Lecture Notes: Intersectionality and Awareness of Police Violence Against Black Women

Introduction Exercise

• Audience asked to stand if they recognize certain names.
• Names involved African Americans killed by police.
• Outcome showed recognition disparity based on gender.

Recognition Disparity

• Commonly recognized names were male victims.
• Lesser-known names were female victims.
• Gender is the distinguishing factor between the lists.

Awareness Across Different Audiences

• Low awareness of black women's police violence experiences across various groups.
• Includes women's rights organizations, civil rights groups, academics, and even progressive Congress members.

Communication and Framing

• Issues of police violence against African Americans and violence against women often discussed separately.
• Black women's experiences often omitted due to lack of frames to incorporate their stories.
• Reporters, policymakers, and politicians often overlook black women victims.

Importance of Framing

• Lack of inclusive frames leads to many falling through the cracks of social movements.
• Intersectionality as a concept helps understand overlapping social injustices.

Story of Emma de Graafenried

• African American woman suing for race and gender discrimination.
• Judge dismissed her claim by considering race and gender separately.
• Intersectionality highlights double discrimination in Emma's case.

Analogy to an Intersection

• Workforce structured by race and gender as roads.
• Hiring policies as traffic.
• Law's inability to address intersectional discrimination.

Intersectionality Explained

• Term used to recognize overlapping social justice issues.
• Explains unique challenges faced by marginalized groups due to intersecting social dynamics.

Police Violence Against Black Women

• High, yet under-recognized, levels of violence faced by black women.
• Victims range from young girls to elderly women, in various situations.
• Lack of media attention and communal outcry for female victims compared to male counterparts.

Call to Action

• African American Policy Forum initiated "Say Her Name" movement.
• Encourages public recognition and remembrance of black women victims.
• Bearing witness to painful realities crucial to addressing the problem.

Conclusion

• Urgency in transitioning from mourning to action.
• Collective responsibility to bring change through awareness and advocacy.