{"id":2743,"date":"2019-11-07T08:00:04","date_gmt":"2019-11-07T14:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/?p=2743"},"modified":"2019-11-07T10:14:21","modified_gmt":"2019-11-07T16:14:21","slug":"sayhername-and-black-womens-experiences-with-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/2019\/11\/07\/sayhername-and-black-womens-experiences-with-police\/","title":{"rendered":"#SayHerName and Black Women\u2019s Experiences with Police"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo by The All-Nite Images, Flickr CC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this month another Black American, Atatiana Jefferson<\/a>, was fatally gunned down by a Fort Worth police officer in her own home. In the weeks since her death, community activists and residents have called for law enforcement accountability and reform of the police department\u2019s use of force policies. As the Fort Worth community continues to grieve and fight for justice, Jefferson\u2019s death reminds us Black women must be included in conversations around police violence, reform, and accountability. After a decades long struggle for visibility, Black women activists created the hashtag #SayHerName<\/a> to bring awareness to the growing number of Black cis- and transgender women killed by law enforcement — a list Jefferson has now joined at just 28-years-old. A small but impressive group of sociological works have highlighted Black women\u2019s experiences with police and the racialized and gendered challenges that lie ahead in developing police-community trust.
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Similar to Black men and boys, Black women and girls also hold higher levels of legal cynicism<\/a> (distrust) in law enforcement than whites. They report being stopped and facing verbal harassment for traffic incidents or, in the case of Black girls, breaking curfew — especially when in the presence of Black male peers. Black women and girls also distrust police due to their unresponsiveness to serious calls involving interpersonal, domestic, and sexual violence. For many Black women and girls living in low-income communities, police violence is simply one form of a larger \u201cmatrix of violence,\u201d where they must also navigate interpersonal and neighborhood violence. At times, police are the perpetrators of these gender-specific forms of violence. These matrices remain interconnected, as cynicism towards law enforcement hinders reliance on police to address other forms of violence.
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