Free Essay: The Urgency of Intersectionality- Annotated Bibliography

Amuchie, Nnennaya. "The Forgotten Victims" How Racialized Gender Stereotypes Lead to Police Violence Against Black Women and Girls: Incorporating an Analysis of Police Violence Into Feminist Jurisprudence and Community Activism." Seattle Journal for Social Justice 14.3 (2016): 8.

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The author Nnennaya Amuchie, explains how discussions about police violence in society have dwelled more on black men forgetting that also black women fall victim. The killing and oppressing of black women-led worldwide feminists to form a campaign of #SayHerName. The campaign was meant to reveal the way gender, race, and sexual harassment of the police have affected many black women. The author explains how police violence, including physical abuse, killing, sexual harassment, psychological intimidation, false arrests, and racial claims, falls on black women. Kimberle Crenshaw uses the term intersectionality to acknowledge those people who have lived with multi-dimensional identities like race and gender because of the interlocking systems of oppression. The black women formed intersectionality to analyze the experiences that they go through in life.

Therefore, Crenshaw believes that the time black women were discriminated against, the system of law does not recognize their unique perception, leaving them an injustice. Crenshaw goes ahead and argues that in most courts, they view legal discrimination through mutual exclusive instead of the mutual dependence of one another. When courts address the issue of race and gender discrimination, they forget the experience a black woman experiences as a black woman (race) and as a woman (gender). Most courts have the idea that white woman experiences sexism and black men experience racism, and they forget to analyze the experiences the black woman have on race and gender. Black women experience multi-dimensional oppression, and the court should recognize it in their legal analysis.

Edwards, Frank, Hedwig Lee, and Michael Esposito. "Risk of being killed by police use-of-force in the US by age, race/ethnicity, and sex." (2019).

The authors have used the data on the deaths that were involved by the police to estimate the risk of being killed by the police in the United States of America across all social groups. In the research, the authors found out that African-American women face a higher risk of being killed by the police as well as the African American men compared to their white peers. Policing plays a vital role in maintaining the structural inequality between the people of different colors in the United States. The authors argue that social science scholars agree that police violence has been the primary cause of black women's deaths—people of color, especially black women, experience criminal injustice that involves police violence. From the document, it is estimated that police might kill 2.4 and 5.4 black women at the current rate at which police are using force against African American women.

However, when other causes of death are included, the risk estimate for black women's deaths due to racial and ethnic differences is doubled. The risk of women being killed by police use of force is relatively lower than that of men. Approximately 15 leading causes of death to young women are from police use of force. For black women between the ages of 20 and 24, 0.2 percent of the deaths are caused by police use of force. The lack of authoritative official data is the challenge that makes police violence towards black women to increase.

Jacobs, Michelle S. "The Violent State: Black Women's Invisible Struggle against Police Violence." Wm. & Mary J. Women & L. 24 (2017): 39.

Michelle S. Jacobs, on his research of violent state, black women's Invisible Struggle against police violence, clearly explains the problem associated with the arrests and persecutions that black women face. The racism stories about black women continue to be addressed after the end of slavery. In contemporary times, our courts still regard black women have aggressive and in most cases, cause violence. Unfortunately, there are no research studies that show why magistrates and judges still endorse those stereotypes. However, most advocates for black women who are victims of domestic violence state that their clients are negatively affected by those views of stereotypes.

It is a challenge to create awareness to the public about violence against black women violence because they rarely make the news. The news about their brutality and deaths are newsworthy, but because the victim is a black woman, it is buried. The crimes committed against black women stands a challenge in media coverage. This was highlighted when former prosecutor, turned news reporter, Nancy Grace, reported that there was a missing woman. All the missing women Grace reported were white, which led the late NPR news anchor, Gwen Ifill, to say missing white woman syndrome. Those claims described the exclusivity focus on reporting missing white women and not including black women. Few media houses cared whether the missing black woman was dead or alive. There was no enough information to the authors to satisfy the identification of how black women are killed or brutalized by the police.

McNamara, Chan, Tov. "White Caller Crime: Racialized Police Communication and Existing While Black." Mich. J. Race & L. 24 (2018): 335.

The author has explained how police violence has racialized black people, especially black women. Black women are subject to police violence and mistreatment. Unarmed black women are approximately more likely to be shot by the police, unlike their white peers. In the year 2017, the camera footage analyzed showed that more than 981 police officers were using abusive language to black drivers like black women drivers. This shows how the police brutalize people because of their skin color. There is a case in the year 2015 when a white neighbour complained about the noisy teenager. This led to police pointing a gun at an unarmed black teenager dressed only in a swimming costume. Despite the video of the assault going viral on how the police were using force on the teenager, the officer was able to escape consequences for his brutal behavior.

In the year 2018, Teresa Klein, a white woman accused a nine-year-old Jeremiah Harvey of sexual assault. The woman claimed that Jeremiah had grabbed her butt, something that was not true. When the security footage was analyzed, it showed Jeremiah's bag accidentally touched the white woman. In a later interview, Jeremiah's mother revealed that her son was mentally disturbed by the incident, and it may affect him in his future life because Jeremiah was suffering from anxiety anytime he sees the police.

Noel, Crista E., and Dr. Olivia Perlow. "American police crimes against African women and women of color." (2014).

The authors' Crista E. Noel and Dr. Olivia Perlow discuss how police violence towards the African-American community is part of everyday life. Their arguments mostly address the issues that black women and children whose color and gender cannot allow them to stand out firm and speak about experiences that they are going through. The lives of black women have been stripped and permanently halted through the inhumane, unconstitutional, and racial discrimination practices they experience. Black women and other women of color are mostly victimized and betrayed by the police who have been sworn to respect and honor the Constitution. Most of these black women who are defenseless find themselves harassed and unjustly treated by the system of criminal justice. In the Chicago Police Department, they have an average of 9700 complaints reported against its 13000 police officers. According to the University of Chicago's Campus Catalyst Student's Review of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), more than 71 percent of the victims are African women. In the same report, more than 87 percent of the victims are women of color.

An example is Tiawanda Moore, who falls victim in the hands of police violence. This happened in the year 2010 when Tiawanda suffered criminalization because she is a black woman. Many media houses claimed that Tiawanda once worked in a men's club as an excuse for her inappropriate behavior. This led to many people concluding that what happened to her was deserving, but in the real sense, she was assaulted by the police. The situation where the media used the word deserving, Tiawanda was socially victimized by being in a relationship with the police. Like Tiawanda and many more women who fall under the category of the black community, as illustrated by the article, show the level of police violence that black women experience in society.

Works Cited

Amuchie, Nnennaya. "The Forgotten Victims" How Racialized Gender Stereotypes Lead to Police Violence Against Black Women and Girls: Incorporating an Analysis of Police Violence Into Feminist Jurisprudence and Community Activism." Seattle Journal for Social Justice 14.3 (2016): 8.

Edwards, Frank, Hedwig Lee, and Michael Esposito. "Risk of being killed by police use-of-force in the US by age, race/ethnicity, and sex." (2019).Jacobs, Michelle S. "The Violent State: Black Women's Invisible Struggle against Police Violence." Wm. & Mary J. Women & L. 24 (2017): 39.

McNamarah, Chan, Tov. "White Caller Crime: Racialized Police Communication and Existing While Black." Mich. J. Race & L. 24 (2018): 335.

Noel, Crista E., and Dr. Olivia Perlow. "American police crimes against African women and women of color." (2014).