As Diasporic Black women, as Black women who mother, biologically and other, the Collaborative for the Research of Black Women and Girls write this letter in response to state sanctioned violence and anti-Blackness. We affirm the work of African American Policy Forum’s #SayHerName initiative, the Black Visions Collective, the Movement for Black Lives and the broader struggle to build a gender inclusive movement and lift up the voices of all self-identified Black women. We write this letter as we mourn Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmad Arbery, Tony McDade, Rakia Boyd, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, Mya Hall, Atatiana Jefferson, Korryn Gaines, Sandra Bland and all the numerous daughters, sons, brothers, sisters, mamas, fathers, cousins, aunties and uncles that we have lost. We mourn! 

Breonna Taylor’s murderer remains free

Korryn Gaines’ murderer remains free

Sandra Bland’s “murderer” remains free

Aiyana Stanley-Jones’s murderer was acquitted and freed

They remain free while many of us continue to face excessive and brutal force by the police and other institutions.

We are mindful that state sanctioned violence and anti-Blackness occurs in the midst of COVID-19. We have witnessed the disproportionate deaths of Black people because of Covid-19. The racial inequities in the healthcare system are further exacerbated by the fact that many Black people work in essential roles, many lack health insurance, have subpar health services in their communities, and many do not have adequate access to personal protective equipment or the ability to social distance. Environmental racism as we have seen in Flint, Michigan means that Black people also may not have access to clean water. Black people disproportionately suffer under the weight of economic depression and the political weight of a country governed by heteropatriarchal racial capitalism. These are not isolated phenomena, but are corollaries of deeply-rooted, global white supremacy and abuse of power.

Consequently,

Black women face growing and exponentially high rates of incarceration.

Black girls are pushed out of school at growing and exponentially high rates. 

Black women are dying in childbirth and in the postpartum period at disproportionately high rates.

Black women’s wombs have been attacked

Black women are being blamed for the tragic outcomes of their pregnancies

Black trans-women are being murdered and society remains quiet

Black women and their families are being evicted at disproportionate rates.

Black women are not receiving the mental health support we need, instead we are being murdered.

We are angry!

Black women are not receiving the mental health support we need, instead we are being murdered. 

We recognize and harness our anger in a way that advances our desire to be free. Audre Lorde writes about the transformative nature of Black women’s anger in her 1981 essay entitled “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism.” She writes 

We harness our anger to combat all systems of oppression and reconnect with our authentic selves through love, healing, and intimacy. We transform our anger into the creative energy necessary to redefine the terms under which we live. We claim our power to envision and build a new future for ourselves and our generations. 

Moving and being in our anger also allows us to recognize and resist that which seeks to silence, produce partial freedoms, and discredit our personhood. We resist: 

• The corporatization of #BlackLivesMatter, which results in slogans and symbolic action while racism and inequity remains. 
• The increasing privatization of prisons that depend on Black bodies for profit. 
• The militarization of the police and increasing police state. 
• Anti-Black rhetoric that labels and names Black protests and protesters as violent (while ignoring the real violence inflicted on their psyche and bodies), which reinscribes white dominance 
• Calling on Black people to be calm and measured, therefore dictating how Black people should respond to their pain. 
• Using violence against Black people and Black death as “teachable moments” for white people. These are moments of grief, sadness, and mourning for Black people; they should not be expected to focus their energies on explaining and discussing, narrating their death while they are dying. 
• Bifurcated discourses that equate care, love, and justice for Black selves with hatred for police officers. 
• Rhetoric that erases Black personhood by refusing to identify race, choosing instead to use “people of color” or inserting other minoritized social categories into conversations about Blackness. All oppression needs to be addressed, but we are specifically talking about Black people in this moment. Tarry with Black people. 
• Empty platitudes by university diversity and inclusion committees without systemic divestment from the police and other institutions of anti-Black violence and a failure of these institutions to address how they harm Black faculty, staff and students. Statements of condemnation are not enough. It’s time to do the work!
• U.S. centric discourses that refuse to link the oppression of Black people in the U.S. to the oppression of Black people everywhere. Anti-Blackness is not just a U.S. problem. 
• Single issue responses to multi-issue problems. Black femmes, girls and women face a matrix of domination that cannot be reduced to simply racism, sexism, or homophobia. We must address all of these interlocking oppressions holistically. 

How do we create lives and realities that are reflective of our critiques? We affirm our love for Black families. We affirm investing in Black communities. We affirm the call for restorative justice and reparations. We affirm the call to demolish Confederate and other white supremacist monuments here and around the world. We stand with the global community as they fight anti-Black racism in their countries. We hold space for Black women and girls, and we start with our upcoming online forum, Pepper Pot, designed for Black identified girls between the ages of 9-13. To protect our girls, this forum is by invitation only. 

We invite you to stay tuned for more news on Nzinga’s Gathering--this is an intergenerational space for Black identified women with an explicit focus on activism and healing.