Say Her Name

When watching Kimberlé Crenshaw’s TED talk, her quote about the frames of how we think about problems caught my attention. In the beginning of the TED talk, I was attempting to understand why exactly the names of the female victims of police violence were lesser known than the male victims. Crenshaw soon answered my question, it’s because of the frames within people think about a problem. Our framework has been set to focus on certain issues, such as race and gender inequality, but not these issues together. These women fell into the crossroads of racial and gender discrimination, but because of our single-minded framework, we fail to connect these two issues into one. This is why intersectionality is so important because without it we will continue to fail in giving people like these women equal treatment and attention.

The picture I chose is one of protestors holding a sign that says “Say Her Name.” The say her name movement was started in order to draw attention to the black female victims of police violence who were getting significantly less media attention than the black male victims of police violence. This picture goes with the Ted Talk because it shows how much still has to be done to draw attention to the issue of intersectionality. Like Crenshaw was saying, the Say her Name movement is a start in drawing attention to the issue black women face, but we have to be willing to do more. We have to be willing to bear witness to the reality of discrimination and violence. We have to be willing to do more to give the discrimination black women face the same attention we give their white women and black male counterparts.