Joy Wilson Social Science
Am I a “Good” or “Bad” Black Girl?: The Criminalization of Black Girls in San Diego and Identity Formation
Scholars Journal
San Diego is “America’s Finest City,” but it's an epicenter for policing and minority criminalization, with a Marine Corps Base, U.S. Border Patrol, and 11 police departments. However, the experience of Black girls’ identity formation in a hyper-policed space like San Diego is absent in research, with most available accounts only focusing on Black men and boys. Therefore, Joy aims to expose how the criminalization of Black girls in San Diego influences their identity formation, namely how they present themselves, and how that feeds into moralized categories of “good” and “bad”. By conducting surveys and semi-structured interviews of young Black women, Joy strives to develop a deeper understanding of how race, gender, and space influence how Black girls navigate their Blackness and being a woman in San Diego.
Major: African American Studies
Mentor: Nikki Jones, African American Studies