Tag: Say Her Name

Keeda Haynes For Congress

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Former public defender Keeda Haynes, who was also formerly incarcerated, is running for Congress in Tennessee, challenging a nearly two-decade Democratic incumbent and hoping to become the first Black woman the state sends to Congress.

After her release, Haynes completed her law degree and practiced as a public defender in Nashville for over six years. Haynes thinks her time in prison — and her experience defending others caught up in the country’s racist criminal justice system — are precisely what would make her a great congresswoman.

“I am running because looking around I can see that people that look like me, that have the same issues I have, we were not being represented in this district.”

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Sandra Bland: 5 Year Anniversary Of Her Death In Police Custody

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The recent deaths of Black people either in police custody or due to police officers have led to international outcry.

The deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor evoke memories of the mysterious death of a 28-year-old Black woman who died in a Texas jail five years ago Monday.

Sandra Bland, who died on July 13, 2015, was one of many who sparked the early Black Lives Matter movement, which seeks to find justice in cases of Black people killed or who died in police custody.

Bland was found dead on that day in a Waller County Jail.

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HASHTAG BLACK LIVES MATTER: Origin Story

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The story of 3 brilliant black women who wrote a love letter to black people and reshaped the narrative.

How they brought people at the margins together to build their power.

Exposing how the police are there to help unjust systems thrive.

Recognizing the power of Social Media but always remembering we have to show up…physically.

Stepping away from the false narrative of respectability politics, into the gloriousness of our wretchedness.

Thanks you Alicia Garza. Thank you Opal Tometi. Thank you Patrisse Cullors.

#BlackLivesMatter

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DECONSTRUCTING PRIVILEGE

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The killing of George Floyd was shocking. But to be surprised by it is a privilege African Americans do not have.

A black person is killed by a police officer in America at the rate of more than one every other day. Floyd’s death followed those of Breonna Taylor, an emergency medical technician shot at least eight times inside her Louisville home by plain-clothes police executing a no-knock warrant, and Ahmaud Arbery, killed in a confrontation with three white men as he jogged through their neighborhood in Brunswick.

Floyd’s gasps were familiar, the same words Eric Garner uttered on a Staten Island street corner in 2014…

“I Can’t Breathe.”

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SAY HER NAME: BREONNA TAYLOR.

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The Black Lives Matter movement continues to show up on Milwaukee buildings.

Artists Ruben Alcantar and Chris Burke teamed up to create a mural of Breonna Taylor.

Taylor was shot and killed by police in Louisville, Kentucky.

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CULTURE OF VIOLENCE

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One late summer evening, Debbie cracked.

After weeks of deliberating, she phoned Merseyside Police to report her partner for serious allegations of physical and verbal abuse. It was a decision she would soon regret. The problem, she says, is that he was an officer with the same force.

“He used to say the police would protect him and if I phoned up against him, he’d just get me put in prison,” she said. “One day it was too much and I did phone. In hindsight that was the biggest mistake of my whole life.”

Domestic abuse is often predicated on fear. Fear of what your abuser will do next, fear that you’re going mad, fear that no one will believe you. Many of those affected are understandably afraid of how their partner will react if they report them; some do so anyway.

So what happens when your abuser is part of the system that’s supposed to protect you?

Debbie is one of multiple women who have told the Bureau of Investigative Journalism they suffered emotional or physical abuse at the hands of police officer partners, and that they believe their partners used their professional positions to seek to intimidate or harass them.

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CHICAGO RALLY TODAY: We Need You There!

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Please meet at Union Park.

Before COVID, before George Floyd: Mayor Lori Lightfoot has turned a blind eye to violence against Black, Latinx, Immigrant Neighborhoods.

Wherefore, Chicago Police have beat us.

Wherefore, Chicago Police have harassed us in our own neighborhoods before the protests.

Wherefore, Chicago Police are currently using demonstrations of heartfelt outrage as justification for Brutality.

NO MORE!

WE DEMAND…

– Defund and demilitarize the police
– CPD and National Guard stand down IMMEDIATELY
– End the Curfew
– Release all protesters
– Redirect CPD funds to schools, PPE equipment, COVID testing, and rent relief

Justice For George Floyd. Say Her Name: Breonna Taylor. Black Lives Matter.

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VIOLENCE AGAINST BLACK WOMEN & GIRLS…..NOTICE. IT.

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Breonna Taylor was an essential worker.

An EMT with aspirations to be a nurse, she was one of the people whose daily labor of keeping people safe we have come to value anew in the age of COVID-19.

In March, Louisville Police Officers killed her after their choice to serve a no-knock warrant in plain clothes after midnight was met with gunfire by her boyfriend, who was startled by the intruders.

Investigations are ongoing, but no charges have been brought against the officers.

In a country reeling from being involuntary witnesses to the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, Breonna Taylor’s death does not fit the spectacular forms of police killing that we have come to associate with America’s nefarious lynching past.

As such, the Louisville protests on her behalf after Floyd’s death were belated attempts to rectify and recognize the ways that Black women are rarely the first thought in our outrage over police shootings. But Black women are surely worthy of more than secondary outrage.

Rendering Black women as the afterthought in matters of police violence necessitated the creation of the Say Her Name campaign in 2015, a perennial reminder that Black women are victims of state violence too.

Why does it remain so difficult for outrage over the killing of Black women to be the tipping point for national protests challenging state violence?

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY BREONNA TAYLOR

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People are wishing Breonna Taylor a happy birthday on the day she would have turned 27.  Taylor was shot and killed by police officers who entered her home in March. Black Lives

In April, Taylor’s mother filed a wrongful death suit that alleging the police had no reason to enter Taylor’s home as the suspect they were looking for had already been placed in custody.

The police officers had used a no-knock warrant that allowed them to enter Taylor’s home without identifying themselves. Taylor’s partner, Kenneth Walker, thought the police were intruders and opened fire, hitting one officer.

The Louisville police then shot around 25 bullets, hitting Taylor eight times.

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