In recent years, the issue of women and law enforcement is gaining a new level of public visibility. Conversations are occurring everywhere on police violence against women. However, not everyone is of the view that the use of violence by police is inappropriate (Jacobs 40). A particular group that is central to this discussion is African American women. Black women experience violence at the hands of law enforcement officers that is unique in a manner not reflected in other women of color. Mainstream feminists tend to discuss police violence against women under the umbrella of women of color, which includes Native American women, Asian Women, Latinas, and Black women. There is a need to particularly focus on police violence on African American women that is sometimes fatal.
In the TED talk Urgency of Intersectionality, Kimberle Crenshaw highlighted the need to look broadly at the double discrimination of African American women based on race and gender, which she referred to as intersectionality (Crenshaw 05:07). The central issue of the talk was the low awareness of police violence against African American women, particularly when it fatal. Crenshaw provided a solid argument on how the failure of stakeholders to grasp the connection between violence against African Americans ad violence against women, in other words, intersectionality, was the contributing factor to low awareness on the deaths of African Americans in the hands of the police.
Crenshaw was well-informed on the facts of police violence against African Americans. She started the talk by demonstrating how extremely low awareness of police level of violence against African American women is. While many people recognized the names of African American men killed by police within the previous two and a half years, only a few knew the names of African American women killed within the same period. Crenshaw clarified that she achieved the same outcome after doing the same exercise across the United States with different groups, including women’s rights organizations, civil rights groups, professors, students, psychologists, sociologists, and progressive members of Congress (Crenshaw 02:34).
A look into the history of the interaction of African women and the state provides background information to Crenshaw’s talk. The interaction between law enforcement and African American women is marked with violence. Police murder African American women, assault and injure them, arrest them unlawfully, and facilitate their trials, conviction, and incarceration for defending themselves against nonpolice violence (Jacobs 41). The interaction of African American women and the state began with violence following the establishment of slavery in the colonial world. In those days, slaveholders would kill, maim, or mutilate African Americans without any repercussions (Jacobs 44). The situation was worse for women as slaveholders, and their employees would rape and sexually abuse them at will. Although a lot has changed over the decades, some of the stereotypes that originated during slavery trickled down generations and are entrenched in the White police officers who mete violence on African American women, even killing them.
#BlackLivesMatter movement is attributed to the national media attention that police killings of African Americans receive. However, police killings of African American women receive little attention, as most attention focus on their male counterparts (Jacobs 42). In response, independent journalists and grassroots movements are now tracking police killings as there is inadequate data from law enforcement on the number of African Americans killed by the police. Statistical analysis of the little available data shows that police killings of African American women receive diminished attention compared to the police of African American men.
Crenshaw noted that awareness is low despite being a combination of two issues that continue to gain a lot of attention: police violence against African-Americans and violence against women. She attributed the little awareness to lack of framing to describe the experience of these women. Crenshaw referred to a notion by communication experts that “when facts do not fit with the available frames, people have a difficult time incorporating new facts into their way of thinking about a problem” to point to the root of the problem (Crenshaw 03:26). The implication is that police killings of African American women fail to get into the spotlight. She added that where there is no name for a problem, one cannot see a problem, and therefore one cannot solve it (Crenshaw 08:42).
Framing of an issue is critical in how people perceive it. It structures and presents a problem or an issue by explaining and describing the context of the problem to reflect the attitudes and beliefs of the majority. Framing is specific about what the issue is, the people involved, what contributes to the problem, and what contributes to the solution (Liu et al., 1). As such, lack of framing, as Crenshaw reiterates, impedes the not only the understanding of but also avenues of exploring the solutions to police violence on African American women.
Crenshaw provided an excellent example of an African American woman, Emma DeGraffenreid, whose lawsuit on race and gender discrimination against a local car manufacturing plant was dismissed because a judge did not allow Emma to connect the two to tell her story (Crenshaw 05:23). The case of Green strengthens her argument on missing information in the general public on prejudice experienced by African American women. The period that Nancy Green, a former prosecutor turned media personality, reported about missing women highlighted a long-standing lack of coverage of crimes committed against African American women. Grace only reported about missing White women, without a single case of a missing African American woman (Jacobs 52). Gwen Ifill, the late NPR anchor, came up with the phrase “missing white woman syndrome” to describe the unbalanced media focus on White women (Jacobs 53). The two cases demonstrate the importance of frames in allowing people to see how social problems impact all the members of a targeted group (Crenshaw 04:35).
According to Crenshaw, intersectionality results from overlapping social justice problems such as racism and sexism and leads to multiple levels of social injustice (Crenshaw 05:07). She compared intersectionality to an intersection on a road where roads overlap (Crenshaw 09:48). She acknowledged that intersectionality does not only affect African-American women bit also other women of color and other socially marginalized people across the globe where they face all challenges and dilemmas as a consequence of intersectionality of various social dynamics (Crenshaw 11:02).
Concerning double discrimination that women receive that involves sexism and another form of prejudice, Laura Bates defined intersectionality refers to the awareness of and acting on the fact that various forms of prejudice are interconnected since they are rooted in being different, other or somehow secondary to normal (Bates 1). The forms of prejudice other sexism include racism, classism, homophobia, ageism, transphobia, disableism, and stigma sounding mental-health problems. Double, triple, or quadruple discrimination is a recurring theme and issue of focus in modern feminism. Therefore intersectionality is a term accurately describes the overlapping of various forms of prejudice.
Intersectionality not only raises awareness of the way of life of African women, but it also raises awareness of the tragic circumstances in which they die, such as at the hands of police. Police violence against black women affects African Americans. Those that die as a result of the violence are different ages ranging from a young as seven years old to 95-years old, in various settings, circumstances, and ways of death (Crenshaw 12:07). Throughout the talk, Crenshaw provided images of African American women who have died at the hands of the police. Additionally, at the end of the talk, she offered video evidence of police violence on African American women to further her case.
#SayHerName project by African-American Policy Forum attempts to bring to the forefront of public discussion the stories’ of these women (Jacobs 42). Similarly, Crenshaw suggested that people should support #SayHerName at all venues that hold discussions about state violence against people of color (Crenshaw 14:09). She added that people have to be willing to do more and bear witness to the often painful realities of the daily violence and humiliation that many women of color have had to face.
In conclusion, the Urgency of Intersectionality talk that is not only relevant and appropriate in light of the increased media coverage of police killings of African American women but also contributes to raising awareness of these killings by urging people to support #SayHerName. The interaction of African American women is marked by violence that dates back to slavery in the colonial period. Crenshaw was on point when she stated that lack of framing contributes to the low awareness of these unfortunate incidences. Her view of intersectionality gets support from other authors as it accurately describes how various forms of prejudice overlap leading to double discrimination of African American women based on race and gender. There is a need for enhanced efforts to promote #SayHerName, #BlackLivesMatter, and other movements that raise awareness on the brutal police killings of African American women in a bid to stop the vice.