SayHerName
#SayHerName is a social movement that seeks to raise awareness for Black women victims of police brutality and anti-Black violence in the United States.
[3] In an effort to create a large social media presence alongside existing racial justice campaigns, such as #BlackLivesMatter and #BlackGirlsMatter, the AAPF coined the hashtag #SayHerName in December 2014.
[3] In May 2015, the AAPF released a report entitled "Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality against Black Women", which outlined the goals and objectives of the #SayHerName movement.
[5] Following Bland's death, the AAPF, the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies at Columbia Law School, and Andrea Ritchie issued an updated version of the original report.
[9] The movement actively considers how multiple social identities (including gender, sexual orientation, and class) influence an individual's experiences with police brutality and anti-Black violence, a concept known as intersectionality.
Brittany Cooper explains how intersectionality provides an analytical frame originally designed to address the unique positions of women of color within rights movements.
[15] Additional factors in an intersectional analysis within #SayHerName include cis or trans status, education, geographical location, and disability[15] – both on the parts of the victims being targeted and the officers responsible for the violence.
Crenshaw especially highlights the role of both physical and mental disability as a factor that puts victims more at risk of being targeted as threatening or otherwise violent by police.
[15] In instances of police misconduct where firearms are discharged, both female and child victims have been described as "collateral damage", which advocates say erases responsibility of the officer.
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 advertise upcoming events.
[17] 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.
Such high-profile support was seen immediately following the death of Sandra Bland; musical artist Janelle Monáe tweeted the #SayHerName hashtag, as did actress Taraji P.
The second #SayHerName Silent Protest: National Day of Action to End State Violence Against Women and Girls took place in major cities around the country and garnered significant attention on social media.
Weekends are reserved for educational purposes so individuals can learn about the specific needs of family members of black women and girls who are victims of racist state violence and provide a safe environment/comfort zone.
"[27] The WNBA dedicated their 2020 season to "long history of inequality, implicit bias and racism that disproportionately impacts communities of color" by partnering with the #SayHerName campaign.
Despite the diversity in background, with each woman sharing her story, the same underlying themes of vulnerability to physical police and aggressive sexual violence keep reappearing,[32] making it appear that simply saying the names, remembering the faces and increasing awareness is not enough.
Feminist theorists such as Kimberlé Crenshaw have pointed out that the #SayHerName movement addresses intersectionality of gender, class and disability that play out on Black women and girls' bodies.
Many supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement were largely sparked by outrage of the deaths of young African-American males at the hands of police with excessive violence and no repercussion from the legal system.
[34] #SayHerName aims to raise awareness of how sexism and racism simultaneously play out of colored female bodies, no matter their background, while still being a safe, inclusive space for all individuals to come together and create and participate in discourse.
[13] 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.
[37] In May 2015, the AAPF, in conjunction with the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies at Columbia Law School and Soros Justice Fellow, Andrea Ritchie, issued a report entitled "Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality against Black Women".
[4][38] 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.
[4][13][38] By contributing these recommendations, the AAPF, along with the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies at Columbia 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.
[4] 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.
These mothers also organize vigils for victims of police violence including Charleena Lyles and Vicky Coles-McAdory, who was an original member who died from a stroke in 2017.
Intended for immediate implementation, they include: "find ways to support all families who have lost loved ones to police violence, create spaces to discuss how the intersections of patriarchy, homophobia, and transphobia impact Black communities as a whole, and continuously develop skills to talk about the multiplicity of ways in which state violence affects all Black women and girls, particularly those who are transgender, non-transgender and gender-nonconforming".
[3] 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.
[3][36] Relatives of Tanisha Anderson, Rekia Boyd, Shantel Davis, Shelly Fray, Alberta Spruill, Kyam Livingston, Kayla Moore, Miriam Carey, and Michelle Cusseaux attended,[36][43][better source needed] marking the first time that the family members gathered at the same location for the purpose of honoring the women.
[43] In addition to commemorating the lives of such women, the event featured speeches, singing, poetry, and art by scholars, artists, and activists, including Kimberlé Crenshaw, Piper Anderson, Eve Ensler, LaChanze, and Aja Monet.
[3][36] On the other side of the country in May 2015, Black women and girls also stood in the middle of San Francisco, holding signs and displaying painted messages on their bare chests.
