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How Black Women coined the ‘say her name’ rallying cry before Biden’s State of the Union address

Breonna

Marjorie Taylor Greene wore a T-shirt to Thursday night‘s State of the Union address that carried a seemingly simple message: Say Her Name. The hard-line Republican congresswoman from Georgia, who was decked out in a red MAGA hat and other regalia, borrowed the phrase from Black racial justice activists who have been calling attention to the extrajudicial deaths of Black women at the hands of police and vigilantes.

Quick Read

  • Marjorie Taylor Greene wore a “Say Her Name” T-shirt at the State of the Union to highlight the case of Laken Riley, diverging from the phrase’s origins in the Black Lives Matter movement.
  • The slogan was popularized by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 2015 after Sandra Bland’s death to spotlight police violence against Black women.
  • Greene’s use of the phrase has been criticized for undermining civil rights movements and co-opting language for political purposes.
  • “Say Her Name” seeks justice for Black women, girls, and femmes affected by police brutality, including Breonna Taylor, Tanisha Anderson, and others.

The Associated Press has the story:

How Black Women coined the ‘say her name’ rallying cry before Biden’s State of the Union address

Newslooks- (AP)

Marjorie Taylor Greene wore a T-shirt to Thursday night‘s State of the Union address that carried a seemingly simple message: Say Her Name.

The hard-line Republican congresswoman from Georgia, who was decked out in a red MAGA hat and other regalia, borrowed the phrase from Black racial justice activists who have been calling attention to the extrajudicial deaths of Black women at the hands of police and vigilantes.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., wears a Laken Riley shirt as she arrives before President Joe Biden delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol, Thursday March 7, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

However, Greene used the rallying cry to successfully goad President Joe Biden into saying the name Laken Riley, a nursing student from Georgia whose death is now at the center of U.S. immigration debate. An immigrant from Venezuela, who entered the U.S. illegally, has been arrested in Riley’s case and charged with murder.

Riley’s name is a rallying cry for Republicans criticizing the president’s handling of the record surge of immigrants entering the country through the U.S-Mexico border.

President Joe Biden holds up a Laken Riley Botton as he delivers the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol, Thursday March 7, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

The origins of the ‘Say Her Name’ rallying cry date back well before Greene donned the T-shirt.Who first coined the phrase ‘Say Her Name’ in protest?

The phrase was popularized by civil rights activist, law professor and executive director of the African American Policy Institute Kimberlé Crenshaw in 2015, following the death of Sandra Bland. Bland, a 28-year-old Black woman, was found dead in a Texas jail cell a few days after she was arrested during a traffic stop. Her family questioned the circumstances of her death and the validity of the traffic stop and the following year settled a wrongful death lawsuit with the police department.

Breonna
FILE – Tamika Palmer, center, the mother of Breonna Taylor, leads a march through the streets of downtown Louisville on the one year anniversary of Taylor’s death on March 13, 2021, in Louisville, Ky. Questioning of potential jurors begins Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022, for the trial of a former Kentucky police officer involved in a botched raid that killed Taylor, a 26-year-old Louisville emergency medical technician. Brett Hankison is standing trial on three counts of wanton endangerment for allegedly firing wildly into Taylor’s neighbors’ apartments in March 2020. No drugs were found during the raid, and the warrant was later found to be flawed. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley, File)

Black women are statistically more likely than other women to witness and experience police violence, including death, which is also linked to heightened psychological stress and several related negative health outcomes.

“Everywhere, we see the appropriation of progressive and inclusionary concepts in an effort to devalue, distort and suppress the movements they have been created to advance,” Crenshaw said in a statement to The Associated Press. “When most people only hear about these ideas from those that seek to repurpose and debase them, then our ability to speak truth to power is further restricted.”

This undated image provided by Augusta University shows Laken Hope Riley. Police said Friday, Feb. 23, 2024, that they are questioning a “person of interest” in the death of Riley, a nursing student whose body was found on the University of Georgia campus in Athens, Ga., after not returning from a run. (Augusta University via AP)

Greene’s appropriation of the phrase “undermines civil rights movements and pushes our democracy closer to the edge,” Crenshaw wrote in her statement. “The misuse of these concepts by others who seek to silence us must be resisted if we are to remain steadfast in our advocacy for a fully inclusive and shared future.”

Tamika Mallory, a racial justice advocate and author, said Laken Riley deserves justice, but in this case she doesn’t think that conservatives are being genuine when they use #SayHerName. “If they were, they wouldn’t be using language that they claim not to favor,” she said. “They demonize our language, they demonize our organizing style, but they co-opt the language whenever they feel it is a political tool.”Who are the other Black women included in ‘Say Her Name’?

President Joe Biden, right, arrives to deliver the State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol, Thursday, March 7, 2024, in Washington. Looking on at second left is Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. (Shawn Thew/Pool via AP)

Crenshaw and others began using the phrase to draw attention to cases in which Black women are subject to police brutality. In 2020, the hashtag #SayHerName helped put more public scrutiny on the shooting death of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman in Louisville, KY who was shot and killed in her home during a botched police raid.

The campaign was founded to break the silence around Black women, girls, and femmes whose lives have been taken by police, Crenshaw said.

“The list of women killed in fatal encounters with law enforcement and whose families continue to demand justice is long. Tanisha Anderson, Michelle Shirley, Sandra Bland, Miriam Carey, Michelle Cusseaux, Shelly Frey, Breonna Taylor, Korryn Gaines, Kayla Moore, Atatiana Jefferson, and India Kager are just some of the many names we uplift — women whose stories have too often otherwise gone untold. We must call out and resist this attempt to commandeer this campaign to serve an extremist right-wing agenda.”

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