Why We Believe Ma’Khia Deserved To Die: Because We Don’t Believe Black Girls Deserve Grace
Every day, I am reminded that the world does not value Black girls. It is not just a lack of valuing, but also an unapologetic assertion that they are both held to a higher standard to deserve humanity.
Recently, Ma’Khia Bryant, a 16 year-old Black girl was murdered by police. She was shot 4 times in the chest. Ma’Khia had called the police because she was being bullied and those who had been bullying her were at her home.
As a child, Ma’Khia did what many educators have lamented that they see within their school settings — -she also decided to go outside and fight. The police officer who killed her did so because Ma’Khia had a knife and seemed prepared to use it on the person who had come to harm her.
The arguments that have been posited to justify that Ma’Khia deserved to die have been rooted in our overall disdain for Black girlhood. Again. It is not that people are arguing that Ma’Khia may have needed to be disarmed, allowing for the safety of herself and others, but instead, the insistence that she deserved 4 shots in her chest.
The lessons I am being reminded of have been entrenched in our failure to fully support & love Black Girls
1. We do not believe Black Girls deserve grace-Many of the posts I have seen stated that she deserved to die. Not that she needed to be disarmed in order to protect her and the person that she was seeking to harm. Simply that the police needed to kill her. Research has shown that we consistently fail to give Black girls grace. We more severely punish them for the same delinquent acts that are perpetrated by their White counterparts. We suspend and expel them at higher rates for the same infractions that their White female counterparts commit. We find it fully acceptable to punish them harshly.
2. We do not let Black girls be GIRLS/CHILDREN-the adultification research is easy to find. We expect Black girls to need less nurturing, support, and at the same time demand that they make the rational decisions that only develop in adulthood. Posts included “she should have stayed inside”, “she needed to handle it better” — -even though we have seen adults struggle to manage conflict, even when their brains have fully developed to the point where they should truly know better.
3. Black Girls Bodies are viewed as a license to view them as adults-Ma’Khia was called a “young woman”. Many posted “how were the police supposed to know she was a child” — . Yet, if you look at her, she is not an adult, but we fail to see it because of the way that bodies of Black girls are formed. Yet, the problem is, we do not truly LOOK.
4. Respectability politics is believed to be what will “Save” Black Girls. — Black girls are held responsible for the way the world chooses to interact with them. It is their tone that is policed, versus the challenging of unfairness and misogynoir that has caused their frustration. Their choice of dress is used to justify their sexualization and abuse. Their lack of social and emotional maturity (which is NORMATIVE) is deemed the reason for their overall maltreatment. Statements about “home training” have echoed throughout threads about the murder of Ma’Khia, as if respectability has ever saved us from being harmed. As if respectability ever stopped the assault on Black girl bodies or their psyches.
Black women have internalized all of these messages. The same “former Black girls” who should understand the stress of being at those intersections are often the same ones who are leading the charge to devalue Black girls. Instead of remembering how we struggled to be valued, not harmed, and the guilt of feeling that when these occurred — -that we were at fault….
We pass on these messages to Black girls.
Forgetting that, if Black women do not love, support, and insist upon the protection of Black girls and Black girlhood, we make space for others to view their own marginalization of Black girls as acceptable.
It is never acceptable to not give Black Girls Grace
It is never okay to expect Black girls to respond like adults
It is never good to wish trauma upon Black girls
It is never right to believe that Black girlhood does not deserve the same standard of protection, understanding, nurturing, and Benefit-of-The-Doubt that we so graciously give to everyone BUT Black Girls
It is never acceptable for Black women to sacrifice Black girls
Black girls deserve so much more than they ever get from this world — -ALWAYS
#DrTyffani #CenteringSisters #RacialTrauma #MaKhiaBryant
Dr. Dent is a licensed psychologist. Her hardest job is being a Black Woman who centers the experiences of Black women and girls. She no longer gives grace to anyone who does not do the same for Black girls. Make sure to “Like” her page.