By Serena
The concept of adultification is not new by any means, and yet its importance within social movements is often overlooked. Such is the case in the UK as seen in the case of Child Q, and the continued social and educational inequalities faced by Black girls. The current awareness of adultification provides further context and verbiage to the conversation about racial discrimination in the UK. Rooted in historical racial discrimination, adultification takes form in both the socialisation and social perception of Black children, but more specifically Black girls. In the first instance, children who experience adultification are often forced to mature out of necessity, which is often experienced by children raised in lower-income households and destitute environments. This can take form in children becoming caretakers for family members, potentially having to provide financial support for their families, or even witnessing or experiencing abuse. These scenarios often force children to have to emotionally and intellectually ‘grow up’ as they take on adult responsibilities. Adultification is also a cultural and social stereotype in which adults perceive (particularly) girls to be less innocent due to social or cultural stereotypes typically surrounding their race and gender. This phenomenon was further affirmed by a 2018 study that focused on the use of stereotypes by white adults who work with children. It found that adults were more likely to impose negative, racist, and misogynistic stereotypes on to Black children. This pattern of stereotyping was found to support the finding that Black children are viewed as less innocent. Consequently, Black girls in particular face adultification as many of them lose their childhood freedoms due to the pressures and biases of society. Childhood itself is a construct, but it affords children the ability to make mistakes without the culpability that is given to adults due to a social and legal understanding that children are still developing, growing, and learning. Yet, Black girls are close to two times more likely to be arrested, they are two times more likely to be excluded from school, and they are more likely to be sexually assaulted. All of these events place girls in “adult” situations often without support from institutions or the state, often placing upon Black girls culpability that is not age-appropriate. It is such actions that strip away the ability of a Black girl to experience the innocence and protection associated with childhood.
This perceived lack of innocence in Black girls and their involuntary maturity has caused Black girls to suffer insurmountable harm in social, educational, and legal spaces. Within society, a study based in the US finds evidence that Black girls are typically viewed “as less innocent and more adult-like than white girls of the same age, especially between 5–14 years old”. The removal of innocence from girls as young as five is closely connected to racist and misogynistic historical stereotypes which deem Black women and girls as “aggressive”, “angry”, “unintelligent”, and “hypersexual”. At the age of girlhood many cannot comprehend these adult stereotypes that others place upon them thus leading to encounters with adults and conduct from adults that are developmentally and age-inappropriate. For young Black girls, this often means that from a young age they are hypersexualized because “[a]dultification […]reduce[s] or alter professionals’ sense of their safeguarding responsibilities to Black girls”. This leaves Black girls both more vulnerable to sexual exploitation while also instilling a lack of accountability from responsible adults and even child protection institutions.
Adultification is also prevalent in the media and can be demonstrated historically through colonial texts illustrating the concept of adultifying Black children. These texts would often describe Black children as warranting the same literal and figurative bodily assaults that Black adults experience because Black children had. This was particularly during and after slavery as it was used as justification for white peoples actions towards Black children as they were considered to be no difference between Black adults and Black children and so the abuses perpetrated by white people were not limited to just Black adults. Yet, this notion of blurring the lines between adult and child is far from eradicated in modern media as evidenced in the hyper-sexualization of Black women and girls in many stories and the lack of well-rounded representation of Black women and girls in fictional and news media. As mentioned, modern media does little to stray from caricatures of Black womanhood such as Mammy, Jezebel, and Sapphire. These caricatures of Black womanhood deprive Black women of nuance by relegating them to stereotypes that are reinforced in both the fictional and non-fictional media. The Mammy, often a fat woman, is relegated to sacrifice and nurture the white protagonist. The Magical Negro stereotype serves as an off-shoot of the Mammy in fictional media portrayals. The caricature of Black women as Jezebels who are seductresses whose only purpose is to use their “exotic” and hypersexualized nature to seduce and lead men astray. Finally, the Sapphire is an aggressive, unfeminine and loud persona who is often described as ghetto, threatening and unsocialized. These portrayals of Black women find their roots in Slavery as the depiction of Black women in this manner dehumanised them and generalised Black women to be, “lesser than” which then provided justification for their dehumanisation and assault. This sexualization of Black women in the media and the developmental differences in young Black girls which lead to men to justifying their assaults on young Black girls as their portrayal in media affect their real world perceptions and allows for men to view their bodies as empty vessels. The media then further ingraines this messaging by deeming Black girls as undeserving of media attention when they are raped, assaulted or murdered killed. As can be shown in the case of Lauren Smith-Fields who on December 12 2021 died in her apartment during a date due to a drug overdose. At the time of her death police decided that the date at the time who can easily be described as a white middle aged male was “a nice guy” and therefore not a suspect leaving Lauren’s death to be ruled an accidental overdose. Lauren’s story went unheard of for months before it then began to rise through social media. Only then did media outlets begin to cover it. Even though the person who would likely be the main suspect was described as a nice although frantic guy, publications surrounding Lauren’s death seemed to place more importance on her date being older and her bikini photos rather than the suspicious circumstances in which her death took place. Some were accusatory towards Lauren for her potential role in her passing and some even suggested that she was in the wrong for going on a date. This coverage of Lauren’s case plays further into the narrative created by media stereotypes of Black women by sexualizing and demonising her actions even though they could not be considered scandalous in typical scenarios. This portrayal of Black women and girls creates a harmful scenario in which Black women are hypervisible in the media which portrays them in a negative light yet almost invisible when they are the victims of crimes. A Survey of Black girls from 2015 established that of the respondents 64% of Black females representation was negative, 9% as being positive and 27% was neutral. This overwhelmingly negative portrayal of Black women has its effects in reality as the lack of positive or “normal” representation of Black women in the media leads to the generalisation of Black women as the negative stereotypes shown in the media which includes the modern portrayal of Mammy, Jezebel, and Sapphire and demonstrates how modern media event without outright racism is complicit in the perpetuation implicit bias.
Adultification also has a legal impact on Black children and has been the reason behind racist stereotypes that have caused the rampant criminalization of Black children. Such biases are entrenched within the criminal “justice” system and reinforce the violent and harmful interactions that Black children have with the police and within the judicial systems. While adultification finds its roots in the historical sexualization and degradation of Black girls, Black boys also find themselves being affected by adultification. In a groundbreaking study done by Georgetown Law School, “[r]esearch has shown that Black boys are also perceived as less innocent and more adult, and as a result, they are more likely to be assigned greater culpability for their actions, which increases their risk of contact with the juvenile justice system”. This perceived lack of innocence towards Black children is one of many factors that explain why Black individuals have higher incarceration rates, and why they often receive more severe punitive discipline (in school) and are more likely to be excluded from mainstream school. A 2014 study states that:
For Black girls their adultification in court environments has caused further dehumanization and traumatization by removing their inherent innocence, all the while forcing them into maturity. In schools, adultification also causes further disparities as Black girls are constantly subjected to a paradigm in which they are deemed socially mature yet academically dim. A reality in which Black girls are expected to uphold the femininity society deems them incapable of possessing which is reinforced through the enforcement of stereotypes and prejudicial expectations used to police and criminalise black bodies. Often deemed ‘Sapphires’ for having opinions, ‘Jezebels’ for their dances, and ‘Mammys’ for displaying independence, all the while their white counterparts are simply deemed courageous, creative and capable. The effects of adultification have severe real consequences as the adultification of pupils in the education system is a factor in the disproportionate rates of exclusion. Further, Black British students are close to three times more likely to face fixed-term exclusions which put children in truly dangerous positions as when removed from schools children are often more likely to become involved in criminal activities. Therefore systematically creating Black children who could potentially become stereotypical statistics due to the flaws in a system never designed to consider them.
In all, adultification has become a tool to further punish Black children and justify their criminalization all the while stripping them of their inherent innocence. The roots of racial prejudice and discrimination find themselves being enforced through the justice, education and social systems, which provide it the power to incarcerate, over-sexualize and dehumanise Black children. Although it may seem an issue that can be changed through policies and apologies, it truly requires systematic and personal change from all who have the potential to enforce it and all this is possible and can be as simple as ensuring there is accurate broad representation of Black girls in Media, and ensuring that our expectation for children apply to all children and although these changes may be small they have the potential to make the world of difference to children who have for far too long struggled under the weight and consequences of adulthood.
BLAM UK CIC 