Document Type

Report

Publication Date

2015

Abstract

Say Her Name sheds light on Black women’s experiences of police violence in an effort to support a gender-inclusive approach to racial justice that centers all Black lives equally. It is our hope that this document will serve as a tool for the resurgent racial justice movement to mobilize around the stories of Black women who have lost their lives to police violence ...Our goal is not to offer a comprehensive catalog of police violence against Black women – indeed, it would be impossible to do so as there is currently no accurate data collection on police killings nationwide, no readily available database compiling a complete list of Black women’s lives lost at the hands of police, and no data collection on sexual or other forms of gender- and sexuality- based police violence. Moreover, the media’s exclusive focus on police violence against Black men makes finding information about Black women of all gender identities and sexualities much more difficult. Given these limitations, our goal is simply to illustrate the reality that Black women are killed and violated by police with alarming regularity. Equally important, our hope is to call attention to the ways in which this reality is erased from our demonstrations, our discourse, and our demands to broaden our vision of social justice. As a result of the paucity of data, the stories of police violence included in this document are essentially either gathered through online research or cases that have come to the attention of the report’s authors. Many cases have never seen the light of day, and even those that have surfaced momentarily have received little sustained national or local attention. Significantly more women who have been killed by the police are missing from these pages, but their lives are certainly no less valuable.

Disciplines

Civil Rights and Discrimination | Law | Law and Race

Center/Program

Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies

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