Episode 8 - Spare the Kids: Dr. Stacey Patton on Race, Corporal Punishment and Why Whuppins Won't Save Black America

Perhaps you’ve heard it said before: “I got spanked as a kid and I turned out alright!,” or “If I don’t whoop you, the police will do far worse” as rationales for corporal punishment, in general, and especially within the black community (and white working class communities). But while the people who say these things may mean well, what damage does spanking children actually do? My guest this week is professor, author, and scholar Dr. Stacey Patton of Morgan State University. Her work (and her personal story) attest to the damage done by corporal punishment and the way violence done to black children for generations under enslavement and white supremacy ultimately became embedded in the thinking of even those victimized by it. As Patton — an unapologetic critic of racism and white supremacy — makes clear, historically speaking, spanking or “whuppin” black children is “literally the whitest thing you can do.” Until we begin to see such practices as antiquated and destructive forms of abuse, generations of young people will continue to be hit in the name of love, embedding deeply destructive mixed messages about the care they deserve, both as children and later as adults.