African American Policy Forum

The African American Policy Forum (AAPF) is a social justice think tank focused on issues of gender and diversity. AAPF seeks to build bridges between arts, activism, and the academy in order to address structural inequality and systemic oppression. AAPF develops and promotes frameworks and strategies that address a vision of racial justice that embraces the intersections of race, gender, class, and the array of barriers that disempower those who are marginalized in society.

Seeking to raise awareness for black female victims of police brutality and anti-Black violence in the United States, AAPF released a report entitled [http://static1.squarespace.com/static/53f20d90e4b0b80451158d8c/t/55a810d7e4b058f342f55873/1437077719984/AAPF_SMN_Brief_full_singles.compressed.pdf "Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality against Black Women"] in July 2015. The report documents stories of Black women who have been killed by police, shining a spotlight on forms of police brutality often experienced disproportionately by women of color. It also provides analytical frameworks for understanding Black women's experiences, and broadens dominant conceptions of who experiences state violence and what it looks like. In February 2015, the AAPF coined the hashtag #SayHerName in an effort to create a large social media presence alongside existing racial justice campaigns, such as #BlackLivesMatter and #BlackGirlsMatter. Since 2015, #SayHerName has seen global use to call attention to the continued lack of Black women's narratives in discussions of state violence. Provided by Wikipedia