Outcries against systemic racism almost always focus on Black men and boys. Yet, Black women and girls have also been targets of law enforcement, but they have not received the same attention and awareness as their male counterparts. Moreover, Black women and girls are not ancillary to anti-Black violence as they are often left to pick up the pieces. They must keep families together, manage the community’s collective loss, and lead the resistance with little acknowledgement of their own mental and physical well-being.
In February 2015, Kimberle Crenshaw and the African American Policy Forum (AAPF) coined the hashtag #SayHerName to bring awareness to often invisible names of Black female victims of law enforcement. Connecting the marginalization of Black women’s lived experience to “the historical emphasis on Black men’s stories,” Crenshaw states, “‘For our entire history of slavery and efforts to challenge it, the way that it’s experienced by men has been at the centre of it…And that has created a narrative about what anti-Black racism looks like. That is accurate, but it is not entirely inclusive'” (Young and McMahon).
#SayHerName amplifies the names and stories of Black women and girls lost to state violence and foregrounds the responsibility for the social and economic survival of Black families, networks, and communities many Black women and girls bear in the wake of anti-Black racism and violence . We shine the light on Black women and girls in Guelph and Wellington County in the hopes that by saying their names and telling their stories we create a more inclusive lens through which to see anti-Black racism and violence.