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Today is national #SayHerName action day.
The hashtag was established in 2015 after Sandra Bland, 28-year-old Black woman from Naperville, Illinois, was arrested and died in police custody in Waller County, Texas. Although her death remains a “mystery”, incidents similar to hers are common. Society intentionally contributes to the erasure of the violence and abuse done to black women and girls. In fact, it is respected and established institutions that create those injustices. Thus, in retrospect, society figuratively (and literally) kills the powerful existence of black females and subsequently tries to hide it. As a black female, all that I have to say is “thanks, a lot”.
School systems, the criminal justice system, and black men contribute to the abuse and criminalization of black females. According to an elle.com article entitled “Why Are Black Girls More Likely to Be Expelled?” black girls are more likely to get expelled, held back, or suspended from school than other groups of girls. Instead of seeing a black girl who probably needs love, understanding, support, or guidance, school administrators only see “the angry black girl”. It is as if black girls are left helpless in schools.
“We see them [black girls] as girls with bad attitudes rather than understanding conditions or traumas that create responses”, says Monique Morris author of Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools. Thus, black girls are left misunderstood and neglected. I am a witness to this at my high school all of the time.
Even the students think that all black girls like to be violent and cause fights. However, it is the lack of sympathy for the experiences that black girls are forced to endure that contribute to their behavior. That is the sentiment that I felt last year as I watched the video of a black girl in South Carolina being body slammed by an
officer in her classroom. Black girls are mistakenly misunderstood.
The criminal justice system has destroyed the lives of black girls. Sandra Bland, Rekia Boyd, and many others have lost their lives in the hands of the police. A recent incident occurred in which Symone Marshall, a 22-year old mother of a 3 year old, recently died in police custody and no one knows what happened or why she was held in custody in the first place. Total neglect. It seems that black women are excessively criminalized these days. Black women are imprisoned over twice the rate of white women. Furthermore in 2011, black women made up 23 percent of the female prison population.
Black men have exacerbated the injustice against black women. There have been many stories of domestic violence and rape of black females caused by black men. In fact, sixty percent of black girls have experienced sexual misconduct before becoming 18 years old. I mentioned the lack of black male accountability in a recent article that I wrote about the Anita Hill case.
Thus, #SayHerName is not just a frivolous hashtag that was made for fun. It is a call to bring awareness to the injustices that plague black women and girls on a daily basis.