Welcome, everybody, to the American Society of International Law's annual meeting. it is my pleasure to welcome you to this very special panel on Black women, global human rights, and policing. My name is Michele Bratcher Goodwin. I am the host of “On the Issues with Michele Goodwin” at Ms. magazine and the executive producer of Ms. Studios. I am also a chancellor's professor at the University of California Irvine and a senior lecturer at Harvard Medical School.
It is my distinct honor and pleasure to bring to you an outstanding panel that will take us through the diaspora in matters of human rights and the policing and surveillance of Black women. Joining me today to stitch together very important and overlooked threads is Karen Attiah. She is a columnist for The Washington Post, where she was previously the Post founding Global Opinions editor. She is a devoted human rights advocate and a veritable international affairs expert, a former Fulbright awardee to Ghana, and a proud Ghanaian American based in Dallas, Texas.
I am also joined by Ana Paula Barreto, who is a proud Black Brazilian and longtime advocate for racial, gender, and reproductive justice. She is currently a Soros Equality Fellow and formerly a senior fellow at the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights for the People of African Descent Fellowship. She is also the director of the Transnational Birth Equity for Birth Equity Collaborative.
Also joining is Aissatou Sene. She is a dynamic feminist activist from Senegal who is devoted to fighting for women's equality and empowerment and against all forms of colonialism and racist oppression. She is also a very popular and successful fashion designer in Senegal and a former YALI Mandela Fellow for Northwestern University.
I am also joined by India Thusi. She is a professor of law at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law and a senior scientist at the Kinsey Institute. She examines racial and sexual hierarchies related to policing and is the author of Policing Bodies: Law, Sex Work, and Desire in Johannesburg. India is a prolific author, and she is currently a Fulbright Global Scholar.
It is a pleasure for me to be with you all today. I first want to open the conversation by asking you, what brings you to the subject of policing and Black women? It is something that has been traditionally overlooked. As people think about policing, they know very well that it has a Black male face in the United States and globally, but most often, concerns related to policing and Black women happen to go ignored, even though—and if we are thinking about the United States, but I want this to be a global conversation—the United States incarcerates more women than any other country in the world, and disproportionately, they happen to be Black and Brown women. But I want to know what brings you to the table in this discussion.
I am going to start with you, Karen.
