I like to try something new those of you who are able please stand up okay so I'm gonna name some names when you hear a name that you don't recognize you can't tell me anything about them I'd like you to take a seat and stay seated the last person standing we're gonna see what they know okay all right Eric garner Mike Brown to me a rice Freddie gray so those of you who are still standing I'd like you to turn around and take a look I'd say half to most of the people are still standing so let's continue Michelle kuso tonisha Anderson are a russer Megan hockety so we look around again they're about four people still standing and actually I'm not gonna put you on the spot I just say that to encourage transparency so you could be seated so those of you who recognize the first group of names know that these were African Americans who've been killed by the police over the last two and a half years what you may not know is that the other list is also African Americans who have been killed within the last two years only one thing distinguishes the names that you know from the names that you don't know gender so let me first let you know that there's nothing at all distinct about this audience that explains the pattern of recognition that we've just seen I've done this exercise dozens of times around the country I've done it to women's rights organizations I've done it with civil rights groups I've done it with professors I've done it with students I've done it with psychologists I've done it with sociologists I've done it even with progressive members of Congress and everywhere the awareness of the level of police violence the black women experience is exceedingly low now it is surprising isn't it that this would be the case I mean there are two issues involved here there's police violence against African Americans and there's violence against women two issues that have been talked about a lot lately but when we think about who is implicated by these problems when we think about who's victimized by these problems the names of these black women never come to mind now communications experts tell us 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 these women's names have slipped through our consciousness because there are no frames for us to see them no frames for us to remember them no frames for us to hold them as the consequence reporters don't lead with them policymakers don't think about them and and politicians aren't encouraged or demanded that they speak to them now you might ask well why does the frame matter I mean after all an issue that affects black people and an issue that affects women wouldn't that necessarily include black people who are women and women who are black people well the simple answer is that this is a trickle down approach to social justice and many times it just doesn't work without frames that allow us to see how social problems impact all the members of a targeted group many will fall through the cracks of our movements left to suffer in virtual isolation but it doesn't have to be this way many years ago I began to use the term intersectionality to deal with the fact that many of our social justice problems like racism and sexism are often overlapping creating multiple levels of social injustice now the experience that gave rise to intersectionality was my chance encounter with a woman named Emma to graph and read Emma to graph and read was an african-american woman a working wife and a mother I actually read about him a story from the pages of a legal opinion written by a judge who had dismissed Emma's claim of race and gender discrimination against a local car manufacturing plant Emma like so many african-american women sought better employment for her family and for others she wanted to create a better life for her children and for her family but she applied for a job and she was not hired and she believed that she was not hired because she was a black woman now the judge in question dismissed Emma suit and the argument for dismissing the suit was that the employer did hire African Americans and the employer hired women the real problem though that the judge was not willing to acknowledge was what Emma was actually trying to say that the African Americans that were hired usually for industrial jobs maintenance jobs we're all men and the women that were hired usually for secretarial or our front office work we're all white only if the court was able to see how these policies came together would he be able to see the double discrimination that Emma to graph and Reid was facing but the court refused to allow Emma to put two causes of action together to tell her story because he believed that by allowing her to do that she would be able to have preferential treatment she had an advantage by being able to have two swings at the bat when african-american men and white women only had one swing at the bat but of course neither African American men or white women needed to combine a race and gender discrimination claim to tell the story of the discrimination they were experiencing why wasn't the real unfairness laws refusal to protect African American women simply because their experiences weren't exactly the same as white women and African American men rather broadening the frame to include African American women the court simply tossed their case completely out of court now as a student of anti-discrimination law as a feminist as an anti-racist I was struck by this case it felt to me like injustice squared so so first of all black women weren't allowed to work at the plant second of all the court doubled down on this exclusion by making it legally inconsequential and to boot there was no name for this problem and we all know that where there's no name for a problem you can't see a problem and when you can't see a problem you pretty much can't solve it many years later I'd come to recognize that the problem that Emma was facing was a framing problem the frame that the court was using to see gender discrimination or to see race discrimination was partial and it was distorting for me that the challenge that I faced was trying to figure out whether there was an alternative narrative a prism that would allow us to see Emma's dilemma a prism that would allow us to rescue her from the cracks in the law that would allow judges to see her story so it occurred to me maybe a simple analogy to an intersection might allow judges to better see Emma's dilemma so if we think about this intersection the roads to the intersection would be the way that the workforce was structured by race and by gender and then the traffic in those roads would be the hiring policies and and the other practices that ran through those roads now because emma was both black and female she was positioned precisely where those roads overlapped experiencing the simultaneous impacts of the companies gender and race traffic the law the law is like that ambulance that shows up and is ready to treat Emma only if it can be shown that she was harmed on the race road or on the gender Road but not where those roads intersected so what do you call being impacted by multiple forces and then abandon to fend for yourself intersectionality seem to do it for me I would go on to learn that african-american women like other women of color like other socially marginalized people all over the world we're facing all kinds of dilemmas and challenges as a consequence of intersectionality intersections of race and and gender of heterosexism transphobia xenophobia ableism all of these social dynamics come together and create challenges that are sometimes quite unique but in the same way that intersectionality raised our awareness to the way that black women live their lives it also exposes the tragic circumstances under which african-american women die police violence against black women is very real the level of violence that black women face is such that it's not surprising that some of them do not survive their encounters with police black girls as young as seven great-grandmother's as old as 95 have been killed by the police they've been killed in their rooms in their bedrooms they've been killed in their cars they've been killed on the street they've been killed in front of their parents and they've been killed in front of their children they have been shot to death they have been stomped to death they have been suffocated to death they have been manhandled to death they have been tasered to death they've been killed when they've called for help they've been killed when they were alone and they've been killed when they were with others they have been killed shopping while black driving while black having a mental disability while black having a domestic disturbance while black they've even been killed being homeless while black they've been killed talking on the cell phone laughing with friends sitting in a car reported as stolen and making a u-turn in front of the White House with an infant strapped in the back seat of the car why don't we know these stories why is it that their lost lives don't generate the same amount of media attention and communal outcry as the lost lives of their fallen brothers it's time for a change so what can we do in 2014 the african-american policy forum began to demand that we say her name at rallies at protests at conferences and meetings anywhere and everywhere that state violence against black bodies is being discussed but singer name is is not enough we have to be willing to do more we have to be willing to bear witness to bear witness to the often painful realities that we would just rather not confront the everyday violence and humiliation that many black women have had to face black women across color age gender expression sexuality and ability so we have the opportunity right now bearing in mind that some of the images that I'm about to share with you may be triggering for some to collectively bear witness to some of this violence we're going to hear the voice of the phenomenal Abbie Dobson and as we sit with these women some who've experienced violence and some who have not survived them we have an opportunity to reverse what happened at the beginning of this talk when we could not stand for these women because we did not know their names so at the end of this clip there's going to be a roll call several black woman's names will come up I'd like those of you who are able to join us in saying these names as loud as you can randomly disorderly let's create a cacophony of sound to represent our intention to hold these women up to sit with them to bear witness to them to bring them into the light you say her name say [Music] [Applause] Oh name child Oh [Music] as I said at the beginning if we can't see a problem we can't fix a problem together we've come together to bear witness to these woman's lost lives but the time now is to move from mourning and grief to action and transformation this is something that we can do it's up to us thank you for joining us thank [Music] [Applause]