Black Girl Gone: Misogynoir, Hypervisibility, and Black Women

Abstract

Bam! Thunk! Bam! I awaken to commotion at my front door. Clash! Boom! It sounds like someone is trying to knock down my door. I hear voices outside my ground-floor apartment. My boyfriend, Kenneth, wakes up immediately. The banging is getting louder and louder. We are convinced that someone’s trying to break in. We walk out of my bedroom and down the hallway. I watch as he asks who’s at the door, but they don’t identify themselves. A battering ram takes the door out. Kenneth, licensed to carry, starts firing to defend against the intruders. The intruders, police officers, return fire. More shots stream in from the window. Several pierce me. I collapse. My clothes become drenched in my blood. As I lay there in my expanding blood bath, my dreams of becoming a nurse and starting a family fade. Soon, I stop breathing. Like an animal, my body remains on the cold, bloody floor. Later, I’m pronounced dead at the scene. My name is Breonna Taylor (Oppel & Taylor, 2023; Riley, 2020).