Womxn Who Rock Reflection

Womxn Who Rock: Ofrendas For The Future, was an event that celebrated women, people of color, and the remembrance of those who have passed to bring honor, justice and love to the life that they lived. I cannot help but to connect this to the pain and mourning that our country is going through. I am still processing and trying to understand the realities of what our social systems allow. Oppression, targeting, demonizing and murder is a reality for the black and brown communities that are currently fighting the systems that allow these attacks to happen again and again. In the Ofrendas for the future, they talked about how when reflecting on people’s lives, there is a focus on their life. Honoring and remembering the memories and the love that that person had in the moments on this earth. The thousands of victims that are murdered by systems of policing in this country are seen as tombstones. They are just another face added to the long list of people who are born with a target on their back. Instead of viewing George Floyd as another black man who was murdered, there should be a larger remembrance of his life. The people he loved and the people who loved him. This would deviate from the story from being just another statistic, to humanize and create empathy for those who we have lost. 

I found power in the all femme presence in the Womxn Who Rock confrence. Everyone was there to support each other and lift each other up in a way where they could learn from each other and build off of each other. The mentioning of lifting women up reminded me of the lack of this women remembrance in the Black Lives Matter movement. When we consider intersectional identities, we can recognize that Black women are getting murdered at almost the same rate as Black men, except these cases are not broadcasted. These cases are hidden, and these women are forgotten. Charleen Lyles, was a Seattle resident who was shot and killed by police in her own home. In 2017, my high school (Garfield High School) stood up and protested against the murder of this Black woman who was in our own backyard. We centered the voices of her family members and the life she lived. Like panel members discussed in the conference. We decided to take an approach that celebrated her life and brought honor to her memories to be able to bring awareness to the harm and trauma that is done to our communities.