Black women and girls are often erased or overlooked in conversations about policing, criminalization, mass incarceration, and other forms of anti-Black violence. But we know that Black women and girls are overrepresented in the criminal legal system: Black women are fatally shot by police at rates higher than that of their white peers. In 2020, the imprisonment rate for Black women was 1.7 times the rate of imprisonment for white women. Black girls are 3 times as likely than their white counterparts to be incarcerated, and while 14% of the U.S. population is Black, 43% of girls in youth detention are Black.
Although Black women have been at the forefront of Black freedom movements throughout history, we have rarely been the focus of said movements. But Black women and girls have persisted and created their own visions of liberation and freedom. Dr. Treva B. Lindsey in her new book "America, Goddam" demands that we support and believe that Black women and girls are already laying the groundwork for liberation, and she offers a call to action in our collective journey toward just futures.
Please join the National Black Women’s Justice Institute and Dr. Treva B. Lindsey, associate professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Ohio State University, to discuss violence against Black women and girls in the United States, the gender dynamics of anti-Black violence, and the fight for liberation.
