Toyin was a 19-year-old Black woman activist in Florida who had become well-known and respected for a video in which she’s pleading for justice for Black trans man Tony McDaniel, who had been killed by police a few days earlier.
Now imagine a Black woman who is dealing with the same pandemic, the same police killings, the fact that Breonna Taylor isn’t going to get enough attention as George Floyd and the fact that, through it all, Black men are still terrorizing their bodies and leaving those bodies lifeless in the streets.
Salau was putting her life on the line fighting for Black people, like so many other Black women, and she was still subjected to the violence that Black men initiate.
Because I need for us to be very clear on this all: Black men have never stopped bringing violent terror to Black women and Black LGBT people’s lives.
If we as Black men can conceptualize the fallacy of bad apples in police forces then we should be able to understand how masculinity creates a similar code of arms that protects Black men at the expense of Black women and LGBT communities even if we are not pulling the proverbial and literal triggers.
