Breonna Taylor and Black Women are Not Memes
The recent protests against police brutality and the unjust death of George Floyd have highlighted something that I and other black women have known for years, when we talk about police brutality people usually exclude anyone who is not a cishet black man. Black women and black LGBTQ folx receive the scraps of anti-police brutality activism and as a result we do not get as much attention and people view police brutality as an issue for only cishet black men when it truly affects us all. There are few exceptions to this exclusion, like Sandra Bland who died in police custody under questionable circumstance to say the least in 2015, but we are not the perfect victims to spotlight. The 2020 Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests began in the name of George Floyd and other past victims of police brutality, but there is another recent victim who deserves justice as well, a 26-year-old black woman named Breonna Taylor.
On March 13th, Louisville police officers entered Breonna Taylor’s home with a no-knock warrant. The officers used a battering ram to get in and fired shots which struck Taylor. Her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, a licensed gun owner who shot at the officers thinking they were burglars. After this deadly incident, Walker was arrested and charged with attempted murder of a police officer, this charge was later dismissed. Body cameras were not used by officers, furthering complicating things as the officers and Walker gave conflicting reports. The murder of Breonna Taylor occurred before George Floyd’s murder and while her name has been mentioned at protests for him, she is more of a passing thought than a victim who deserves justice.
Breonna would have turned 27 years old on June 5 and with the three officers who killed her still walking free, protesters have challenged others to say her name. This is a reference to the #SayHerName campaign, a movement to uplift the voices of black women who fall victim to police. #SayHerName was created by the African American Policy Forum in December 2014 after almost all coverage of police brutality against black people focused on black men. With the increased attention toward BLM, protests, unknown instances of police brutality and the murder of George Floyd, non-black and black male allies have tried to shine a light on Breonna Taylor who has slipped under the radar. One way to combat this erasure is through social media. Different social media platforms have been used to promote BLM, spread information about the protests and to pay respect to police brutality victims. Allies recognized that Breonna Taylor was not receiving the same attention and treatment as George Floyd and sought to get their followers to sign petitions for Breonna Taylor, donate to her GoFundMe and pay their respects. An example of this is Twitter users making memes to point out that the cops who killed Taylor have not been arrested.
These tweets quickly go viral because they are a quick way for allies to remind people that we need to keep fighting for Breonna Taylor, but at the end of the day these memes do more harm than good. It is an effort to keep Breonna’s name and fight for justice on people’s mind but this is an example of non-black people engaging with us in the only way they know how, memes and entertainment. The internet largely runs on the humor of black people and this can be seen through black Twitter. Through social media and particularly the rise of GIFs and reaction pictures, images of black people have become incredibly accessible and people can quickly express their feelings without words. The phenomena of black people being used as memes and to express people’s most extreme emotions by non-black people is called digital blackface. Memes about Breonna Taylor are simply the result of misogynoir, erasure of black women, digital blackface and the need for validation on the internet coming together and ultimately harming the person at the center of the meme, Breonna Taylor.
Digital blackface has incredibly harmful effects when it comes to black female issues. For people who do not personally know black women, these memes serve as their closest experience to associating with us. Subconsciously people begin linking excessive behavior to black women and by extension to jokes. Unfortunately for black women this means that when we voice our concerns, it gets dismissed as a joke and shows that people do not understand how to be an ally to us with the grace and empathy to do so greatly. These Breonna Taylor memes are the product of this toxic connection of internet culture and black women. Many people on Twitter do not know how to interact with black women and instead of handling the matter seriously they make us the punchline of a joke because that is all they understand. The memes give allies a quick way to perform activism and get clout, but it ultimately does not raise awareness for Breonna or get justice for her. They could at least include the names of the three officers who killed her or provide updates on her case.
At first glance of a Breonna Taylor meme I thought this was strange behavior and it does not sit well in my spirit, but I could not understand why. Then my timeline showed multiple of these tweets going viral and black women asking the original poster to take them down. Within a few days these tweets would become a constant on my feed and people would only take them down after immense backlash primarily from black women. This behavior is wrong in all cases, but one must ask why was this not done for black male victims of police brutality? In my opinion, while people do consume black people’s pain for humor and entertainment, this behavior goes unchecked in regards to black women because black women are ignored when we discuss police brutality and we are of little use to anyone that is not a black woman outside of the internet.
What are the implications of these memes? Well for starters, this continues the longstanding tradition of using black women for humor. They have made Breonna into a joke and this coupled with the inability of the public to acknowledge violence against black women and girls is lethal. Even in death she is mistreated and forced to live in the margins. The memes have let people get away with performative allyship, they feel that posting a few links under a viral tweet is sufficient enough to get justice for her when they continue to ignore criticism from black women themselves and they do not listen nor do they learn. Without intervention this behavior becomes the standard, it invalidates any future black female victims and makes people think that showing basic respect for black women is enough.
This is all coming at a time where #SayHerName is being co-opted and black women still face invisibility, police brutality, assault and much more. The memes must stop now because we already have another black woman, Oluwatoyin Salau, fall victim to the incompetence of the police and the actions of a predator, she deserves so much better than to be indirectly made fun of for the sake of virtual woke points. This is happening when we have lost two black trans women, Riah Milton and Dominique “Rem’mie” Fells within a week of each other. Institutions and all of us have failed black women in one way or another while we are still alive but the least we could do is treat them with kindness, love and respect in death. No matter how many memes go viral and distort our message this fact still remains, black women face police brutality, assault and so many things that cannot be solved with memes, tweets or performative activism. We have a chance to be better about this and learn from our mistakes. Listen to black women when we voice our opinions and concerns about our oppression, take accountability for your detrimental actions, try to make amends with us and the best apology is changed behavior rather than hollow words.
In conclusion, respect black women and treat us with the same dignity you give cishet black men. Be better about your activism and do not expect us to hold your hand on your path of learning. There is too much at stake for you to crack jokes at our expense even if it is for “awareness”, you should know better. I have been meaning to ask, why is black death something to capitalize on? Also if you read this and question how you interact with black women I suggest following more black women on social media, reading more works by black women (I made a folder for that and different works from my black studies classes!), listening to us, internalizing what we say, educate yourself and help make change happen.
