Women of Color Fear of Racial Profiling and Police Brutality Under Reported

When people in the Black Lives Matter Movement protest, we hear about Eric Garner, Mike Brown, Rodney King and Amadou Diallo but we don’t often hear about women. How were they similar to, or different from, those of men whose stories drive our analysis and responses to racial profiling and police violence? And how would centering women’s stories change the conversation? Social media has help to spread the word about some of the cases such as Sandra Bland who was pulled over for a broken tale light and later died.

While New York City relaxed stop and frisk under Mayor Bill de Blasio, 88.8 percent of the people stopped in 2015 were of color. We couldn’t find statistics for women and advocates say there’s no breakout. But women we talked with feel scared.

On Tuesday October 18, 2016, a naked 66 year old mentally disturb black woman was shot twice and killed by police officer in the privacy of her home in the Bronx. The community is outraged and Mayor Bill de Blasio talks about educating police officers on how to handle situations where drawing a gun isn’t necessary. This is widely talked about on Facebook and some stories can be read here: https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=police%20kill%20debra%20danner

CCNY Students Speakout about Racial Profiling

Female students on campus speak out about their fears of racial profiling, some of whom have been falsely arrested on several occasions and now have a record in the system for alleged crimes they have not committed or convicted and awaiting trials. Yael Cajar says, “I think a lot of the times they assume because you’re a minority or you look a certain way you don’t know your rights and maybe you don’t know how the legal system works.”

Muslim women feel they get profiled twice as much because of police surveillance in their community. “I fear racial profiling myself but also NYPD surveillance of Muslim communities which is completely wrong, it’s invading our privacy and personal space. I am more fearful of police surveillance because that affects me,” says Fariha Hussain a student at the City College of New York.

Sanat Pascale says, “I do feel like women should come out more and share their stories about how they’re being racially profiled,” another student at CCNY. If you feel unfairly targeted report it.