and I have seen first hand the concerns black parents have about the future of their children as black Americans if they don’t teach them respect for authority. However, I was not aware that the roots of the harsh discipline techniques used by some black parents are related to how their ancestors were treated as slaves. I did question, like other reviewers did, the assertion made by Patton that families in Africa did not and do not use corporal punishment and that therefore there was no tradition of harsh discipline until the experience of slavery. She does not adequately support that assertion and during a recent trip to Tanzania, I asked our three guides how children are disciplined and was told that some parents are lenient and some whup their children – as one might expect – but that there was no one cultural norm.
In chapter 8, Patton lays out a convincing argument that hitting kids regularly causes the children’s bodies to release cortisol as a fight or flight response, which can lead to cancer, heart disease, and other stress related ailments. Similarly, she claims whupping brings on early puberty in girls. She talks about the eroticism of black women and children by white men from the time of early explorers. For an example of this in more recent times, she points to the pornographic post cards of the 1920s and 1930s featuring young girls that emphasized large lips, bare bottoms, and curvy bodies. She argues that this inculturation of viewing black women as sexually promiscuous leads parents to hit their girls to “keep them innocent and from harm”. There is a lot to think about in this book and it should be considered carefully.
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joyceBl | outras 4 resenhas | Feb 14, 2019 |
Esta resenha foi escrita no âmbito dos Primeiros Resenhistas do LibraryThing.
Wow -- quite the book. It's a bit odd to review this, since I'm a White woman who has never considered hitting her kids. But I certainly understand that "whupping" can be a cultural parenting norm --one which is rooted in racism and highly damaging-- and one that, as Patton argues, needs to be rooted out. Patton brings appropriate evidence and analysis of how the experience of racism has brought "whupping" into Black American culture, but her solution doesn't really seem to go beyond "make parents aware of it and hopefully they'll stop." On the assumption that no one is about to wave a magic wand and eliminate American racism, I wonder what she would propose as a way to help parents deal with stressors and anxieties about child behavior (and how it will be seen by those in power). It seems that the best way in would be the churches, but it also is clear from Patton's chapters that the churches are frequently complicit in whupping as a form of discipline. And perhaps in propping up the victims of racist structures in the broader world. Likewise, the chapter describing a restorative-justice alternative to jailing child abusers is intriguing, but becomes an after-the-fact bandaid, and only applies to those relatively few parents who get caught at crossing the line into abuse. Her description of how hard it is to get a program like that accepted politically is depressing enough.
All in all, an eye-opening book, and one that is well-researched and written well. My only criticism is that Patton allows a little too much of her own bitterness at the way foster parents and the foster system treated her, to show through.
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jwpell | outras 4 resenhas | Jun 5, 2017 |
Esta resenha foi escrita no âmbito dos Primeiros Resenhistas do LibraryThing.
Author Stacey Patton made me aware of an issue that I had no idea about--the prevalence of child discipline that crosses over into abuse in African-American families, and of which she herself is a survivor. Patton links this to the institutional racism in our society that goes back to how slave owners treated their slaves. In some memorable chapters, Patton writes about how "whupping" keeps children under stress which in turn releases hormones that stimulate sexual maturation at a young age and increases the likelihood of violent reactions, low I.Q.'s and a host of other problems that increases the odds that these children will interact with the criminal justice system. I found this book shocking, but I can't comment on its veracity. It also made me sad about the limited options that some families in our society have today.… (mais)
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mojomomma | outras 4 resenhas | Apr 30, 2017 |
Esta resenha foi escrita no âmbito dos Primeiros Resenhistas do LibraryThing.
This was certainly an eye-opening book focused on corporal punishment in the black community. It was interesting to read about how this form of punishment continues to flourish despite research against it. Corporal punishment has been brutalizing black bodies since the days of slavery, yet it continues to be used as a means of discipline, often leading to separation of families. I liked the fact that this book appears to be well researched. I hope it is read by those who could benefit from updating discipline practices. Some of the writing was repetitive, but definitely a worthwhile read.… (mais)
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ebrahmstadt | outras 4 resenhas | Apr 22, 2017 |

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Obras
4
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1
Membros
97
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#194,532
Avaliação
4.0
Resenhas
6
ISBNs
10

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