Forgotten: The Black Women in America

Written by Brittany

“The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman.” - Malcolm X

Kenneka Jenkins, Breonna Taylor, Atatiana Jefferson, Jalajhia Finklea, Oluwatoyin “Toyin” Salu, Janisha Fonville, Nia Wilson, Kayla Moore, Sandra Bland, Rekia Boyd….this is just to name a few of the black girls and women who will not be able to celebrate the holidays with their families this year. Who won't be able to tell their families they love and appreciate them. These girls and women were failed by the system. The system that was supposed to serve, protect and provide justice to their citizens. Not only has the system failed these women but we have failed them as well. 

For years, black girls have been taught to protect themselves and to survive on their own. No one protected them. No one looked out for black women but black women themselves. Just like black boys, from the moment a black girl is born she is looked at as a criminal or a troublesome child. In the education system, even though black boys are the highest to get suspended and expelled from school, black girls are not that far behind. Black girls are five times more likely than white girls to be suspended at least once from school, seven times more likely to receive multiple out of school suspensions than white girls and three times more likely to receive referrals to law enforcement according to a New York Times analysis of the most recent discipline data from the Department of Education. According to a 2017 report from the Education Trust, black girls in elementary and middle school were 11 times more likely to be suspended than their white peers in New York City. And according to a state by state analysis that was conducted by the American Civil Liberties Union, black girls were nine times more likely to be arrested at school than white girls in Iowa. 

Society has looked and treated black girls older than they are as early as preschool. This type of treatment is called Adultification which teachers, parents, and law enforcement do all the time. Adultification is “a form of racial prejudice where children of minority groups, such as African American girls, are treated as being more mature than they actually are by a reasonable social standard of development.” With the recent death and injustice of Breonna Taylor, the #protectblackwomen has become a fast moving movement that was created to show support to women who were wrongfully murdered by the police. This woke people up to know that not only are black men being killed by law enforcement but black women as well. It’s great that we have an outcry for justice for those women who were killed by law enforcement but where’s the outcry for our black girls who are missing? 

Oluwatoyin “Toyin” Salu was a 19 year old  Black Lives Matter activist that was found dead in Florida on June 16th but was missing since June 6th. Her last tweet was that she was sexually assaulted by a man who offered her a ride to the church she was staying for shelter. When she went missing, there were a few posts surfing on Instagram but where was the outcry? Where was the demand to find her? Until she was found on June 16th, that’s when people demanded that the man be arrested but why wait until it’s too late? When black girls go missing or sexually assaulted, the first thing people say is “She was fast anyway” or “She probably went to meet a boy”. Society isn’t the only ones that think this way but our community as well has this type of mentaily. For example, when the Surviving R. Kelly's show premiered on television, it opened something serious about our community….we don't care for our black girls like we say we do. When high school staff members saw him returning back to his school and talking to underage girls they turned a blind eye, when it was announced that he was sleeping with and married to  Alayiah who was 15 our people turned a blind eye, and when a video came out that showed him peeing and asking a underage girl to perform oral sex on him again our people turned a blind eye. Not until this series revealed how vicious and a predator he was to our black girls, people felt remorse. In some of the episodes, the parents of the victims would say “we knew about the video and speculation but he wasn't acquitted so we didn’t think too much about it ” or “We didn’t think he would do this to our child”, not to place blame but in a sense we offered these girls up to him. 

The black community knew about R.Kelly’s fondness with underage girls, so to say we didn't know is unacceptable. We have to stop thinking that our girls can protect themselves. At a young age, a child’s frontal lobe, the part where they make decisions, is not fully developed so it's up to us as a community, parents and or guardians to protect our girls from predators who target them. 64,000-75,000 of black girls and women are currently missing in the United States and with sex trafficking and child trafficking on the rise, we have to protect our girls, not just when a cop kills them but when they go missing or when they get sexually assaulted. We have to get that ideology of our girls “she’s fast” or “she can handle herself she’s grown” out of our mentality. Malcolm X, an civil rights activist and my role model, said “The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman.”, which is the most truthful thing ever spoken. We as a community need to come together and give our girls the protection they need because if we can’t protect our girls and society can’t, WHO WILL?