Black Femininity and Stand Your Ground: Controlling Images and the Elusive Defense of Self-Defense

Abstract

Stand Your Ground (SYG) laws are color-blind and gender neutral in language, providing all citizens the right to use deadly force with no obligation to retreat when they experience a “reasonable” threat. However, SYG protections depend on implicit racial and gender biases. Using the case of Siwatu-Salama Ra, the elusive nature of SYG protections is explored as it relates to dominant stereotypes regarding Black femininity. The argument is made that this othering of Black women as aggressive, fearless, and in need of discipline is a miscarriage of justice and provides the ideological groundwork for the exclusion of Black women from self-defense protections.