‘I took a stand . . . because enough is enough’
Woman in protest photo slams Obama in op-ed piece, cites ‘systemic’ racism
The photograph of the stoic woman in Baton Rouge — standing in a summer dress as armoured police rush forward to arrest her — became an iconic image of silent protest after the death of another black man in the U.S., shot by police.
Friday, Ieshia Evans put sharp words to the picture: Writing for the Guardian, she wrote of being stripsearched by police after her arrest, her disgust at “systemic” racism in the U.S., and her choice not to vote this November.
But her strongest words were on her disappointment in U.S. President Barack Obama.
“Obama chose politics over his people,” Evans said.
“He has let us down. Where is his uproar? Why isn’t he marching? Why isn’t he protesting? Doesn’t he feel strongly enough about the future of his daughters?”
The photograph of Evans, captured by Reuters photographer Jonathan Bachman on July 9, came amid bitter protests in Baton Rouge over the death of Alton Sterling, a black man who was shot to death by police outside a convenience store on July 5.
Graphic video of Sterling’s shooting shocked many worldwide and renewed widespread anger over the use of deadly force by U.S. police.
According to the Washington Post, 533 people have been shot and killed by police so far this year. More than half of those killed were armed with a gun, like Sterling.
About a quarter of those killed by police were black, according to the Post.
One day after the Sterling shooting, outrage was sparked anew after live video captured the aftermath of the shooting of another black man, Philando Castile, during a traffic stop near Minneapolis.
As protests over these shootings raged in Baton Rouge and elsewhere, the photograph of Evans made waves for its starkness. Online, it was compared to the iconic image of a man standing up to a tank during the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989. An art critic, also writing for the Guardian, referred to her as “a Botticelli nymph attacked by Star Wars baddies.” Her apparent calm led to comparisons to Rosa Parks, the hero of the U.S. civil rights movement.
Here is some of what Evans had to say about her story: On her arrest at the Baton Rouge protests When the armoured officers rushed at me, I had no fear. I wasn’t afraid. I was just wondering: “How do these people sleep at night?” Then they put me in a van and drove me away. Only hours later did someone explain that I was arrested for obstructing a highway. And what happened next
They took our possessions and fingerprinted us. Then they stuck four of us women in a room together and had four officers strip-search us. We were all ordered to take off everything, to bend over, and to cough. There was no privacy, no dignity. We were treated as if we were murderers or child molesters. It was degrading. It angered me. These were black female officers, and they were treating us as if we were criminals. On Barack Obama
Barack Obama being elected president eight years ago was overwhelming. It was my first time voting. “We actually matter now,” I thought. But it was just a setup. And when that reality hits you, it’s hard.
When you really think about it, what has Obama done for black people? What laws or rules has he passed for us? When the police kill someone, his first instinct is to try to pacify us. To talk about how we shouldn’t riot, that we should keep the peace, and that it’s a tragedy. Yes, it’s a tragedy, so what are you going to do about it? On the election campaign, Donald Trump and why she won’t be voting
The presidential election campaign has been disgusting. I won’t be voting; I refuse. It is in Donald Trump that the true colours of much of America are coming out. They hid behind all these veils, inside all these closets, for so long. And now the racism is right there. And I don’t care what Hillary Clinton does to try to prove that she’s for black people. We are not going to forget it was her husband, blindly supported by a lot of black people, who put in place the system that has taken so many black men from their families and put them in prison for carrying the same weed that states are now legalizing. On raising a black child in the U.S.
I have a six-year-old son, Justin, and I fear more for his life than I do for my own. How should I raise him? To be afraid? To keep his head down and not get in trouble, to not look the police in the eye because they might mess with him?
Justin hasn’t seen the picture of me in Baton Rouge. Explaining what happened was difficult. I told him that Mommy got arrested and he said: “Why? I thought only bad people get arrested?”
I was stumped for a little bit. And then I just said: “You know what? That’s not always the case.”