JINHA

NEWS CENTER – As U.S. media attempt to represent the Baltimore uprising in a negative light, women leaders in the movement say they do so by ignoring women’s resistance

Since 10,000 took to the streets demanding justice for black youth Freddie Gray on Saturday and protesting police killings in Baltimore, the media have worked aggressively to portray protestors as aggressive looters, drawing on gendered and racialized stereotypes. Women who led the protests say this misrepresentation depends in part on the marginalization of women and the long struggle for justice against police violence in the city.

One women, who spoke to Baltimore’s City Paper and did not wish to give her name, was a protest marshal at the rally. The woman, who has been active since 2007, explained that efforts by religious leaders to have men at the front of the march and women “safely” behind contributed in part to the lack of images of women. She noted that the media’s own sexism contributed to the fact that few photos of her appeared from Saturday’s protest, although she was at the front of the march all day.

Organizers Tawanda Jones and Qiara Butler have both been active in the fight against police violence since police beat to death Tyrone West in 2013. Tyrone was Tawanda’s brother and Qiara’s cousin. Tawanda is familiar with the damage of the media; she has received death threats and attempts to sabotage her car since media carefully edited a chant that she led to make it appear she was saying “kill a cop.”

“My family . . . we’re mostly women, and we fight. We fight for what we feel is justice. We’ve gone through every avenue of government, and have had our requests and demands turned down. We’re hoping that, with Freddie Gray’s case, something develops and that justice trickles down to all those in the city affected by police brutality,” said Qiara.

Another scandal around media representation of the protests occurred when media presented a photograph that allegedly showed a black male protestor trying to steal a bag from a group of white women. Caitlin Goldblatt, one of the white women in the photo, reacted to the misrepresentation on social media. She explained that the photograph actually showed her and another friend in the protests trying to protect the man from a drunk white woman who was aggressively attacking him and grabbing his bag.

Perhaps the only image of a woman in the Baltimore protests that the media has circulated widely is a video of a mother berating her son, wearing a ski mask, and telling him not to take part. The video has been ubiquitous in mainstream media, who are calling the woman “mom of the year.”

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