Topless Black Women Shuts Down Traffic at Rush Hour

The season of those stupid nude protest hits again. During a nationwide day of action Thursday to raise awareness about the killing of black women and children by police, topless women blocked traffic in downtown San Francisco. [2] The protest was organized by Blackout Collective, a Bay Area activist communist group. [1] The demonstrations were part of a national campaign to protest the police killings of Tanisha Anderson, Rekia Boyd, Aiyana Jones, Yvette Smith, along with numerous other females killed by police. The national demonstrations came on the heels of a report released Wednesday by the African American Policy Forum titled Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women. [2] The forum is dedicated to telling the stories of a number of black women who were victims of police brutality. Protestors around the country held signs with the hashtag #SayHerName along with pictures and names of the numerous black women that have died as a result of police brutality. [4] Organizers felt compelled to put together the rallies to raise awareness about the victimization of black women at the hands of police after their deaths were seemingly overlooked by the media. “We also understand that we live in a country that commodifies black women and black bodies but ignores the death of black women and black girls,” said Chinyere Tutashinda, founding member of the BlackOut Collective and a member of the Bay Area chapter of Black Lives Matter. [4]

You guest right… those are commies strippers… we can see the “communist fist” in prominence in this picture

Campaigners said rallies raising awareness of police brutality in the wake of the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown and others had focused on black men who had died, and overlooked the many black women who have suffered the same fate. Protests and vigils took place in cities across the country including New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Washington, D.C., and New Orleans, two months after an officer was acquitted for the fatal shooting of 22-year-old Boyd. [4] “We wanted to be part of morning commute when people were going to work,” Cat Brooks told Fusion during a phone interview after the demonstration.

This [protest] was in the financial district because profit and capital underlies so much of the trauma that black women go through here and around the globe,” said Brooks, whose organization the Onyx Organizing Committee supported todays event. [1]

Along with the ten women blocking the street were an additional 20 people who acted as security and media liaisons.. Brooks said they didn’t hear many complaints from commuters trying to work. In fact, she said there were a few black women on their way to work who ended up joining the protest. [1]

Critiques about national apathy toward the plight of black women have been building momentum for some time. In 2014, there was a public debate about the White House’s My Brother’s Keeper initiative, with many critics — including UCLA’s Crenshaw, who wrote a New York Times op-ed titled “The Girls Obama Forgot” — asking why the program would ignore the plight of black women, who face their own set of disadvantages and discrimination. [5] The goal of the report and demonstrations is more than just attention — although that’s widely understood to be an important first step.

The “Say Her Name” report includes several specific recommendations to remedy national apathy about the plight of black women:

• At protests, demonstrations and other actions calling attention to state violence, include the faces, names and slogans of Black women alongside Black men.
• Local and national organizations and social movements must find ways to support all of the families and the surviving victims of state violence. Policy platforms should be developed using an intersectional gender and racial lens to ensure comprehensive solutions to state violence are being built, that address the various ways in which it impacts the lives of all Black people.
• Spaces must be created to discuss the ways in which patriarchy, homophobia and transphobia impact Black communities as a whole; and hold individuals and organizations accountable for addressing the various ways our communities sometimes recreate systems of oppression.
• Skills to talk about the multiplicity of ways in which state violence affects cis, trans and gender non conforming Black women and girls should be continuously developed. In so doing, stakeholders can move beyond a frame that only highlights killing.
• Domestic violence is a leading cause of death for Black women aged 15-34. There is a need to acknowledge that both public and private forms of violence are devastating the lives of women and girls of color

Nearly 300 demonstrators gathered to draw attention to the issues highlighted in the report.  Chinyere Tutashinda, a founding member of the BlackOUT Collective, an  organization that provides training on nonviolent direct action, told BuzzFeed News, “We wanted to be able to say ‘enough is enough’ and draw on traditions from Nigeria, Gabon, Uganda, and South Africa, from women who bare their chests and other parts of their bodies in protest.” [7] Other organizers told Griffin that the gesture was meant to highlight the societal fixation on black women’s physical bodies that seems to exist except — as in the cases of the many killed by police officers in recent years — when those bodies are the victims of violence. At the vigil held at New York City’s Union Square, relatives of women victimized by police brutality — including Rekia Boyd’s brother — spoke about their losses and hopes for change. [5]