Thread by @mckensiemack

It’s not Say Their Names. It’s #SayHerName. Black women must not only contend with the violence of police brutality. 1/

Black women are also forced to contend with the violence of Black men who are socialized to see the life of a Black woman as one of the most dispensable and disposable lights ever to exist - as a light that is designed to be used up and destroyed. Oluwatoyin was 19 years old. 2/

She has now become our ancestor.

How many hashtags listing the names of Black women will it take for change?

How many social media memorials will it take for the lives of Black women to finally be honored, celebrated, and protected? 3/

When I say, “dismantle white supremacy,” I’m not just talking about the structural racism that affords white folks destructive and deadly privilege.

I’m also talking about tearing down the systems that keep Black men in positions of power over the lives of Black women. 4/

I’m talking about dismantling the system that makes it so Black women cannot go hardly anywhere on this Earth without fear for their lives against the police state, against Black men, against white people, and against NBPOC who see the power of the Black women... 5/

and who try to destroy it... “not because they don’t see it, but because they see it and they don’t want it to exist.”

-bell hooks

If the change is not individual, interpersonal, and structural, for me, it’s not justice.

#JusticeForOluwatoyin

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