I have been an actor for more than 20 years now, and throughout that time there has been an ongoing discussion of diversity. Is there enough diversity in Hollywood? How many people of colour and women are enough? Does diversity sell? First it was: why are there no black films at the Oscars? Then, at the 2017 Oscars: wow, there are so many black movies at the Oscars; I guess the diversity issue is fixed?
As important as diversity in storytelling is, there is a deeper concern than representation. There are stories that must be told but that are all too often erased, even within narratives about race, or about gender. A group I work with, the African American Policy Forum (AAPF) and its co-founder, law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, have been raising this issue for more than 20 years. Because narrative erasures happen not only on the screen, but in public discourse as well. And the consequences have been devastating, as racial justice, feminism and other social justice discourses have been needlessly divided and set at odds with each other.
In 1991, when Anita Hill came forward to accuse her former boss, US supreme court nominee Clarence Thomas, of sexual harassment, too many people saw the issue as “race v gender”. Sexual harassment was actually a claim originated by black women, but the failure to understand black women’s intersectional experience meant communities could be corralled into Thomas’s camp by his claim to be the victim of a “high-tech lynching,” while Hill was left unrecognised as a victim of discrimination. Thomas alone was seen as being in need of defence; and women and people of colour suffered as a result.
Crenshaw and Luke Charles Harris, co-founders of AAPF, have been fighting against that kind of intersectional erasure and structural inequality ever since Hill’s testimony. Their recent work has been to highlight the consequences of police violence against black bodies as another example of a frame that excludes women and girls of colour. Their work shows how typical media representations of police violence foreground men, and so do efforts to seek accountability for that violence. Erasures in the media send messages that certain lives matter less. It is a message that some of us will not accept.
The family of Tanisha Anderson, who was killed by police in Cleveland, Ohio. Photograph: Ricky Rhodes for the Guardian
Last year I partnered with Crenshaw and AAPF to host a Say Her Name event in Hollywood. The Say Her Name movement is part of AAPF’s campaign to raise awareness about black women killed by police who suffer from other forms of state violence. As their work points out, most of us know the names and stories of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and other black men killed by police – and we should. But we don’t know the names Meagan Hockaday or Natasha McKenna, Tanisha Anderson or Shelley Frey. Black women die at the hands of police, too, and their killers just as often go free. Unfortunately, because we don’t know the names of these women or their stories, we don’t show up for them.
The US isn’t alone. Around the world violence against women is trivialised, erased and forgotten, and it seems that those in power with the means to protect and save vulnerable women and raise awareness for their suffering are too often silent. Imagine, though, if that silence were broken. How powerful would it be for Hollywood to tell the stories of one of the many black women killed by police? Imagine how much momentum could be generated to effect change and save the lives of other vulnerable black women.
Taking intersectionality seriously means breaking through the frame that says “all black people are men, and all women are white”. It means highlighting black women’s anomalous role in US politics – as a group that, despite suffering extremely high rates of poverty and violence, both intimately and at the hands of the state, still participates in the political process at higher rates than virtually any other group. Moreover, they steadfastly embrace policies that eschew the scapegoat politics now flourishing in the US, and stand against the divisions some now seek to reinforce, including by violence.
What then do black women need from media? It isn’t simply greater numbers of black people or women in the movies. Black women and girls need the media to uncover how they are often subject to multiple forms of discrimination, even as they manage to embrace a vision of the future that includes more than just themselves.
Next week, on 10 June, at Columbia University, AAPF will celebrate 20 years of being champions for black women and intersectional feminism. I believe that it is time for the rest of us, from policymakers to Hollywood actors, directors and producers, to follow their lead and focus on the voices and stories of women of colour. Now more than ever they deserve to have their stories told.
‘I believe that it is time for the rest of us, from policymakers to Hollywood actors, directors and producers, to follow their lead and focus on the voices and stories of women of colour.’ Photograph: ddp USA/Rex/Shutterstock
I have been an actor for more than 20 years now, and throughout that time there has been an ongoing discussion of diversity. Is there enough diversity in Hollywood? How many people of colour and women are enough? Does diversity sell? First it was: why are there no black films at the Oscars? Then, at the 2017 Oscars: wow, there are so many black movies at the Oscars; I guess the diversity issue is fixed?
As important as diversity in storytelling is, there is a deeper concern than representation. There are stories that must be told but that are all too often erased, even within narratives about race, or about gender. A group I work with, the African American Policy Forum (AAPF) and its co-founder, law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, have been raising this issue for more than 20 years. Because narrative erasures happen not only on the screen, but in public discourse as well. And the consequences have been devastating, as racial justice, feminism and other social justice discourses have been needlessly divided and set at odds with each other.
In 1991, when Anita Hill came forward to accuse her former boss, US supreme court nominee Clarence Thomas, of sexual harassment, too many people saw the issue as “race v gender”. Sexual harassment was actually a claim originated by black women, but the failure to understand black women’s intersectional experience meant communities could be corralled into Thomas’s camp by his claim to be the victim of a “high-tech lynching,” while Hill was left unrecognised as a victim of discrimination. Thomas alone was seen as being in need of defence; and women and people of colour suffered as a result.
Crenshaw and Luke Charles Harris, co-founders of AAPF, have been fighting against that kind of intersectional erasure and structural inequality ever since Hill’s testimony. Their recent work has been to highlight the consequences of police violence against black bodies as another example of a frame that excludes women and girls of colour. Their work shows how typical media representations of police violence foreground men, and so do efforts to seek accountability for that violence. Erasures in the media send messages that certain lives matter less. It is a message that some of us will not accept.
The family of Tanisha Anderson, who was killed by police in Cleveland, Ohio. Photograph: Ricky Rhodes for the Guardian
Last year I partnered with Crenshaw and AAPF to host a Say Her Name event in Hollywood. The Say Her Name movement is part of AAPF’s campaign to raise awareness about black women killed by police who suffer from other forms of state violence. As their work points out, most of us know the names and stories of Michael Brown, Eric Garner and other black men killed by police – and we should. But we don’t know the names Meagan Hockaday or Natasha McKenna, Tanisha Anderson or Shelley Frey. Black women die at the hands of police, too, and their killers just as often go free. Unfortunately, because we don’t know the names of these women or their stories, we don’t show up for them.
The US isn’t alone. Around the world violence against women is trivialised, erased and forgotten, and it seems that those in power with the means to protect and save vulnerable women and raise awareness for their suffering are too often silent. Imagine, though, if that silence were broken. How powerful would it be for Hollywood to tell the stories of one of the many black women killed by police? Imagine how much momentum could be generated to effect change and save the lives of other vulnerable black women.
Taking intersectionality seriously means breaking through the frame that says “all black people are men, and all women are white”. It means highlighting black women’s anomalous role in US politics – as a group that, despite suffering extremely high rates of poverty and violence, both intimately and at the hands of the state, still participates in the political process at higher rates than virtually any other group. Moreover, they steadfastly embrace policies that eschew the scapegoat politics now flourishing in the US, and stand against the divisions some now seek to reinforce, including by violence.
What then do black women need from media? It isn’t simply greater numbers of black people or women in the movies. Black women and girls need the media to uncover how they are often subject to multiple forms of discrimination, even as they manage to embrace a vision of the future that includes more than just themselves.
Next week, on 10 June, at Columbia University, AAPF will celebrate 20 years of being champions for black women and intersectional feminism. I believe that it is time for the rest of us, from policymakers to Hollywood actors, directors and producers, to follow their lead and focus on the voices and stories of women of colour. Now more than ever they deserve to have their stories told.