Black Women

Centering Black Women’s Experiences Of Police Violence

September 21, 2015 Andrea J. Ritchie, www.truth-out.org Educate! #SayHerName, Black Women, police brutality

By Andrea J. Ritchie in Truth Out - While what happened to Sandra Bland was extraordinary in some respects, it was commonplace in many. A day after Bland's death, another Black woman, 18-year-old Kindra Chapman, was found dead in police custody. A total of five cases of Black women dying in police custody, including Bland and Chapman, surfaced the same month. They were preceded by many more, including Sheneque Proctor, Kyam Livingston and Natasha McKenna. The cause of death varies - apparent suicide, failure to provide necessary medical attention, violence at the hands of police officers - but ultimately, no matter the circumstances, these women's deaths are also a product of the policing practices that landed them in police custody in the first place: racial profiling, policing of poverty, and police responses to mental illness and domestic violence that frame Black women as deserving of punishment rather than protection, of neglect rather than nurturing.

Black Women Are Driving The Rebirth Of The Labor Movement

September 8, 2015 Anna Merlan, www.jezebel.com Resist! Black Women, Labor Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

By Anna Merlan in Jezebel - While those numbers show in depressing relief how fast and far union membership in America has fallen, the good news is that unions are still surviving, becoming more diverse (black workers are now the most likely to be unionized, according to the BLS), and moving into new fields. Fight for $15 is making real gains in the fast food industry and new media organizations are unionizing one right after the other these days (ahem). Latino workers still have the lowest rates of union membership, a gap that labor organizations are trying hard to close. At NBC, Kimberly Freeman Brown points out the other labor organizations led by black women: the National Domestic Workers Alliance, North Carolina’s Forward Together Moral Movement, and Wisconsin Jobs Now, among others. They’re among the women profiled in Freeman Brown’s And Still I Rise, a report and “love letter” to black women in labor released this year.

Laughing While Black Brings Police To Tour Train

August 26, 2015 Damon Young, www.verysmartbrothas.com Educate! Black Women, Literature, Racial Justice

By Damon Young in Very Smart Brothas - Every once in a while, you’ll see a story that’s so uniquely and unambiguously Black — with so many different aspects of Blackness involved in it — that it’s almost like someone had a Blackness Bingo card and was trying to fill every slot. The story of the11 Black women thrown off of a train — a train where the train’s only purpose is to transport tipsy people to somewhere where they can get more tipsy — for having too good of a time on that train qualifies. Seriously, if this story got any Blacker it would have to involve a Denmark Vesey hologram hurling empty Hennessy bottles at Donald Trump. Let’s just go down the list of all the things involved with this that can be categorized as some Black-ass shit.

8 Stats That Reveal How Badly Police State Hurts Black Women

August 1, 2015 Terrell Jermain Starr, www.alternet.org Resist! Black Women, Mass Incarceration, police brutality

By Terrell Jermain Starr in Alternet - A major barrier in understanding the ways in which the criminal justice system treats black women is the dearth of research on the subject. While statistics on how law enforcement engage black men are plentiful, similar data on black women is limited. But Bland’s death has sparked a rare national conversation that’s forcing the country to take a closer look at how law enforcement and the criminal justice system treat black women. AlterNet was able to find eight statistically-backed ways in which law enforcement disproportionately abuses black women, despite limited scholarly research devoted to the issue. Below are some of the most glaring findings, along with some commentary from Willingham and Jordan-Zachery.

Experiencing Police Brutality Made Me An Activist

July 29, 2015 Monica Raye Simpson, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! #BlackLivesMatter, #SayHerName, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Black Women, Cleveland, police brutality, Social Change

By Monica Raye Simpson in The Huffington Post - This past weekend, I joined over 1500 other activists from across the country in Cleveland, Ohio for the Movement For Black Lives Convening. We were all together -- black cis-gendered women and men, black queer women and men, trans women and trans men, black elders, black young people, black babies -- from across all movements learning, strategizing, resisting, creating and healing together. For me, it was a truly spiritual experience. I was sad that I had to return to Atlanta early, especially when I realized that this powerful and historic weekend took an unfortunate turn when Cleveland law enforcement arrested a 14-year-old boy and used pepper spray on protestors who fought to protect him. As I watched this ordeal unfold on social media, I wanted so desperately to be on the front lines with my sisters and brothers. I thought to myself, How could this weekend -- one full of so much love and brilliance -- end like this?

Why I Interrupted The Netroots Presidential Town Hall

July 22, 2015 Tia Oso, www.mic.com Resist! #BlackLivesMatter, #SayHerName, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Black Women, Elections, Leadership, Politics, Social Change

By Tia Oso in Mic - I am Tia Oso, the black woman who took to the stage and demanded a microphone on July 18 at the Netroots Nation Presidential Town Hall in Phoenix, Arizona. I did this to focus the attention of the nation's largest gathering of progressive leaders and presidential hopefuls on the death of Sandra Bland and other black women killed while in police custody, because the most important and urgent issue of our day is structural violence and systemic racism that is oppressing and killing black women, men and children. This is an emergency. Sandra Bland and I had a lot in common. We were both black women, active in our communities and the Movement for Black Lives. We both pledged sororities: I'm a Delta, Bland was a member of Sigma Gamma Rho. I have also been harshly confronted by police during "routine" traffic stops and feared for my safety and my life.

The Motivating Forces Behind Black Lives Matter

July 21, 2015 Tasbeeh Herwees, www.magazine.good.is Resist! #BlackLivesMatter, #SayHerName, Black Lives Matter (BLM), Black Women, Ferguson, History

By Tasbeeh Herwees in Magazine Good Is - The names of female victims of police violence—names like Rekia Boyd, Natasha McKenna and Mya Hall—however, remained unknown to most people. Cullors, Garza, and Tometi have been tireless in their campaign to change that, using Black Lives Matter to push for a more thorough rejection of state violence—one that considers the specific ways that this violence impacts the lives of black women. This means focusing on stories of black women who have been victimized by police or the prison system. But it also means cultivating a strong cohort of black women leaders within the movement at large. Unlike the Occupy protesters of 2011, who claimed to be leaderless, the co-founders of Black Lives Matter instead assert that their movement is—in their words—a leaderful one. And those leaders are frequently black women like Richards, women who are carrying out grassroots community work in their neighborhoods in service of a global struggle against police violence.

Police Criminals & The Brutalization Of Black Girls

June 16, 2015 Sikivu Hutchinson, www.thefeministwire.com Educate! Black Women, Patriarchy, police brutality, Racial Justice, Texas

By Sikivu Hutchinson in The Feminist Wire - The videotaped assault and sexual harassment of 14 year-old Dajerria Becton by a rampaging white police officer after a pool party in McKinney, Texas makes it clear that it continues to be open season on black women and girls. In the video officer Eric Casebolt grabs, straddles and violently restrains Becton while she is lying face down on the ground in a bikini. Ignoring her cries of pain and anxiety, he sadistically sits on her back while handcuffing her. Casebolt then pulls a gun on a few young people who attempt to intervene. Some of the good white citizens of McKinney have reportedly praised Casebolt’s thuggery. The assault of Becton is an enraging reminder of the particular brand of sexual terrorism black women routinely experienced in the Jim Crow South at the hands of white law enforcement and ordinary white citizens.

Rage Is Our Rightful Response to Anti-Black Racism

June 9, 2015 Kirsten West Savali, www.theroot.com Resist! Black Girls, Black Women, police brutality, Racial Justice, Texas

By Kirsten West Savali in The Root - Yes, it was painful to watch the boys restrained in handcuffs. One boy even appeared to be bleeding from his mouth, though whatever happened to cause that injury happened off camera. Still, it is the young girl, forced by her hair to the ground as she screamed for her mother, that chilled me the most. It’s the pleasure the white officer seemed to take from exerting power over her black body—as adult men, both black and white, stood by and did nothing—that enraged me. It is the thought of Daniel Holtzclaw, the former Oklahoma City police officer accused of sexually assaulting eight black women while on duty—and what the officer in this case possibly does to young black women when the cameras aren’t rolling—that made me sick to my stomach.

#SayHerName Project Explained

May 29, 2015 Jenée Desmond-Harris, www.vox.com Resist! Black Women, Patriarchy, police brutality, Racial Justice

On May 20, the African American Policy Forum released a report titled "Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women," to draw attention to the victimization of African-American women — in particular, by law enforcement officers. The release was accompanied by nationwide demonstrations — notably in New York and San Francisco — designed to draw attention to black women who have been killed, beaten, or sexually assaulted, but whose cases haven't elicited national attention matching that of high-profile cases of unarmed black men killed by police in recent years. The organizations behind the report, which was co-authored by UCLA professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, and supporters of its message have used the hashtag #SayHerName to draw attention to its mission.

How Black Women Can Rescue The Labor Movement

May 6, 2015 Kimberly Freeman Brown And Marc Bayard, www.theroot.com Strategize! Black Women, Economic Justice, Labor Unions, Racial Justice, Social Change, Unemployment

The roles that African Americans play in their families and communities, on the job and in their unions are acts of resistance against the staggering inequality they face on a daily basis. The statistics regarding African-American wealth and wage inequality, unemployment, mass incarceration, police brutality and poverty are daunting. To cite just one, as of March 2015, the black unemployment rate (10.1 percent) was more than double the white unemployment rate (4.7 percent). Second, this report is our love letter to the labor movement—offering sometimes tough, but always unflappable, affection. We know what some may have forgotten: that if you are concerned about the economic advancement of black women, families and communities, you must think twice before you dismiss the value and importance of the labor movement.

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