Reflections on the Anniversary of “#SeeHerName”

One year ago today, I published my first academic piece, “#SeeHerName: Using Intersectionality and Storytelling to Bring Visibility to Black Women in Employment Discrimination and Police Brutality,” in the DePaul Journal for Social Justice. In the article, I use critical race theory to discuss the invisibility of Black women and their unique experiences in life and death. This invisibility precludes Black women from enjoying legal protections, social value, and freedom. I argue that Black women’s invisibility is rooted in a historical system of oppression established by lies and omissions and that true liberation can only come by first unearthing and contextualizing those lies.

In a year, “#SeeHerName” has been downloaded worldwide over 500 times on DePaul’s website, made available on Westlaw and SSRN, and featured on a handful of blogs. My thanks to those who have read, shared, and given feedback on the article.

I wish our world improved in the last year. In very, very small ways, it did. For example, and on point with this piece, the CROWN Act is closer than ever to becoming U.S. federal law. But largely, our world remains unchanged.

As I think of and mourn the ten victims of racial terror in Buffalo, New York, the majority of whom were Black women, I am reminded (somehow, without ever forgetting) of the work left to do. The work we cannot do on our own. The work we need them to take up.

I’ve said before that the essence of “#SeeHerName” is summarized in this one footnote, a quote from James Baldwin that says it all so succinctly. More than that, Brother Baldwin’s words underscore my overall commitment to truth-telling and lie-unearthing. We need both to get free.

To that end, I am encouraged by those who have and are doing the work of telling the truth and exposing the lies. The work of hope, which is exhausting. The work toward freedom. For all of us. I pray we get there someday.

Roberta A. Drury, Margus D. Morrison, Andre Mackneil, Aaron Salter, Geraldine Talley, Celestine Chaney, Heyward Patterson, Katherine Massey, Pearl Young, Ruth Whitfield of Buffalo, New York. Rest in power.