ACLU: The Links Between Racialized and Gender-Based Violence

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ACLU
@ACLU
Recognizing that race and gender-based violence are deeply intertwined is just a starting point.

Without this understanding, we can't address or prevent the violence our communities face.

The Links Between Racialized and Gender-Based Violence
Racialized and gender-based violence are deeply intertwined and rooted in prejudice and discrimination. Recognizing this is just the starting point to address and prevent violence experienced by...
aclu.org
10:28 AM · Apr 1, 2021

https://www.aclu.org/news/racial-justice/the-links-between-racialized-and-gender-based-violence/


Like so many Asian Americans, I was shattered by the shooting rampage that killed six Asian women and two other people on March 17. Grief turned to rage when Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office Captain Jay Baker announced, “The suspect did take responsibility for the shootings … but he does claim that it was not racially motivated.”

That statement rested on a false and dangerous assumption — that targeting women viewed as sexual “temptations” could not be racist. But women of color so often live at the intersection of harm caused by racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination. The Atlanta shootings and the recent rise in anti-Asian hate incidents, almost 70 percent of which were committed against Asian women, are only the latest examples. Recognizing that racialized and gender-based violence are deeply intertwined, rooted in prejudice and discrimination, is just a starting point. But without this understanding, there is little hope that we can actually address and prevent violence experienced by those who are most marginalized in our society.

Women of color have long known this, leading calls for responses to violence that serve the needs of their communities. Years before her arrest for refusing to give up her seat on a bus, Rosa Parks organized on behalf of Recy Taylor, a young Black woman who was raped by six white men in Alabama in 1944. Parks and others launched a national and global campaign seeking justice for Taylor, after local law enforcement covered up the crime. That work identified the crisis that continues to this day — people and institutions ignore the violence and abuse committed against Black women and other women of color. Even worse, they often perpetuate it.

The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two Spirit movement, led by Indigenous women, condemns the failure of law enforcement agencies to stop the appalling disappearances, abuse, and murders of Indigenous women. The U.S. legal system, with some exceptions, prohibits tribal jurisdiction over perpetrators of crime who are not citizens of tribal nations. This allows many to commit violence against Native American women with impunity. Indigenous leaders’ demands for combatting violence against Native American women focus on the history of colonization and racism that fuels its modern forms.

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