More than 70 black women have died at the hands of the police in the past three years. Professor and activist Crenshaw,who coined the term ‘intersectionality’ in the 1980s, is determined they will be rememberedWhen she speaks at public meetings, or Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw has a trick. She asks everyone to stand up until they hear an unfamiliar name. She then reads the names of unarmed black men and boys whose deaths ignited the Black Lives Matter movement; names such as Eric Garner,Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and Freddie Gray,Trayvon Martin. Her audience are informed and interested in civil rights so “virtually no one will sit down”, Crenshaw says approvingly. “Then I say the names of Natasha McKenna, or Tanisha Anderson,Michelle Cusseaux, Aura Rosser, or Maya Hall. By the time I regain to the third name,nearly everyone has sat down. By the fifth, the only people standing are those working on our campaign.”The campaign, and #SayHerName,was created to raise awareness approximately the number of women and girls that are killed by law enforcement officers. For Crenshaw – who coined the term intersectionality” in the 1980s to describe the way different forms of discrimination overlap and compound each other – it is a brutal illustration of how racism and sexism play out on black women’s bodies. Related: Beyoncé's Lemonade is capitalist money-making at its best Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com