Ain’t I a Woman,

too?

Commentary by Black Kos Editor JoanMar

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere…And ain’t I a woman?
(Sojouner Truth, 1851)

Quick, name me ten modern day victims of racism…whether at the hands of the police or civilians.
Trayvon, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Rodney King, Anthony Baez, Sean Bell, Tamir Rice, Amadou Diallo, John Crawford, Abner Louima. 

There’s not a woman on that list, and I could name the next ten and still not mention a woman’s name.
Given that, you’d be forgiven if you were to conclude that the black woman is being protected; that she is being treated as a member of the “fairer sex” and thus shielded from the wanton brutality being visited upon her son, her father, and her lover. Not so. The fact is, the black woman is not now, nor was she ever spared from the physical manifestation of racism. In addition to being raped at will, she’s also been adorned with the “chokecherry Tree” design on her back, and at the whim of the ruling class killed right along with her menfolk. The number of black women and girls killed during the glory days of lynching has been conservatively estimated to be around 200; a figure some see as being ridiculously low. However many there were, the fact is, the black woman was accorded no special consideration for being female. She was black and that was what mattered.Things have not changed much since the good ol’ days. Interacting with the law is a far scarier prospect for black women than it is for their white counterparts. If you are the loved one of a black woman who is suffering from mental illness, for example, you may want to think twice before you call 911 for help.

Eleanor Bumpurs was a 66-year-old “psychotic” grandmother who suffered from a whole host of health issues. In attempting to evict her from her apartment, police officer Stephen Sullivan used his 12-gauge single-barreled shotgun to shoot her twice. Sullivan was with the “NYPD Emergency Services Unit squad which was  specially trained in subduing emotionally disturbed people.”Renisha McBride, 19, went looking for help and got a bullet to the head instead.
Caught in the “storm of all storms,” Glenda Moore grabbed her two sons ages two and four and went looking for help on Staten Island (yes, that Staten Island). No one answered her cries. Her two sons were swept from her arms and she spent the night huddled on the back porch of a man who said that he thought she was there to rob him.
Aiyana Mo’Nay Stanley Jones, 7, was asleep at her grandmother’s house when police threw a grenade through a window, kicked in the door and this is what happened:

“The gun was just pointed right there at Aiyana. He pulled the trigger…. I knew she was dead,” she testified as she sobbed.
They start coming into the house, and I’m steady screaming that they done killed Aiyana, and it seemed like was nobody paying me no attention.”

Marlene Pinnock, 51 years of age, homeless, and having mental challenges was a danger to herself, CHP Officer Daniel Andrew said, so he tried to protect her by pinning her to ground and then proceeded to punch her senseless. I watched that beating and marveled that she’s still alive.

The case of Aura Rosser was brought to my attention by our own peregrine kate in her diary detailing the killing of the woman who was cooking her pains away just before they came for her.

On Sunday, November 9, Ann Arbor police responded to a 911 call from a man regarding a domestic disturbance. A few short moments after the police arrived at a single-family home on the west side of town, a 40-year-old black woman, Aura Rosser, was dead. She had been shot by police who claimed that she was a threat, due to the fish knife she had in her hands when police arrived.

In Arizona, days after Michael Brown was murdered, mentally ill 50-year-old Michelle Cusseaux who suffered from bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and depression was killed by police.

Police arrived at her door to serve a court order to transport her to an inpatient mental-health facility. She met them with a hammer — and was shot dead.

The most hated of them all
If there is one group of bodies that is hated more than any other, it is the black woman who was assigned male at birth. The black transgender woman faces a special hell every time she dares to walk out her door as her true self. In this year alone, four trans women of color – three Black and one Latina – have been killed in California: 40-year-old Kandy Hall, 31-year-old Yaz’min Shancez, 28-year-old Zoraida ‘Ale’ Reyes, and 28-year-old Tiffany Edwards.  

Black and African-American transgender women have a 50 percent greater homicide rate than their white, Latina, and Native American counterparts and were more than three times as likely to experience police violence more than any other group, according to a 2012 report by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs on LGBTQ and HIV Affected Hate Violence

Black women being killed, brutalized, and traumatized by this racist system. Did we talk about  Lesley McSpadden having to stand on the sidelines and watch her beloved son lying in the streets while his blood – her blood – soaked the ground beneath him? Or Samaria Rice having to choose between riding with her dead 12-year-old son or her handcuffed, terrified 14-year-old daughter who the cops had tackled to the ground when she sought to go to her dying baby brother?
This is by no means an exhaustive list of all those who have died or suffered at the hands of the police or the racist around the way. Indeed, in preparing for this diary I learned about cases that I had not heard of before; enough to fill a dozen or more diaries. We are just not that cherished.It is my hope that we remember all the victims of racial violence when we talk about those who have been murdered. That the names of Michelle and Aura be given some prominence on the list of those killed by police this year. That we spare a sign or two for them. Their lives mattered, too. I am deeply ashamed that I heard their names and then promptly forgot them like most everyone else did. Thank you for the wake up call, peregrine kate.