by Sharelle Burt
March 13, 2024
That is for Sandra Black, Breonna Taylor, Atatiana Jefferson…and lots of others.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) didn’t simply attempt to steal the present carrying MAGA paraphernalia in the course of the State of the Union deal with. She additionally stole the phrase “Say Her Identify,” created to lift consciousness about Black ladies mistreated by police.
Greene boldly sported the phrase, even surprising President Joe Biden upon his arrival, on a white T-shirt that learn, “Say Her Identify, Laken Riley.”
Her assertion was a couple of College of Georgia nursing scholar allegedly killed by an undocumented immigrant in Georgia and a ploy from Republicans to criticize Biden’s dealing with of border patrol. Greene posted a video on Twitter of her SOTU apparel, blaming Biden for what she calls a “nationwide safety disaster.” “Joe should go,” she mentioned.
Her rhetoric is added to an extended record of Black-owned phrases stolen to reiterate one thing else, like “Black Lives Matter” – now used for “Blue Lives Matter” and “All Lives Matter” to “woke” – used for anti-Black laws.
The terminology “Say Her Identify” was first created by civil rights activist, legislation professor and govt director of the African American Coverage Institute Kimberlé Crenshaw in 2015. Following the demise of Sandra Bland, a 28-year-old Black lady who was discovered lifeless in a Texas jail cell days after she was arrested throughout a visitors cease, Crenshaw penned the phrase after her household questioned the circumstances round her demise with little to no solutions.
When officers of the Louisville Police Division killed Breonna Taylor in Could 2020, protests erupted throughout the nation as folks wore t-shirts with the precise phrase – only a completely different identify. Statistics have proven Black ladies are extra doubtless than different ladies to witness or expertise police violence, together with demise, leading to extreme psychological stress and different opposed well being outcomes.
Crenshaw launched an announcement after seeing Greene mocking the time period. In her eyes, her utilization “undermines civil rights actions and pushes our democracy nearer to the sting.” “Final night time’s use of #SayHerName by Marjorie Taylor Greene in the course of the SOTU Deal with displays a deeply offensive pattern in right-wing politics – the deliberately deceptive appropriation of justice-seeking calls for from those that have traditionally been rendered unvoiced,” she wrote on Twitter.
“The #SayHerName marketing campaign was based ten years in the past to interrupt the silence round Black ladies, ladies & femmes whose lives have been taken by police. Tanisha Anderson, Korryn Gaines, Shelly Frey, Kayla Moore & Atatiana Jefferson are simply a number of the many names we uplift.”
Whereas civil rights advocates uplift Riley’s want for justice, they level out GOP utilization as being disingenuous. “In the event that they had been, they wouldn’t be utilizing language they declare to not favor,” creator Tamika Mallory mentioned. “They demonize our language, they demonize our organizing fashion, however they co-opt the language at any time when they really feel it’s a political software.”