Much of the debate surrounding police behavior in the United States has revolved around fatal confrontations between unarmed black men and law enforcement, but a new movement wants to remind Americans that black women are also victims.
In order to do so, a new report was released Wednesday called ‘Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women,’ which documents cases in which black women have been killed, beaten or sexually assaulted by law enforcement. The report was authored by the African American Policy Forum (AAPF), the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies at Columbia University, and Andrea Ritchie, a Soros Justice Fellow and expert on women’s experiences with police.
“Although Black women are routinely killed, raped and beaten by the police, their experiences are rarely foregrounded in popular understandings of police brutality,” said Kimberle Williams Crenshaw, Director of the African American Policy Forum and co-author of the report, in a statement. “Yet, inclusion of Black women’s experiences in social movements, media narratives and policy demands around policing and police brutality is critical to effectively combating racialized state violence for Black communities and other communities of color.”
