Upcoming Event: Our Black Life is Worth Something: Femicide, Black Women, and Fighting for Our Lives
Promotional flyer for the upcoming Zoom event, “Our Black Life is Worth Something: Femicide, Black Women, and Fighting for Our Lives” featuring Drs. Treva B. Lindsey and Brendane A. Tynes.
The photo featured on the flyer is of members of The Combahee River Collective including Barbara Smith (center with megaphone); Demita Frazier (left of Smith); and Beverly Smith (left of Frazier) at a protest in Boston, Massachusetts in 1979. The protest was to raise awareness of the murders of 12 Black women in Boston that occurred that same year. Photograph by Ellen Shub.
By Black Women Radicals
Join us for the upcoming event on femicide, Black women, and political resistance.
On Tuesday, May 12 at 6:30 PM EST, join us for the Zoom event, “Our Black Life is Worth Something: Femicide, Black Women, and Fighting for Our Lives” featuring Dr. Treva B. Lindsey and Dr. Brendane A. Tynes.
The event will take place on Zoom. ASL interpretation will be provided. The event will be recorded and uploaded to Youtube.
You can register for the event here: https://bit.ly/OurBlackLivesAreWorthLiving
About the event: Victoria Alexander. Ashanti Allen. Davonta Curtis. Barbara Deer. Raven Edwards. Cerina Fairfax. Kiriyanah Harris. Gladys Johnson-Ball. Nancy Metayer. Ashlee Jenae. These are the names of Black women––that we do know of––who are victims of femicide this year alone. Data shows that Black women are killed four times higher than non-Black women as a result of intimate partner violence. However, media narratives and political framings on Black femicide have either been overlooked or downplayed and often center and coddle the perpetrators and their “mental health” instead of the actual victims.
This conversation centers the epidemic of Black femicide from historical and contemporary perspectives and the transformative interventions that need to take place to combat misogynoir and racialized and gendered violence across all spheres.
The title of the event––specifically “Our Black Life is Worth Something”––is a more affirmative take on Barbara Smith’s 1979 diary entry, where she reflected on the 11 Black women murdered in Roxbury, Massachusetts that same year, which the national media did not widely report on. Smith wrote:
“...For me the deaths of these women has shaped six months of my life. There has never been forgetting. There has been other activity, other moments, definite joy and laughter, but always, always, always, the tragedy. The certain irrefutable and demonstrated knowledge that my Black female life is worth nothing…”
About the Panelists
DR. Treva B. Lindsey
Photo of Dr. Treva B. Lindsey. Courtesy of Dr. Treva B. Lindsey.
Dr. Treva B. Lindsey is a Professor at The Ohio State University, co-founder of Black Feminist Night School at Zora’s House and founder of the Transformative Black Feminisms Initiative at OSU. Her research and teaching interests include African American women’s history, black popular and expressive culture, black feminism(s), hip hop studies, critical race and gender theory, and sexual politics. Her most recent book, America Goddam: Violence, Black Women, and The Struggle for Justice (University of California Press) received a starred review from Kirkus Books and was described as “required reading for all Americans.” Her first book, Colored No More: Reinventing Black Womanhood in Washington D.C was a Choice 2017 “Outstanding Academic Title.” She has published in The Journal of Pan-African Studies, Souls, African and Black Diaspora, the Journal of African American Studies, African American Review, The Journal of African American History, Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism, Urban Education, The Black Scholar, Feminist Studies, and Signs.
She is the recipient of several awards and fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. She was a 2020-2021 ACLS/Mellon Scholars and Society Fellow. She was the inaugural Equity for Women and Girls of Color Fellow at Harvard University (2016-2017). In 2022, she received the Ohio State University College of Arts and Sciences Mid-Career Faculty Excellence Award. Professor Lindsey also writes for and contributes to outlets such as Time, CNN, Al Jazeera, NBC, BET, Complex, Vox, The Root, Huffington Post, PopSugar, Billboard, Bustle, Teen Vogue, Grazia UK, The Grio, The Washington Post, Women’s Media Center, Zora, and Cosmopolitan.
DR. Brendane A. Tynes
Photo of Dr. Brendane A. Tynes. Courtesy of Dr. Brendane A. Tynes.
Dr. Brendane A. Tynes (she/they) is an Afro-Carolinian queer Black feminist scholar and storyteller. She has over 14 years of experience facilitating community education spaces grounded in abolitionist and anarchist Black feminist principles and practice. As a community-engaged scholar, their research centers the experiences of Black women, girls, and queer and trans people at the intersection of Black feminist anthropology, Black feminist critical theory, gendered violence, abolition, Black political movements, memory, and affect studies. Broadly, Brendane is interested in the ways that Black people—particularly those who have intersecting experiences of oppression—care for themselves and each other while living through world-annihilating violence. Brendane is the founder of black. loved. free. project, a spiritual-political podcast and learning community nestled at the intersection of Black feminist political theory and Black and African Indigenous spirituality and healing.