On July 29th, police discovered 24-year-old Joyce Quaweay had been beaten to death inside of a Germantown, PA home. Her 47-year-old partner and former police officer Aaron Wright is accused of killing Quaweay for not submitting to his authority. Police say Wright’s close friend and Temple University police officer Marquis Robinson participated in the deadly assault.

After the two killed Quaweay, investigators say they continued to beat her dead corpse. Wright was charged with murder, aggravated assault and unlawful restraint including other charges. Robinson, who investigators say fled the scene before police arrived, was charged with aggravated assault and conspiracy to murder. After the arrests were made, Robinson was fired from the department.

“The boyfriend had stripped her of her clothes, had handcuffed her to a weight bench, and used some type of baton to beat her throughout her entire body. The friend was actually helping to position the female and turn her and contort her body in certain positions so the boyfriend could beat her in those areas of her body,” said Philadelphia Police Captain James Clark, according to CBS Philly.

Quaweay leaves two young daughters in the care of her mother.

Wright and Robinson’s crimes perpetuate a culture of toxic masculinity that desperately needs to be addressed.

Black women on social media loudly reacted to Quaweay’s murder.

Far too often, violence against black women is ignored.

When black men are victims of horrific crimes, black outcry is somewhat universal. Although the Black Lives Matter movement has a very heavy presence of female organizers, the murders of black men garner the most attention from the media. This hypervisibility coupled with the lagging outcry from America effectively erases the millions of black women murdered by the system.

Black people took the streets, organizing protests and boycotts when Michael Brown and Alton Sterling fell victim to police brutality. But, when a black woman like Korryn Gaines is killed by the same racist system, many of those voices once wailing against white supremacy go mute.

Joyce Quaweay’s life mattered.

Far too often, black women are discouraged from reporting the violent black men in their lives, or any man for that matter. Women who dare to speak out against their assailants are often shamed for counteracting efforts of black liberation. Police like Robinson killing black women with the help of men like Wright suffer from lethal masculinity.

But how can a woman ignore one part of her identity by allegedly uplifting another?

White women do not have domain over the category of woman. Black women exist. We cannot separate parts of our identity to appease a system with no desire to destroy the patriarchy. We cannot put our blackness in front of ‘being a woman’. Our womanhood and our blackness are forever intertwined.

Part of the brilliance of Black Lives Matter is the organization’s intentional intersectionality. Unlike black liberation movements of the past, BLM purposefully emphasizes all black lives; not just cis heterosexual black men. Black gay men matter. Black women matter. Black trans lives matter. Whether they are being killed by a corrupt system or assaulted and catcalled down the street, their lives are valued.

Quaweay was not only killed by ‘the system’. Joyce Quaweay was killed by an infusion of violent police culture and sexist American culture that encourages men to live up to a code of dominance by any means possible. Only when this violence is addressed can we consider how to sustain a country where all black lives truly matter.

Until then, we must continue to #SayHerName.

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Black-lives-matterDomestic-violenceFeminismJoyce QuaweayMasculinitySexual assaultToxicTrans-Lives-Matter