Andrea J. RitchieRezensionen

Two seasoned activists make a convincing case for defunding the police.

As Kaba and Ritchie note, defunding “means investing the billions currently poured into policing and the prison-industrial complex into community-based safety strategies: meeting basic needs that include housing, health care, access to care for disabled people, childcare, elder care, a basic guaranteed income, and accessible, sustainable living-wage jobs.” The authors use three main arguments. First, they show how policing endangers, rather than protects, America’s most vulnerable communities. Second, they claim that calls for reforming the police—rather than abolition—are futile because the inherent violence of policing makes it impossible to reform. Finally, they argue that there are more effective ways to promote safety. “We call for abolition of police because, despite all of the power, resources and legitimacy we pour into them, they cannot and will not deliver safety,” they write. Kaba and Ritchie begin by showing how police manufacture crimes by focusing on making most of their arrests in certain “hot spots”—which, they argue, is code for brown and Black neighborhoods—while ignoring others. This perpetuates a culture of “fearmongering” that politicians use to divert funds to police and away from social services programs that have been proven to prevent violence. The authors urge a shift to an “abundance mindset,” in which the government stops using resources to punish marginalized populations and instead uses them to meet every American’s needs. Furthermore, they urge us to listen to survivors, who often encounter violence in the very systems that are allegedly set up to protect them. Kaba and Ritchie are knowledgeable, passionate, and skilled at elucidating complex concepts clearly, without sacrificing nuance. The book is deeply researched and flawlessly argued, and the plan they lay out is practical, compassionate, and circumspect.

A brilliantly articulated plan to abolish the police.

-Kirkus Review

No More Police: A Case for Abolition, by Mariame Kaba and Andrea Ritchie, is an organized and well-researched explanation of the need for abolishing the police.

The kneejerk response from those who support the white supremacist status quo is that pulling the cops off the street will lead to full scale violence and crime. In other words, these people not only don't know anything about what the abolitionist movement is, they are trying to use fear (which statistics don't actually support) to maintain their entitlement and power under the present system.

No matter where you currently stand on the issue, don't let the false fear these hypocrites are peddling be your "rationale" for taking a stand. Read this book. Think about the statistics and the stories. Think about their ideas based on this information. This is not an overnight type of movement. In fact, at one point, they state that achieving safe, supportive and a truly just society is multigenerational. But we must start.

I'm not going to try to restate their arguments, they do too good of a job for me to mess it up. But for anyone who wants a society that is just for all, they owe it to themselves to not listen to the slogans, whether from the fear-mongers or from the "defund the police" crowd. The research here is cited so you can verify things for yourself (isn't that the usual first complaint of those who won't believe anything?). If you're one of those who "do your own research" then this is ideal. Do it. With an open mind. You may not think every idea here is good, but if you disagree with the larger premise, that police do not make people safer and do nothing to decrease violence (in fact they increase violence), then I have to question whether you just like your position in a white supremacist society more than you care for or believe in any moral, ethical, or spiritual system.

Highly recommended for those who want to know about, or know more about, the abolitionist movement. In fact, I think this is one of a handful of books I would recommend to someone who doesn't really like the idea but wants to better understand it. Maybe you won't flip 180 degrees but I find it hard to believe you will be totally against it either.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.

Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color is a fantastic non-fiction collection of facts and individual stories of Black, Indigenous, Latinx women and female-identifying individuals and their experiences with the police. This book should have been in conversations last summer when we were talking about Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, the California lynchings, and all the other lives stolen by racism, hate, and unhinged law enforcement. I’m a bit upset that it wasn’t, to be honest. A bit upset that books about racism by white women got many more sales, while Invisible No More was so difficult for me to find.

This book is deceptively short. There is a long introduction, and many, many pages of sources at the end. Yet, it’s not a book to read in a weekend. It’s heavy with stories of violence and sexual assault. Ritchie delivers the stories of the abused and murdered with a calm matter-of-factness that, from a literary sense, makes the book flow together well. From a more personal perspective, the ease with which she is able to fill these pages with harrowing accounts of casual shootings, rapes, threats… it’s heartbreaking. Ritchie is a police misconduct attorney and I’m sure she could easily fill several more books with experiences of her clients and community.

Invisible No More is one of the most intersectional books I’ve ever encountered. Care is made to portray experiences not only of Black women, but also Indigenous and Latinx experiences. And, not only of cisgender women, but transgender, gender non-conforming, and Two Spirit experiences as well. Stories come from heterosexual experiences and the LGBTQIAP+ community. I also appreciate that Ritchie addressed the conversation about intersectionality in our approach to understanding and dismantling systemic racism and police brutality – that shining a spotlight on a range of peoples does not weaken the argument, but strengthens it.

As any book about racism and racist acts… Invisible No More is overflowing with content warnings. Any type of violence – physical, sexual, and emotional – can be found in these pages. It’s an important book for self-education, but like any book that shows racism instead of just talking about it in a vague sense… it could be very triggering. While I recommend this book so highly, be aware of the content.

While, due to the nature of its content, I hesitate to call Invisible No More one of my favorite non-fiction books… it falls into that range of appreciation. Well-researched, well-delivered, and powerful, this book is essential reading for anyone who wants to be an ally to suppressed communities. It explains the laws, how they were developed, how they are acted upon, and the results they have carried. It’s a devastating yet important tool to have in your antiracism toolbox, and I highly recommend picking up a copy.

Thoroughly reveals how LGBT rights are civil rights and explains in detail how the intersection of race, class, and gender performance negatively affects members of the LGBT community through systemic racism and homophobia codified in the criminal justice system—everything from local laws, the police, lawyers, judges, juries, and especially prisons—and through social stigmas within their own individual families, respective communities, and in society.

A necessary and riveting book.

The narrative of police violence against people of color has been heavily focused on the experiences of men. Before the death of Sandra Bland, the mainstream media paid little attention to the experiences of female victims of policy brutality. This book attempts to correct that omission- to make clear how frequent and deadly the encounters are. This book catalogues the experiences of police violence against women of color, and the experiences are pervasive. The situations become especially deadly when gender identity and mental illiness are part of the equation. Ritchie highlights areas in which police are especially intrusive in women's lives, with motherhood being the most significant example. While lived experience and scholarship have both shown that mothers of color face extra scrutiny, Ritchie shows how that scrutiny far too frequently becomes violent. Women are victims of police violence as often as men, and deadly force is used to respond to the most trivial of offenses. Philosophies of "broken windows policing" have exacerbated the problem. They have also served to criminalize poverty.

Ritchie offers some suggestions for reforms. Central to them is the idea of using community mediation instead of law enforcement to respond to local incidents. Police have become so dangerous to people of color, Ritchie argues, that extra-police solutions are necessary.

As this is a first book on an understudied topic, it is the first in what will become a larger scholarly conversation. Because of this, Ritchie privileges the primary sources, allowing for significant excerpts of first-person narratives. This gives voice to those who have not often been heard.

What a mess this book is! I wanted to read this or something like it, after reading about the abuse of gays by San Francisco law enforcement in Randy Shilts' The Mayor of Castro Street. The book failed in so many ways to present a case for the state of affairs, perhaps because it had three authors and they were all so passionate about their subject that they couldn't control themselves. The beginning part of the book is particularly poorly done. (Because all three authors co-wrote it?) It jumps all over the place, making points, supposedly about injustices to gays, by pointing out examples of injustice to blacks and other minorities. (Huh?) And it does that while failing to point out many key nuances of those injustices to blacks that are easily learned by studying the literature readily out there. Certainly, there are several examples of LGBT injustices given, many quite memorable and to the point, but there are inadequate statistics to give backing to those examples. In the end, this should have been no more than an extended magazine article plus a booklet for handout to persons interested in the topic. The book does make a very key point about the connection between the perceived "deviance" of LGBT lifestyles and what then becomes the presumed "illegality" of anything LGBT people do. But what about the questions of why religion has a fetish with homosexuality abuse or why so many homophobic people go into law enforcement and other related questions that are never approached in this book? After reading this, I'm not sure the book I'm looking for even exists yet.

I received this book for free through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers.

This was such a powerful read. Andrea Ritchie did an amazing job making the invisible visible. Women are often left out of the narrative when it comes to police brutality and mass incarceration. I love how inclusive she was of all women of color (including the much overlooked indigenous population) and their experiences. In addition, she highlights the intersections of race, class, gender, disability, sexual identity and sexual orientation extremely well, providing a well rounded analysis of the female experience.

Overall, this is a must read.

The purpose of Invisible No More is awareness-raising about the experiences of Women of Color (WOC) at the hands of the police. (‘Women’ is construed broadly to include lesiban, bi, gay, trans, Two Spirit, and Gender Nonconforming individuals). It beats a repetitive drum: with regards to WOC who encounter law enforcement, police disproportionately exploit their power through coerced sex and violence. Ritchie argues that this is nothing new, if anything, these exploitations are but another tired reiteration of this nation’s obscenely racist treatment of various Persons of Color throughout our short history. Her exhausting task is to continue to beat the drum, to participate, to #SayHerName & #MeToo again & again, in all kinds of media, & to collaborate by organizing & hearing & (re)telling the same unfortunate stories of the overlooked “female” individuals ground up in the machine of police brutality.

The aggregation of historical accounts of police violence against women leads Ritchie to the (un)expected conclusion that police intrusion into the lives of WOC is so toxic & pervasive that mere reform is too weak an antidote; what is needed is an abolition of the institution & its funds diverted to social services & legal remedies that will directly impact the poor, working poor, & working middle class WOC.

I received this book as an ARC from Library Thing.
As its title suggests, Invisible No More brings to light the experiences of black women and women of color who have been targeted by police violence. Case studies are powerful, well-cited, and thoughtfully chosen with an eye to a diversity of intersectional identities.
However, some spaces in the text call for more exploration than Ritchie gives, particularly, "Enduring Legacies," while successfully setting the context for an exploration of gendered, racialized police violence, is sometimes hampered by its own focus, failing to provide the reader a broader historical context of the policing of white people and other minorities for scale and reference. In (rightly) centering these women's voices, Ritchie sometimes fails to adequately anticipate and address counterarguments. Thus, while her argument is clear, and I am certainly inclined to believe her, the text provides little context for self-evaluation and few tools for the reader to defend her argument against potential critics.

This book does a wonderful job of presenting a very difficult topic. The illustrations are effectively written in a manner that does not hide the seriousness and trauma but also does gratuitously dwell on difficult images. Ritchie provides not only examples of police violence but presents a concise and compelling history of its motives and uses. Although this book is difficult to get through because of the subject matter, it needs to be read.

Read. This. Book. Today.

(Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through Edelweiss, as well as a finished copy through Library Thing's Early Reviewers program. Trigger warning for violence against women and children, including sexual assault and rape, as well as racism, ableism, homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia.)

"At the 2004 National Coalition on Police Accountability conference, a man who identified himself as a former member of the Black Panther Party approached me at the end of the workshop. He said that his sister had been raped by a police officer 'back in the day,' but he had never understood what happened to her as police brutality until he had heard it framed that way in the workshop. I asked him how he and his sister had described her experience. He answered, somewhat bewildered, that it was 'just something bad that happened.' He then thanked me for opening his eyes as to how his sister’s experience fit into the work he had been doing all his life to challenge state violence against Black people."

Chances are, when you hear the words "police brutality," you picture a young black man - armed with only a bag of Skittles or a cell phone - killed in the streets, either by gunfire or a Taser or with an officer's bare fists: Philando Castile. Eric Garner. Sean Bell. Mike Brown. Trayvon Martin. Tamir Rice. (Although, at just twelve years old, this last could hardly be described as a man, even a young one.) Yet black women and women of color - including disabled women, trans women, and lesbian and bisexual women - also suffer from racialized police violence, compounded by gender and other axes of oppression.

Black women activists and scholars - such as Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi, the founders of #BlackLivesMatter - have begun to shift the conversation in recent years. From the #SayHerName hashtag - created in response to Sandra Bland's death while in police custody - to the groundbreaking AAPF report "Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced, and Underprotected," discussions of police violence are widening to include black women, people of color, people with physical and mental disabilities, LGBTQ and Two Spirit people, sex workers, children, and more.

Andrea Ritchie's Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color is an invaluable contribution to the literature. She tackles a difficult and admittedly wide-ranging topic with passion, insight, and a boatload of receipts. Ritchie pinpoints seven sites in which black women and women of color are vulnerable to police violence:

* girlhood, e.g., as schools push to criminalize previously normal juvenile misbehavior, like talking back;

* disability, such as when police are called to perform a welfare check on someone who may be in mental distress and whom they are ill-equipped to deal with; or when trying to communicate with a deaf person;

* sexual violence, including sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape;

* gender, i.e. when police enforce gender norms in behavior and dress; this can range from hassling women with a more masculine gender presentation to disbelieving rape victims who were "asking for it" by their nonconformity to white ideals of womanhood;

* sex, such as targeting those engaged in sex work, or "gender checks" for trans or gender nonconforming folks;

* motherhood, which ranges from police violence against pregnant women and mothers on one end of the spectrum (thus endangering children and fetuses), to criminalizing the parenting choices of black women and women of color, many of them a direct response to poverty and lack of resources (see, e.g., Laura Browder, a black woman who was arrested after leaving her children at a food court while she interviewed for a job...at the same food court); and

* police responses to violence against women, which can paradoxically result in additional violence against the victim, including physical assault, sexual assault, and murder.

While each of these chapters could easily fill its own book (indeed, on the topic of girls, police, and education, I strongly recommend Monique W. Morris's 2016 title, Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools), Ritchie skillfully distills each topic into an engaging and informative look at one aspect of racialized and gendered police violence. Each chapter fits seamlessly with the others; indeed, there is quite a bit of overlap, and I often found myself nodding at how one thread circled back to touch many others. I especially appreciate her inclusion of strip and body cavity searches which, as state-sanctioned (and in prisons, required) forms of sexual assault and rape, are particularly unsettling.

In addition to problems, Ritchie also examines solutions, with profiles of various activists and movements that have coalesced around different cases or sites of police violence. While, according to Ritchie, the ultimate solution lies in dismantling the police state (although, admittedly, it's difficult for me to imagine what this might look like), she primarily focuses on less radical measures. Specifically, she points to four measures that could have the greatest impact - in no small part because they have been the driving force between increased contact between marginalized communities and the police: ending the war on drugs, the war on terror, immigration enforcement by police, and broken windows policing.

Thoroughly researched and documented, with the perfect marriage of reasoned arguments and righteous anger, Invisible No More is a must read - for everyone. By focusing solely on black men and men of color, we miss the myriad ways that police violence manifests in other communities. Invisible No More will teach you to widen your perspective - and, hopefully, your circle of compassion.

 


TABLE OF CONTENTS

foreword by Mariame Kaba xi

chapter 1 Introduction 1
chapter 2 Enduring Legacies 19
chapter 3 Policing Paradigms and Criminalizing Webs 43
chapter 4 Policing Girls 70
chapter 5 Policing (Dis)ability 88
chapter 6 Police Sexual Violence 104
chapter 7 Policing the Borders of Gender
chapter 8 Policing Sex 144
chapter 9 Policing Motherhood 165
chapter 10 Police Responses to Violence 183
chapter 11 Resistance 203
chapter 12 Conclusion 233

afterword by Charlene Carruthers 342
acknowledgments 346
notes 352 index

http://www.easyvegan.info/2017/08/25/invisible-no-more-by-andrea-ritchie/

An inspiring work in itself it should stand as a important piece of the issue of corruption, brutality and immorality of today's police and justice system as a whole.

The praise for Invisible No More is overwhelming. Six pages of accolades from such notables as the cofounder of Black Lives Matter and the executive directors of Race Forward, Amnesty International, and Color of Change, to name a few. Words like powerful, passionate, incisive, compelling, and essential pepper their reviews. And they are correct in every word. Invisible No More paints an ugly picture of racial profiling and police violence targeting women of color in thorough detail. Well researched and presented, Invisible No More draws back the curtain & exposes our dangerous society for what it is, prejudiced against race, religion, gender, sexuality, socioeconomic status, ability and intelligence. If you are caught jaywalking, fear for your safety if you are not white, not pure bred American, not a masculine man, not a bible thumping Catholic, not missionary-style-sex straight, not old money rich, not physically strong and capable, nor intellectually book smart. Fear for your life if you talk back, appear to speak out, try to stand up, attempt to look authority in the eye, use your mind, or heaven forbid, exercise your right.
If there is any doubt as to how well Ritchie has researched her subject, consider the over 50 pages of notes she has compiled to support her narrative.

Wait and see moments: There are two different forewords, one written by Angela Davis of the University of California and the other by Marianne Kaba from Project NIA. We will have to wait and see if both introductions stay.

"In the end, the real challenge posed by women of color's experiences of police profiling and violence is to our collective conceptions of violence and safety, the role of police in our society, and to our ability and willingness to make building and nurturing values, visions, and practices that will produce genuine safety and security for all members of our communities a central task of movements against police violence." (239)
I’ve talked about the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program before, and this is absolutely one of the top notch best ARCs that I have received through the program. I actually read this a few months ago, and am just now getting to write about it, so this book is now currently available for purchase.

I think this is probably one of the most important books that I have ever read, and certainly one of the most important books I have read in order to learn more about a subject that affects a population of which I am not a member. The book looks at police violence against populations of color, and then specifically through the lens of women of color.

Here’s the synopsis:

Amid growing awareness of police violence, individual Black men—including Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, and Freddie Gray—have been the focus of most media-driven narratives.

Yet Black women, Indigenous women, and other women of color also face daily police violence. Invisible No More places the individual stories of women and girls such as Sandra Bland, Dajerria Becton, Mya Hall, and Rekia Boyd into broader contexts, centering women of color within conversations around the twin epidemics of police violence and mass incarceration.

Invisible No More also documents the evolution of a movement for justice for women of color targeted by police that has been building for decades, largely in the shadows of mainstream campaigns for racial justice and police accountability.

Informed by twenty years of research and advocacy by Black lesbian immigrant and police misconduct attorney Andrea Ritchie, this groundbreaking work demands a sea change in how police violence is understood by mainstream media, policymakers, academics, and the general public, as well as a radical rethinking of our visions of safety—and the means we devote to achieving it.

Ritchie starts with a few introductory, more general chapters, and then she separates the book based on specific communities within the “women of color” population, taking a deeper dive into each. In each section, she shares stories from and about women who experienced police violence, looks at the history and background of the justice and political system, the biased and ingrained racist beliefs that set the stage for this group to be victims of police violence, and then recommends actions for “resistance.” These subsections are: policing girls, policing disability, policing sexual violence, policing the borders of gender, policing sex, policing motherhood, and policing responses to violence. Because of this particular separation choice, she often uses similar terminology and rhetoric, or refers back to concepts she mentions in previous sections, so it can feel a tiny bit repetitive, but only because all of these communities and stories are so interconnected.

Before I dig more into the content, I wanted to say that overall, this book is incredibly well researched and sourced. It is a perfect mix of academic, referenced writing, while still being accessible to someone who doesn’t spend their life studying these stories. Which is really the perfect mix, in my mind: explaining something in which you are an expert to someone who is NOT an expert in a way that keeps them engaged and interested, and potentially curious enough to look into other authors on the topic. That’s the sweet spot. (I wish I didn’t feel the need to give gold stars for referenced work, but after reading one too many nonfiction or research book with basically zero references, those that are academically sourced stand in stark contrast.)
Setting the Stage

There were a number of overarching takeaways for me. One was really interrogating the role of police in society, which is not something I had thought about quite so actively before reading the book. What role do police currently play in our society, but also what role should they play? What kind of situations should police have jurisdiction over, and which situations might benefit from other community services first? And, barring anything else, what kind of oversight of police discretion do we need to implement in order to keep people safe.

Ritchie makes a point, both in this book and in interviews and other pieces that I’ve read of her writing, to emphasize that we have to look at the bigger picture of police patterns of behavior, and not only with reference to fatal interactions. Many of the stories that she tells in this book do not have a fatal ending, BUT they are no less important to consider with regard to public safety and more specifically the health and safety of women of color. And they also speak to an environment and ethos within police departments that perpetuate and even support continuing violence against historically marginalized communities.

Right off the bat, I appreciated Ritchie’s framework for the conversation. She took the first several pages to discuss what this book is, and perhaps more important, what the book is not, and WHY it’s not. She explained that there would be a lack of focus on trans men and gender non-conforming folks, and that her intention was not to erase, but to specifically focus on Black women, women of color, and LGBTQ-identifying women.

One of the most important things that set the stage for the content following was chapter 2, entitled “Enduring Legacies.” In it, Ritchie investigates and lays out an historical timeline, showing a direct correlation between the treatment of women of color in the past and the way they are treated today. Understanding how slavery and colonialism were systemic instruments of repression, you can see how little the rhetoric and conversation has changed on the national platform. This is not an idea unique to Ritchie; more and more influential voices talking about how the “war on drugs” and broken windows policing, among other policies, have worked to prevent communities of color from succeeding. (For example, see The New Jim Crow or 13th.) But understanding it specifically within the context of police interactions with women of color is imperative to understanding the remainder of the book.
Deeper Dive

In discussing the policing of poverty, Ritchie references the war on drugs and so-called broken windows policing (sometimes called “quality of life” policing). As she states, “Black women and women of color are disproportionately impacted by the policing of poverty simply by virtue of making up a significant proportion of the population of low-income and homeless people of color.” (45) The same can be said for the “war on drugs”; as is true across the board, people of color represent a greater proportion of those who are incarcerated for drug offenses. “Black, Latinx, and Indigenous women make up a grossly disproportionate share of women incarcerated for drug offenses, even though whites are nearly five times as likely as Blacks to use marijuana and three times as likely as Blacks to have used crack.” (47)

While mandatory minimums have led to judges often legally not able to show discretion in relation to drug offenses, the enforcement of broken windows exemplifies the incredible discretionary power that police forces have: “Police officers are afforded almost unlimited discretion when determining who and what conduct is deemed disorderly or unlawful. More specific regulations, such as those criminalizing sleeping, consuming food or alcohol, or urinating in public spaces, criminalize activities so common they can’t be enforced at all times against all people. As a result, both vague and specific quality-of-life offenses are selectively enforced in particular neighborhoods and communities, or against particular people…” (55)

Related to broken windows policing is the degree to which young women of color are under scrutiny more than their white counterparts. The zero tolerance policy in school is the educational equivalent of broken windows policing. As with many situations, Black students and young women of color are punished more severely for less serious incidents in schools every day.

One of the possible reasons behind this is a concept known as age compression, or “adultification.” A recent Slate article explains it, in relation to a recent book and a Georgetown study on the topic, but essentially it means that Black girls specifically are often perceived as older than they are. From the Slate article: “Compared to white girls of the same age, black girls are perceived as needing less nurturing, comfort, and protection. They are also perceived as being more independent and knowing more about sex and other adult topics. And the bias begins early: Black girls are seen as older and less innocent than their white peers starting as young as age 5.” Similarly, Latinx youth are often perceived as “hot tempered” or “volatile” as a result of deeply ingrained prejudices and biases, which adds its own measure of adultification and expectations.

In relation to disability, Ritchie puts forth a question that could be asked at the end of all these situations: whether there are other community services that might be better suited to provide assistance to crisis. Though it’s not perfect, as it’s still run through the police department, she cites a program called CAHOOTs in Eugene, Oregon, which has pioneered nonpolice responses to mental health crises. Instead, a mobile crisis unit consisting of a nurse or EMT and a crisis worker are dispatched in nonemergency police calls relating to drug use, poverty, and mental health. As a result, CAHOOTs now provides counseling instead of cops in a whopping 64 percent of calls. Is this solution not something that could be expanded? Could it not be considered for other situations? Is a police response the ONLY option?

Even if nothing else changes, the level of accountability for police officers and the process for same HAS to change. All too often throughout the book, Ritchie shares instances of officers FINALLY getting punished for their crimes, only to find out that there had been a long history of infractions and reprimands, yet these officers kept their jobs all that time. How many injuries could have been prevented if cops were not just defending each other blindly or covering up abuses? This is especially evidence in chapter 6, which focuses on police sexual violence, and shows that not only do women of color experience this to a higher degree than white women, but it is even more prevalent for women who are trans, lesbian, or gender non-conforming. This relates to chapter 7, policing the borders of gender.

Policing the borders of gender has a long, sordid history. The policing of the borders of gender is also intricately tied up with the policing of sex, as many trans women or gender non-conforming folks have often been subject to accusations of prostitution merely as a result of their appearance and of classification anxiety.

Across the board, women of color being demonized and penalized for sex is nothing new but is definitely still a problem. The enforcement of women who are considered loitering or soliciting in certain areas is highly selective, and guess who it most often selects? This goes back to the discretion allowed to police officers, who are enforcing vague “quality of life” regulations. And, circling back to policing the borders of gender and sexual police violence, police officers take advantage of this position of power to blackmail women of color into sex. “A DC police sergeant admitted, ‘Everybody messes over the prostitutes.’ Earlier studies by SWP found that up to 17 percent of indoor and outdoor sex workers reported sexual harassment or violence by police officers. In an analysis of three studies of a Midwestern city, 15.4 percent of women reported being forced to have sex with a police officer, almost half (45.5 percent) had engaged in paid sex with police, and 18 percent reported being extorted for free sex. Nationally, more than 25 percent of respondents to 2015 US Transgender Survey who were or were perceived to be involved in the sex trades were sexually assaulted by police, and an additional 14 percent reported extortion of sex in order to avoid arrest.” (156)

The policing of motherhood is closely tied to long-held misconceptions and prejudices as well. Ritchie says, “In the 1980s the image of the ‘welfare queen’ and ‘welfare mother’ has been added to the perceptions of Black women rooted in slavery, joining in a toxic combination in which Black motherhood and Black children represent a deviant and fraudulent burden on the state that must be punished through heightened surveillance, sterilization, regulation, and punishment by public officials.” (167) Black women and women of color are often penalized for perceived threats to their children, and yet there is no regard shown for mothers or expectant mothers when it comes to interactions with the police. Latinx mothers are often subject to narratives labeling their fetuses as immigration threats. In a number of cases of city police and immigration enforcement, excessive and unnecessary force has led to loss of pregnancy. Yet another case of rampant police discretion is present in relation to the overseeing of child welfare. “Beyond responding to calls, police are now also independently taking up child-welfare enforcement, including in minor cases that would previously have been handled administratively.” (178) These laws are also discretionarily used to a greater percentage in relation to mothers of color. For example, Geraldine Jeffers. “She was arrested and later convicted for child endangerment for leaving her four younger children in the care of their fifteen-year-old sister when she had to go to the hospital due to complications with her pregnancy and wound up being admitted overnight.” (179) I’ve known white families who have left younger children with a fifteen-year-old for lesser reasons and not been arrested for child endangerment. At the end of this discussion of policing of motherhood, Ritchie poses yet another important question: “Beyond organizing on behalf of Black mothers and mothers of color, if we center their experiences, we begin to ask new questions, including how should use-of-force policies address experiences of pregnant women?” What would happen if we adopted “a public health rather than punitive approach to drug use by pregnant and parenting women”?

Another huge aspect of this entire injustice is that women of color do not feel that they can trust police to act in their own interests, and especially when it comes to violence against them. We’ve already discussed examples of how women of color and people on the edges of gender expression can be victimized by police themselves, but there’s another aspect of not being able to trust the police. Marissa Alexander shot into the air to stop an assault by her husband, and she was charged with a felony, even though no one was hurt or even in danger of being hurt as a result of her actions. Native women are often disbelieved as the result of stereotypes focused on perceived alcohol use. And it’s not surprising that more than half of respondents to the 2015 US National Transgender Survey said they would feel uncomfortable asking police for help.

Reliance on police is exceptionally problematic for women who are undocumented. This discussion was brought somewhat to the forefront with the advent of this new presidency and the possible abolition of sanctuary cities. All studies show that when people who are undocumented are afraid to talk to the police, crime goes up. Distrust of police leads to greater community turmoil and crime. But as we move further into this new era of hatred and fear, those feelings of distrust and discomfort relying on police is likely to worsen.

Once again, at the end of this chapter, Ritchie proposes considering an alternative to police response: “Ultimately, the experiences described in this chapter, along with countless others, counsel strongly in favor of a critical examination of current approaches to violence against women, and the development and support of alternative, community-based accountability strategies that prioritize safety for survivors; community responsibility for creating, enabling, and eliminating the climates that allow violence to happen; and the transformation of private and public relations of power.” (201)
What Needs to Change and How We Can Change It

Another of the overarching themes that stuck out, as you may have noticed throughout this review, is the incredibly amount of discretionary power that police have, with often little to no oversight or accountability.

A further common thread that emerged, along with the overabundance of discretion for police officers, is the general inclination to treat the women of color that they encounter as less than people. Whether this manifests as shooting an unconscious 19-year-old woman 22 times, as was the case with Tyisha Miller; or as a complete disregard for someone’s privacy by dragging a quadriplegic woman out of her house half naked when she did not comply with their commands to “get the fuck up,” as was the case with Lisa Hayes; or as the use of the apparently completely legal search of a woman’s vagina looking for drugs, as was the case with Shirley Rodriques. (There were no drugs.)

It just so happens that I finished the book mere weeks before the police killing of Charleena Lyles in Seattle, where I live and work. I don’t know that anything could have been a more immediate example of a situation in which police completely overstepped, used overwhelmingly excessive force, and perhaps shouldn’t have been the first responders. She had called them for help, and in return, they shot her seven times, which would be excessive for almost anyone, but especially so for a woman who was shown to have no drugs or alcohol in her system and was five months pregnant. It goes back to the idea Ritchie explains, of historically biased perceptions of Black women as “beasts” with superhuman strength and resilience.

Ultimately, this book submerged me in the issues of the interactions women of color have with police, and presented fairly concrete examples of alternatives to police responses in helping to keep women of color safe. It made me even more acutely aware of my own privilege, and more intensely committed to being as active an ally as possible. Put up or shut up, as they say. Greater awareness is only the first step in a long journey.

I’ve included some links to further readings below.

And I’ll leave with this food for thought from Ritchie: “To strike at the root of the issue, we need to transform our responses to poverty, violence and mental health crises in ways that center the safety and humanity of Black women and our communities.” (231)

[I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.]

I found the book to be an eye opener to the magnitude of what police get away with when it comes to all types of women, I'm so grateful that this book crossed my path.

“Invisible No More” brings to light the underexposed issue of police brutality toward women of color and the LGBTQ communities. Andrea J. Ritchie shares her passion on every page in every story in attempts to rile up the reader. Although Ritchie hits on an important topic that needs illumination, she fails in capturing it beyond simple story telling. There are instances peppered throughout the narrative which she will mention that a “number of studies show” or “a study showed a number”. What are these numbers? It may be expected that the reader does their homework and look up the study themselves. This is where the book falls short. To Ritchie’s credit, some of this data is hard to disseminate; however, the clear lack of charts and numbers, no matter how unsexy, is crippling to the narrative from a critical perspective.

I will keep this book in a visible place for years to come, both as conversation starter and reference. This work is appropriate for the social justice newbie as well as the die-hard activist, with readable explanations for concepts like "broken windows policing" and in-depth analysis of policy issues. The countless stories of infamous and unknown (at least to me) survivors and victims of abuse and harassment are a great resource for curious and compassionate readers who might never have known someone who has experienced such trials. The tone Ritchie takes is not sanctimonious or off-putting to male readers; in fact, I have found this book has increased my desire to seek an understanding of groups, like trans or gender neutral folks, whom I've never had more than a passing conversation with (that I know of). I am grateful for this work, and I highly recommend it to all, especially those with a passion for social justice issues.

I think this book does a lot for bringing awareness to women, trans, and gnc people of color who have been a victim of police brutality and state violence. Specifically, it is not afraid to focus on trans women and gender non-conforming-- along with those who do not necessarily fit into the binary-- people of color. We too often overlook these people, when they are perhaps victimized the most.

While I am lucky enough to have never had particularly violent interactions with the police, I am a black woman who is decidedly gender non-conforming, which definitely makes this book more relevant to me.

This piece is not only plainly factual and objective, but anecdotal as well-- a plus for me! And I appreciate that we don't just hear about the names we've heard before like Sandra Bland and Cece Williams-- though they are important as well. However, I feel the book's obligation to pay attention to a multitude of experiences really helped it to concentrate on the sheer massiveness of this problem.

In particular, I liked that it made a systematic connection between sexual violence and police brutality, whereas otherwise people of those experiences themselves viewed it as an individualized happenstance.

Obviously, I find that this type of work can be and usually is far too male-centric. So generally, I believe this book is a good thing.

This is a remarkable book. The author is a "Black lesbian immigrant and police-misconduct attorney. a d 2014 Senior Soros Justice Fellow, with more than two decades of experinece advocating against police violence and the criminalization of women and LGBTQ people of color" Most of us recognize the names of Rodney King, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray and Philando Castile, but what about Sandra Antor, Rosann Miller Alesia Thomas And Mya Hall; these women were victims of similar crimes committed by police officers.

The essays on sexual assault and abuse are particularly illuminating and and are likel to provoke outrage in the readers. We have to continue to fight this through the courts.

from my review in Monthly Review:

In 1513, en route to Panama, Spanish conquistador Vasco Nunez de Balboa ordered forty Quaraca men to be ripped apart by his hunting dogs. Their offense? Being “dressed as women” and having sexual relations with each other. The homophobia and transphobia behind Balboa’s actions are far from arcane relics of the past, and violence against LGBTQ people continues to this day, both legally sanctioned and in the streets.

In 2008, Duanna Johnson, a black transgender woman, was arrested for a prostitution-related offense in Memphis. At the jail, she was brutally beaten by a police officer. Her beating was caught on videotape, leading to the firing of two officers. Johnson filed a civil suit against the police department but, less than six months later, was found shot in the head a few blocks from her house. This was the third killing of a black transgender woman in Memphis in 2008 alone, and her murder remains unsolved.

Queer (In)Justice examines the violence that LGBTQ people face regularly, from attacks on the street to institutionalized violence from police and prisons. The three authors are long-time advocates and attorneys who work directly with people impacted by incarceration. Joey L. Mogul, a partner at Chicago’s People’s Law Office and Director of the Civil Rights Clinic at DePaul University, has advocated for LGBTQ people ensnared in the criminal legal system. Andrea Ritchie is a police misconduct attorney, organizer, and coordinator of Streetwise and Safe, a New York City organization focused on gender, race, sexuality, and poverty-based policing and criminalization of LGBTQ youth of color. Kay Whitlock has worked for almost forty years to build bridges between LGBTQ struggles and movements fighting for racial, gender, economic, and environmental justice. Together, they center race, class, and gender/gender nonconformity in analyzing the myriad ways in which LGBTQ people have been policed, prosecuted, and punished from colonial times to the present day.

Rest of my review at: http://monthlyreview.org/2012/11/01/queer-liberation-means-prison-abolition

This book is an absolute must-read. It details this history of how the criminal system has preyed upon queer people throughout the centuries and how criminalization effects queer people more severely than other folks. This book covers in-depth the intersections of class, race, gender, and gender identity to present a chilling picture how police and society preys upon queer people; particularly poor, queer, people of color and offers them no recourse. The authors present on the ineffectiveness of domestic violence laws and hate crimes legislation.

I was challenged by this book to think in new ways about prisons and prison reform. I think this book should be required reading for all queer people and all people of faith who want to see justice for queer people. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

Go to https://mplus.mnpals.net/vufind/Record/007361728?mylocn=MSU

I won this ARC in a GOODREADS giveaway -- Invisible No More: Police Violence Against Black Women and Women of Color (Paperback) --