Significance of Social Activist Movements to Deal with Intersectional Issues Faced by Black Women

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The movement gained much public attention following Sandra Bland's fatal encounter with police in July 2015 in Prairie View, Texas. Sandra Bland was 28-year-old Black woman from Naperville, Illinois. Shortly after her arrest, police claimed in a public statement that she committed suicide where as her family was certain she did no such thing. They had spoken to her just hours before she was alleged to have taken her own life, discussing arrangements to post her bail. Immediately after this AAPF in collaboration with center for intersection and Social Policy Study at Columbia School issued an updated version of the original report and started protesting vigorously in all states. I wont go into much detail of a single such case because personally I cannot take any sides as I don’t know if Sandra Bland’s death was a result of suicide or murder, but what is shocking is that before such movements such as “Say her name” raised their concerns about such incidents, no one even cared to do an investigation.

“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.

Leaders of the movement have lot of recommendation and demands from the government. I wont go into much detail but some of the main demands of the protestors taken from the movements report are:

1. Calling for passage of the End Racial Profiling Act of 2015, which for the first time includes a ban on racial profiling based on gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation, and urging local police departments to adopt and enforce gender and sexuality-inclusive racial profiling bans;

2. Calling for enactment and enforcement of “zero-tolerance” policies toward sexual harassment and assault of members of the public by police officers;

3. Calling for a comprehensive ban on confiscation, use, or mere possession or presence of condoms as evidence of any prostitution-related offense;

4. Calling for adoption and enforcement of police department policies explicitly banning officers from searching people to assign gender based on anatomical features, and requiring officers to respect gender identity and expression in all police interactions, searches, and placement in police custody;

5. Calling for use-of-force policies to prohibit the use of Tasers or excessive force on pregnant women or children.

As we all know that social media these days is the biggest and fastest platform to spread a word or start such activist movements, one of the many accomplishments of the movement is its success on social media such as twitter where the hashtag #SayHerName represents one of many social justice campaigns that engage plus gives a platform to activist, scholars, news reporters, and other social media users who can contribute to an online discourse on racial justice alongside other social movements. One of the many uses of #SayHerName hashtag is reporting incidents of black women's fatal encounters with police and anti-Black violence as well as upcoming events at which attendants can mobilize.

Intersectional issues among the community and movement.

Personally I believe the whole reason behind the creation of “Say her name” is due to intersectional issues among the black community itself. The movement arose as a response to both the media's and the “Black Lives Matter” movement's tendency not to include women contributions and started solely focusing on issues faced by Black males rather than be gender inclusive. In their report which was published in AAPF they clearly address this issue:

“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. Although “BlackLivesMatter” has contributed significantly to the invisibilization of black women's contributions and lived experiences, #SayHerName does not intend to replace or overthrow “BlackLivesMatter” movement” (Kimberle 5).

The significance of the movement was further affirmed by Former Senator Nina Turner, who specifically addressed issues faced by African American women. She said: “We don’t talk enough about what is happening in terms of violence against African-American women,” “We march in the streets for our men, and my God we should, but it is time we should also rise up for the sisters, and that is what ‘Say Her Name’ is all about.” (http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/the-time-has-come-say-her-name).

Other Authors such as Treva B. Lindsey are asking people to advocate more vigorously for women in the movement as she believes Black women especially queer and transgender are targeted more and this movement should not be for men but for women alone. She argues in her article : “As we unapologetically and audaciously declare that all #BlackLivesMatter, we also acknowledge the significance of continuing to build upon the tremendous legacy of our Black feminist foremother through our intellectual production” (Treva 2).

Conclusion:

Despite a lot of progress in achieving racial justice in American society over the past half century, still racial disparities in the criminal justice system exist and have also worsened in many respects. According to Report Published by “Black Lives Matter” in The Sentencing Project Journal, African American men born just after World War II, 15% of those without a high school degree were imprisoned by their mid-30s, and according to “Say her name” report of all the the woman arrested in New York, 53.4 percent of them were Black. This Clearly shows a need to address these issues and I am glad movements like “Say her name” and “Black Lives Matter” exist. In the end I would like to say that studying about intersectionality and its significance taught me a lot and opened whole new perspective to see how Black women in specific are being discriminated and we should do everything we can to put a stop to this.

References

Hankivsky, O., & Cormier, R. (2009). Intersectionality: Moving Women’s Health Research and Policy Forward. Vancouver: Women’s Health Research Network.

McCall, L. (2005) The complexity of intersectionality. Signs, Vol. 30, No. 3, pp. 1771-1800.

Brah, A. and Phoenix, A. (2004) ‘Ain’t I A Woman? Revisiting Intersectionality’, Journal of International Women’s Studies,