Say Her Name

#SayHerName is a gender-inclusive racial justice movement that campaigns against police brutality and anti-Black violence against black women in the United States.[1] The movement aims to highlight the gender-specific ways in which police brutality and anti-Black violence disproportionately affect black women, especially black queer women and black trans women.[2] In the hopes of accumulating a large social media presence alongside other racial justice campaigns, including #BlackLivesMatter and #BlackGirlsMatter, the African American Policy Forum (AAPF) coined the #SayHerName hashtag in February 2015.[2]

Attendants of the #SayHerName vigil of May 20, 2015, located at Union Square in New York City.

In May 2015, the AAPF released a report entitled "Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality against Black Women," which outlines the goals and objectives of the #SayHerName movement.[3] Following Sandra Bland's fatal encounter with police in July 2015, the AAPF, in conjunction with the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies at Colombia Law School and Soros Justice Fellow, Andrea Ritchie, issued an updated version of the original report.[3] The updated version includes a description of the circumstances surrounding Bland's death as well as several accounts detailing recent incidents of police-instigated violence against such black women as Tanisha Anderson and Rekia Boyd. In addition to these accounts, the report provides an analytical framework for understanding black women's susceptibility to police brutality and state-sanctioned violence as well as offers suggestions as how to best mobilize communities into racial justice advocacy.[3]

Drawing from the AAPF report, the #SayHerName movement strives to address the invisibilization of black women within mainstream media and the #BlackLivesMatter movement.[1] Of its many agendas, one includes commemorating the women who lost their lives due to police brutality and anti-Black violence.[2] To advance this agenda, the AAPF, along with twenty local sponsors and the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies at Colombia Law School, organized a vigil on May 20, 2015, in New York City, where dozens gathered to demand that the public no longer ignore black women's struggles against gendered, racialized violence.[4]

Origins of the movement

The #SayHerName movement arose as a response to both the media's and the #BlackLivesMatter movement's tendency to exclude black women's contributions and lived experiences from mainstream racial justice narratives about police brutality and anti-Black violence.[5][6][7] Specifically, #SayHerName stems from what many perceive as a critical, urgent need to address the following discrepancy: police killings of such cisgender black men as Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown tend to garner a much higher degree of public outcry than police killings of such black women as Rekia Boyd and Shelly Frey.[6][8] Given how, in addition to the media, #BlackLivesMatter has contributed to the invisibilization of black women's lived experiences, the movement ultimately situates itself within a history of African American activism in which the struggles and lived experiences of heterosexual, cisgender black men become the focus of mainstream racial justice narratives about racism, police brutality, and state-sanctioned violence.[5]

Through its extensive focus on heterosexual, cisgender black men's lived experiences, some view #BlackLivesMatter, in its present manifestation, as an exclusionary movement that disregards the gender-specific ways in which police brutality and state-sanctioned violence disproportionately affect black women, especially black queer women and black trans women.[6][9] According to Kimberlé Crenshaw, one of the founders of the AAPF, black women's continued exclusion from dominant narratives about police brutality, racism, and anti-Black violence reproduce this erroneous notion that black men are the chief victims of racism and state-sanctioned violence.[9] As a consequence, dominant cultural conceptions of anti-Black violence wind up omitting any considerations into how the intersections between race, gender, class, and sexual orientation render black women susceptible to gender-specific forms of police-instigated violence, such as rape and sexual assault.[6][9]

To combat the media's and #BlackLivesMatter's tendency to invisibilize black women's struggles and lived experiences, #SayHerName seeks to incorporate a gender-inclusive, intersectional approach to racial justice advocacy that stresses how gender, race, class, and sexual orientation serve as the central axes around which racialized violence operates.[10] Although #BlackLivesMatter has contributed significantly to the invisibilization of black women's contributions and lived experiences, #SayHerName does not intend to replace or overthrow the #BlackLivesMatter movement. On the contrary, #SayHerName aims to engage in active dialogue with #BlackLivesMatter in the hopes of inciting the latter to re-integrate black women's struggles and experiences into mainstream racial justice narratives about police brutality and anti-Black violence.[2][11][12]

The movement's social media presence

The #SayHerName movement represents one of many contemporary social justice campaigns that engage in hashtag activism – a form of activism that utilizes such social media spaces as Twitter to generate an online platform for mobilization and consciousness-raising.[13] Coined by the AAPF in February 2015, the #SayHerName hashtag provides an online locus in which activists, scholars, news reporters, and other social media users can contribute to an online discourse on racial justice alongside other social movements, such as #BlackLivesMatter.[2][14] Of its many uses, the #SayHerName hashtag has principally served to highlight recent incidents of black women's fatal encounters with police and anti-Black violence as well as upcoming events at which attendants can mobilize.[12]

By addressing recent incidents of police-instigated violence, the #SayHerName hashtag strives to advance one of the chief goals of the movement: to re-integrate black women's lived experiences into mainstream racial justice narratives about police brutality and state-sanctioned violence.[2] Through its engagement with hashtag activism, #SayHerName situates itself within a recent social historical development in which the media's tendency to disregard or heavily misrepresent events pertaining to racial justice incites activists to commit themselves to digital activism.[14] In addition, with its increasing social media presence, #SayHerName provides an opportunity for a diversity of voices invested in racial justice to contribute to an ever-expanding discourse on black women's susceptibility to police brutality and anti-Black violence.[2][13]

The AAPF's role in the movement

The #SayHerName movement represents one of three recent racial justice initiatives engendered by the AAPF.[15] Since coining the #SayHerName hashtag in February 2015, the AAPF has assumed a central role in mobilizing the campaign - an effort which has culminated into at least two significant events: the AAPF's release of the report "Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality against Black Women" and its sponsoring of "#SayHerName: A Vigil in Remembrance of Black Women and Girls Killed by the Police."[10] Both events occurred in May 2015 and have served to disrupt mainstream racial justice narratives that attend exclusively to heterosexual, cisgender black men's susceptibility to police brutality and anti-Black violence.[4][10]

The May 2015 #SayHerName report

In May 2015, the AAPF, in conjunction with the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies at Colombia Law School and Soros Justice Fellow, Andrea Ritchie, issued a report entitled "Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality against Black Women."[3] The report highlights the goals and objectives of the #SayHerName movement and presents several reasons as to why gender-inclusivity is a critical component of racial justice advocacy.[3][16] In addition to these, the report includes several accounts detailing incidents from the last three decades of black women's fatal encounters with police brutality and state-sanctioned violence.[3][16] To supplement these accounts, the report incorporates an intersectional framework for understanding black women's susceptibility to police brutality by addressing how the interactions between race, gender, sexual orientation, class, and ability inform the violent ways in which law enforcement officials treat black women.[3][16]

After divulging recent incidents of police brutality against black women, the report concludes with several recommendations as to how members of local communities, policy-makers, researchers, and activists can best incorporate a gender-inclusive framework into racial justice campaigns that specifically address police brutality and state-sanctioned violence.[3][10][16] By contributing these recommendations, the AAPF, along with the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies at Colombia Law School and Andrea Ritchie, hopes that the report could serve as a useful resource to which the media, community organizers, policy-makers, and other stakeholders invested in racial justice can refer.[3][10]

After Sandra Bland's fatal encounter with police in July 2015, the AAPF released an updated version of the original report. While the structure of the updated version is similar to that of the original report, the updated version contributes additional accounts of black women's deadly encounters with police and includes a description of the circumstances surrounding Bland's death.[3] By issuing the updated version, the AAPF strives to reinforce the critical, urgent need for policy-makers, the media, community organizers, and other stakeholders to tackle the structural inequalities that render black women within the United States heavily susceptible to police-instigated, anti-Black violence.[1]

Names mentioned in the updated version of the #SayHerName report[3]

The #SayHerName Vigil of May 20, 2015

Social justice activist, writer, and artist Piper Anderson speaking at "#SayHerName: A Vigil in Remembrance of Black Women and Girls Killed by the Police."

In the evening of May 20, 2015, the AAPF, along with twenty local sponsors, including the Black Youth Project 100, and the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies at Colombia Law School, organized an event called "#SayHerName: A Vigil in Remembrance of Black Women and Girls Killed by the Police."[2] The purpose of the vigil, which transpired at Union Square in New York City, was to commemorate such women as Rekia Boyd, Tanisha Anderson, Miriam Carey, and Kayla Moore, among many others, who lost their lives due to police brutality and anti-Black violence.[2][4] Of the vigil's many attendants, several included the relatives of Tanisha Anderson, Rekia Boyd, Shantel Davis, Shelly Fray, Alberta Spruill, Kyam Livingston, Kayla Moore, Miriam Carey, and Michelle Cusseaux.[4][17] The vigil marks the first time that these family members gathered at the same location for the purpose of honoring the women who died as a result of police-instigated violence.[17]

In addition to commemorating the lives of such women as Shelly Fray and Kyam Livingston, the event featured speeches, singing, poetry, and art by scholars, artists, and activists, including Kimberlé Crenshaw, Piper Anderson, Eve Ensler, LaChanze, and Aja Monet. Given how the vigil occurred one day prior to the National Day of Action on Black Women and Girls, one of its principal aims was to mobilize the New York City community into action against gendered, racialized forms of violence and police brutality.[4][10] By demanding that the public no longer ignore black women's struggles against gendered, racialized violence, the vigil's attendants strove to advance one of the chief goals of the #SayHerName movement: to re-integrate black women leaders and victims of anti-Black violence into mainstream racial justice narratives about racism and police brutality.[2][4]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "#SayHerName Brief". AAPF. Retrieved 2015-10-11.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 "#SayHerName". AAPF. Retrieved 2015-10-11.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 "Publications". AAPF. Retrieved 2015-10-11.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "#SayHerName: Black Women And Girls Matter, Too". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 2015-10-11.
  5. 1 2 "Post-Ferguson: A “Herstorical” Approach to Black Violability on JSTOR". doi:10.15767/feministstudies.41.1.232#pdf_only_tab_contents.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Chatelain, Marcia; Asoka, Kaavya (2015-01-01). "Women and Black Lives Matter". Dissent 62 (3): 54–61. doi:10.1353/dss.2015.0059. ISSN 1946-0910.
  7. ↑ "A Herstory of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement by Alicia Garza - The Feminist Wire". The Feminist Wire. Retrieved 2015-11-04.
  8. ↑ Lindsey, Treva B. (2015-01-01). "Let Me Blow Your Mind Hip Hop Feminist Futures in Theory and Praxis". Urban Education 50 (1): 52–77. doi:10.1177/0042085914563184. ISSN 0042-0859.
  9. 1 2 3 "From Private Violence to Mass Incarceration: Thinking Intersectionally About Women, Race, and Social Control - UCLA Law Review". UCLA Law Review. Retrieved 2015-11-04.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Beyond Saying Her Name". The Feminist Wire. Retrieved 2015-11-04.
  11. ↑ Moore, Natalie. "Critics Say Women Are Neglected By Black Lives Matter Campaign". NPR.org. Retrieved 2015-11-13.
  12. 1 2 "Poet Confronts Police Brutality Against Black Women". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 2015-11-13.
  13. 1 2 Tassie, Keisha Edwards; Givens, Sonja M. Brown (2015-11-15). Women of Color and Social Media Multitasking: Blogs, Timelines, Feeds, and Community. Lexington Books. ISBN 9781498528481.
  14. 1 2 Bonilla, Yarimar; Rosa, Jonathan (2015-02-01). "#Ferguson: Digital protest, hashtag ethnography, and the racial politics of social media in the United States". American Ethnologist 42 (1): 4–17. doi:10.1111/amet.12112. ISSN 1548-1425.
  15. ↑ "Join the Movement". AAPF. Retrieved 2015-11-04.
  16. 1 2 3 4 "Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women | IWDA". IWDA. Retrieved 2015-11-05.
  17. 1 2 "#SayHerName Vigil in Remembrance of Black Women and Girls Killed by the Police, Wednesday, May 20 5:30pm, Union Square, NYC - One Billion Rising Revolution". One Billion Rising Revolution. Retrieved 2015-11-05.
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