IT’S FOR THE LOVE OF BLACK GIRLS.

BECAUSE we know thaT:

1. Black girls deserve better than what the world offers them.
   
   

2. Black girls are almost never included in the national outcry against systemic racism. Black girls (and black women) are neglected in the advancements toward social justice, and those advancements almost always center Black men and boys. “…not because people necessarily do not think of Black women as Black people, but because people think of Black women similarly to how they think of Black men.” It’s called intersectional invisibility. Their intersecting marginalized identities.
   
   

3. Black girls are treated as adults. Treated as women. Black girls are not treated like children. But, Black girls are CHILDREN [too]. According to Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood, Black girls are viewed “as less innocent and more adult-like than white girls of the same age, especially between 5–14 years old.” When compared with white girls, Black girls were perceived as:

   • needing less nurturing, protection, support and comfort;

   • being more independent; and

   • knowing more about adult topics, including sex.
     
     

4. Black girls are disproportionately “suspended at higher rates than girls of any other race or ethnicity and most boys,” according to U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights. (LEARN MORE and educate yourself about the equitable needs of Black girls).
   
   

5. Black girls are “the fastest growing population of the juvenile justice system,” according to an article in the Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy—1.2 times more likely to be detained and 20 percent more likely to be charged than white girls.
   
   

6. Black girls are viewed as more masculine, aggressive and less docile than any other group of girls.
   
   

7. Black girls have historically been oversexualized. (Dating back to slavery).
   
   

8. Black girls are the hidden (and silenced) survivors of sexual violence. [1 in 4 Black girls] are sexually abused before the age of 18.

But, did you know?

• Black girls aspire to be leaders more than any other group of girls, although they are given the fewest leadership opportunities.

• “For Black girls, to be "ghetto" represents a certain resilience to how poverty has shaped racial and gender oppression. To be "loud" it to demand to be heard. To have an "attitude" is to reject a doctrine of invisibility and maltreatment. To be flamboyant--or "fabulous"--is to revise the idea that socioeconomic isolation is equated with not having access to materially desirable things. To be a ghetto Black girl, then, is to reinvent what it means to be Black, poor, and female.”― Monique W. Morris, Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools.

• Black girls are the experts on Black girls. And therefore, you/we/the world should listen to Black girls.

DO NOT FORGET TO #SAYHERNAME

From The African American Policy Forum

Black women and girls as young as 7 and as old as 93 have been killed by the police, though we rarely hear their names. Knowing their names is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for lifting up their stories which in turn provides a much clearer view of the wide-ranging circumstances that make Black women’s bodies disproportionately subject to police violence. To lift up their stories, and illuminate police violence against Black women, we need to know who they are, how they lived, and why they suffered at the hands of police.

(Launched in December 2014 by the African American Policy Forum (AAPF) and Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies (CISPS), the #SayHerName campaign brings awareness to the often invisible names and stories of Black women and girls who have been victimized by racist police violence, and provides support to their families).