Date of Award

11-9-2021

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Department of Criminal Justice Sciences

First Advisor

Dawn Beichner

Abstract

Within the growing literature and media coverage of police misconduct and brutality, Black women and girls are functionally invisible. Since the Black Lives Matter movement began the names of only two women have stood out among the Black male victims we know by name: Sandra Bland and Breonna Taylor. Here, I will explore through a Black feminist analytic framework, how the intersectionalities of gender and race contributed to a delay in awareness and accountability for the death of Breonna Taylor. This content analysis looked at the media coverage of Breonna Taylor for the one-year period (3/13/20-3/13/21) to uncover the reasons, implications, and usage of the resurrected story of Breonna Taylor following the death of George Floyd, to explain why her life and legacy only seems to matter because his did. The narrative afterlives of Breonna Taylor detail the implications of an empty activism; what happens when a name becomes the only thing we are saying? Secondarily, this thesis answers how and why she became the first Black woman martyred by the Black Lives Matter movement.

Comments

Imported from Smith_ilstu_0092N_12065.pdf

DOI

https://doi.org/10.30707/ETD2021.20220215070318902489.999975

Page Count

179

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