Enacting and Enabling Violence

Say their names! George Floyd. Michael Brown. Breonna Taylor. North Americans often can “say their names” when asked to identify Black lives taken by police in recent years. But what of their Indigenous brothers and sisters who have also lost their lives through police violence? Can we say their names? Few could answer in the affirmative. Popular media have not focused attention on police violence raining down upon Native Americans in the same way that they have spotlighted the experiences of Black Americans. Indeed, Jean Reith Schroedel and Roger Chin found that while the vast bulk (70%) of Black-American deaths at the hands of police officers garnered national media coverage, more than 90% of Native American deaths received no coverage whatsoever. 2