When video surfaced recently of Deputy Ben Fields assaulting a young Black female student at Spring Valley High School in South Carolina, I was still absorbing the details of a disturbing conversation I’d had with young, Black, college-age women about rape culture and campus sexual violence. Despite the traumatic experiences relating to sexual assault that they […]
Police Violence
We Heart: Janelle Monáe’s #BlackLivesMatter Activism
Last Friday, singer Janelle Monáe appeared on the Today show to perform as part of its summer concert series. After finishing her song “Tightrope,” she began to give an impassioned speech to the still-cheering crowd: Yes Lord! God Bless America! God Bless all who have lost lives to police brutality! We want white America to […]
Kimberlé Crenshaw on Sandra Bland & Why We Need to #SayHerName
The jailhouse death of Sandra Bland has her family and activists asking a lot of questions—which don’t seem to have good answers. Bland’s case is the latest example of police violence against Black women, joining many other women and girls of color who have been harassed, abused or killed at the hands of law enforcement. […]
Everything You Need to Know About Sandra Bland
“Once I put this baby in the ground, I’m ready…This means war.” These were the words spoken by Geneva Reed-Veal as she eulogized her late daughter, Sandra Bland, last week. On July 10, 28-year-old Bland was pulled over by police in Prairie View, Texas for allegedly failing to signal before changing lanes. According to police, she became […]
A Girl Child Ain’t Safe
“I had to fight my uncles. I had to fight my brothers. A girl child ain’t safe in a family of men.” So said Sofia, the hefty, feisty woman in Alice Walker’s The Color Purple (and immortalized by Oprah Winfrey in the film adaptation). In a novel highlighting protagonist Celie, an incest survivor who ultimately […]
McKinney and the History of Policing Black Women’s Bodies
Last Friday, a white police officer in McKinney, Texas, Cpl. Eric Casebolt, responded to a call about an incident at a teenage pool party. While there, he grabbed—by the hair—bikini-clad Dajerria Becton, a 15-year old African American girl who was a guest at the party, wrestled her to the ground and held her there with […]
#SayHerName: Remembering Black Women and Girls Killed by Police
Aiyana Jones. Rekia Boyd. Tarika Wilson. Duanna Johnson. Kayla Moore. The list of Black women and girls victimized by police violence stretches on endlessly. The simple act of speaking their names has power. It symbolizes a refusal to forget these women and who they were. It honors the lives they lived and the loved ones […]
NEWSFLASH: DOJ Finds Rampant Racial Bias Among Ferguson Police
While the Department of Justice has chosen not to bring criminal charges against Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson—who fatally shot Black teenager Michael Brown last year—the DOJ has found evidence of rampant racial bias on that city’s police force. The DOJ spent the last six months investigating Ferguson’s police department, examining arrest and ticketing records […]
How #BlackLivesMatter Became the Word of the Year
For the first time in its history, the American Dialect Society voted for a hashtag as 2014’s Word of the Year. The phrase in question is #BlackLivesMatter, the resounding call to arms that went viral after the 2013 trial trial of George Zimmerman—who shot and killed teenager Trayvon Martin—saw Zimmerman walk free. It gained traction again […]
Six Months After the Killing of Michael Brown
Michael Brown was gunned down by police in his Ferguson, Missouri, neighborhood six months ago today. Trayvon Martin, killed by a self-appointed “vigilante,” would have turned 20 years old last Thursday. Also last week: the 16th anniversary of the death of Amadou Diallo, who was shot at 41 times by NYPD when reaching for his […]