What started as a hashtag in support of Black lives is now being used to martyr White ones. A look at the usage of a catch phrase in context.
by Mauve Maude
January 19, 2021
Sandra, George, and Breonna
It’s become a commonly known story. Sandra Bland was arrested in Texas in 2015, after being pulled over for a (pretextual) minor traffic violation. She died by hanging in the Waller County jail three days later. Her death was ruled a suicide. But when dashcam video of her arrest was released, the Waller County Sheriff’s Department drew suspicion and scrutiny that remains today. The hashtag “Say Her Name” was born from the death of Sandra Bland.
The idea and the purpose was to call attention to the overlooked deaths of unarmed Black women at the hands of police, during a time when Black men’s deaths were gaining attention. The Black Lives Matter movement was in its infant stages, after the death of Trayvon Martin, followed by the death of Michael Brown. #SayHerName was meant to make sure Black women weren’t forgotten. Unfortunately, since Sandra Bland’s death in 2015, the list of Black female victims has grown longer. Black men’s names, of course, have continued to fill the list as well. So #SayHisName has also been used.
The most recent, most famous #SayHerName is that of Breonna Taylor, the aspiring nurse shot to death by police in her own home in Kentucky last March. Breonna’s name actually rose to parallel George Floyd‘s, after protests of his on-camera killing erupted in May. The audacity of his murder brought centuries of slavery, lynchings, and police brutality to a head–an ultimate point of intolerance–and a flood of names were invoked in response, some from the last century. But Breonna’s death, like George Floyd’s, was a fresh wound. Though she was killed in March, the national media was just getting around to the story in its earliest stages of fallout. And where plenty of pundits, amateur and professional, were quick to employ the old character assassination strategy on George Floyd, who had a record, that wasn’t so easy for Breonna Taylor.
It eventually became clear that Breonna Taylor’s character wasn’t one to be assassinated, that in fact, she’d become a martyr.
Initially, misinformation swirled around the earliest reports of her story, pointing against both sides. Locally, at first, she was just an unnamed woman shot in a drug raid. Later there were reports that the police had busted in to the wrong apartment (they did not). There were reports that Breonna was shot literally lying in bed asleep (she wasn’t). There were reports that Breonna was dating and living with a drug dealer (also not true; even the police never suspected their primary suspect was living in Breonna’s house). But as the facts were revealed, it eventually became clear that Breonna Taylor’s character wasn’t one to be assassinated, that in fact, she’d become a martyr.
Cannon, Ryan, and Ashli
In August of 2020, after protests had been going on across the country all summer, a five-year-old boy in North Carolina was shot in the head at point blank range while playing in his father’s front yard, with his sisters nearby. The day after Cannon Hinnant was murdered, the suspect, his father’s next door neighbor, was arrested. Darius Sessoms was a 25-year-old with a record of drug offenses. He was well known to Cannon’s family; Austin Hinnant, Cannon’s father, had invited Sessoms over for a beer on his porch the night before Sessoms shot his son. Hinnant and his stepmother told the press clearly that they didn’t remotely suspect the shooting was racially motivated.
Darius Sessoms was also Black. Two days after the shooting, and one day after Sessoms was arrested, conservative blogger, Matt Walsh, tweeted that Cannon Hinnant’s murder was being under-covered by the media because he was White. Had the victim’s and perpetrator’s races simply been reversed, he claimed, the whole country would be treated to extended, incendiary coverage of race relations in America, that would “certainly” lead to riots in the streets. He didn’t feel the need to wager a guess on what would’ve happened if their races had been the same. So he then implored his readers to “Say His Name”.
It trended quickly, and some social media readers (the ones who felt so inclined), myself included, did have to look for a news story to see what #CannonHinnant was about. Once the story was searched out, it was plain to see the Hinnant family didn’t liken themselves to that of Breonna Taylor or George Floyd, but perhaps only if it was indeed searched out. Perhaps better coverage would have helped point out that detail. Nevertheless, more outrage was kindled. Some social media “coverage” even implied that Sessoms had killed Cannon in a warlike move to avenge the deaths of Black people. TV pundits weighed in too, of course, and then Cannon Hinnant, who’d been a happy five-year-old a few days before, became the first White person to wear the “Say His Name” hashtag–at least, at the urging of White conservatives. Black Lives Matter activists had invoked it for Ryan Whitaker in May, when he was shot while putting down his gun, at the door of his own home, by officers investigating a noise complaint, about a week before George Floyd’s death.
“Reverse the races and this is the only thing anyone talks about for a month.”
Matt Walsh
But just a few months later, a new name would wear the crown nobody wants to wear.
Ashli Babbitt was the first casualty in the January 6 raid on the United States Capitol, and the only one whose death resulted from direct confrontation with the Capitol police. After the news of her shooting broke and some reports even showed video of her being transported from the scene, she succumbed to her injuries in the hospital. This January 7 Fox News article helped reveal her identity to the world.
Ashli was a veteran, a wife, a business owner, and a patriot who “loved America with all her heart”, a strong woman who wasn’t afraid to stand up for what she believed in–“caring, thoughtful, and loving”–and nobody in her family had known what she went to Washington to do. Like Kenneth Walker, Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend, they heard about it on the news, with everyone else. And like everyone else, they were able to see, over and over again from various angles, what Ashli did.
After storming the Capitol during the Congressional count, with thousands of other people, a group made their way to the House chamber. Ashli Babbitt stood at the front of this group. Though the Senate and much of the House had been narrowly evacuated, some House members remained in the chamber. The doors had been barricaded with furniture from the chamber, and Capitol police officers stood guard with guns drawn. When the crowd with Babbitt reached the chamber, they began smashing the glass in a set of double doors, with drawn guns clearly waiting for them on the other side, and Capitol police warning them to stand down. As soon as the glass was cleared from one of the doors, Ashli Babbitt, with a flag draped on her back, tried to be the first one through.
In the next couple of days, it would be revealed that before Ashli Babbitt went to Washington and joined the insurrection, she was not only a Twitter warrior and fierce supporter of the President; she was also a QAnon follower.
As soon as the glass was cleared from one of the doors, Ashli Babbitt, with a flag draped on her back, tried to be the first one through.
And as the fallout of the Capitol riots went on, including the deaths of three other insurrectionists, one Capitol police officer at the hands of insurrectionists, and another by suicide, the QAnon-heavy insurgency began drawing comparisons to the “Black Lives Matter riots” of the summer, complete with the guest appearances from Antifa. The main complaint was: the (Left’s) vocal response and outrage over the Capitol invasion, as opposed to the (Left’s) “silent” non-reactions, even endorsements of BLM violence. Of course, these arguments held their water only if a few important points weren’t considered: all the well-documented cases of police brutality resulting in the deaths of unarmed Black people with rare penalty, even though many of them were even on video, the differences between Black Lives Matter protesters, rioters, and Antifa, the participation of white supremacists in all of the events under discussion, the difference between property damage and invading the United States Capitol during a sacred Constitutional proceeding, incited by the President, and most importantly, the overwhelming, hard evidence that the election was not stolen from said President, and who was responsible for that election, which, one hand over another all over this country, was Black women. Nevertheless, #SayHerName was inevitably invoked for Ashli Babbitt, with unsurprising blowback.
A chorus of names
Sandra Bland. Breonna Taylor. Ryan Whitaker. George Floyd. Cannon Hinnant. Ashli Babbitt.
Because our country strives to be one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all, I’m inclined to believe most of us want equality. But even though we are created equal, liberty and justice for all requires some understanding. And the truth is, this understanding is not as simple as just swapping racial roles by skin color and hoping everything balances out. These understandings must go much deeper than that. Because there are some things in this country that will simply never be reversed. Racism, playing a role in almost every one of these stories, is one of the biggest of those.
All of these people should be alive, but are not.
Two died in police custody, one for an alleged crime, the other for a failure to signal a lane change. Three died doing nothing but being at home. At least four were killed by the police. Three died on video. One committed a crime, on video.
Breonna, Ryan, and Cannon all got mixed up in someone else’s mess, through no willingness or fault of their own. Breonna once let an old boyfriend receive mail at her house. Ryan played video games, and exercised his right to carry a gun in his home. Cannon rode his bike. Breonna was killed by the police, and ten months later, nobody has been arrested or charged for her death. Ryan hasn’t received justice either; the officer who shot him wasn’t even terminated. The crazed neighbor who shot Cannon, and fled, was hunted down and arrested by the next day, was swiftly charged, and awaits his judgment even now. A woman who helped him flee his crime has also been charged with a felony.
Sandra and George may or may not have broken the law, but in the custody of those whose job it is to protect us, neither lived long enough to be judged, to pay a fair and appropriate price, for actions that harmed no one. Sandra’s death is a suspicious, unanswered question. George’s death was anything but, captured at close range on an eight-minute video, witnessed by a crowd of people standing by, and later seen by the whole country.
They all provoked outrage in their deaths. One of them saw justice. You can say his name.
Ashli Babbitt willingly, intently, and proudly charged into a place where she wasn’t supposed to be, threatened people inside, and disobeyed police orders before she was shot, for the protection of elected officials carrying out the duties of our democracy. And she did that to protest an election the President, object of her adoration, told her was stolen from him. And she adored him and believed him because “Q” told her he was the savior of the world. And she believed that, because despite everything good the media had to say about her, something was missing from her American life, something very important. Outrage wasn’t provoked by Ashli Babbitt’s death. Outrage, misplaced, was why it occurred.
And that’s how Ashli stands out from all the rest. From all accounts, even her own, she died doing what she wanted to do.
“Nothing will stop us….they can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon D.C. in less than 24 hours….dark to light!”
Ashli Babbitt