#SayHerName: Sandra Annette Bland
September 28, 2022 by Mitzi J Smith PhD
I started this blog so that we never forget the stories of Black women (and others) who died (and continue to die) as a result of encounters with police officers and from other forms of violence. It is necessary that we remember until we have unmitigated justice, freedom, rights, and the protection of those rights. Their stories are our stories. I think about Sandra Bland almost every time that I am driving and someone cuts in front of me without using a turn signal. This neglect to use a turn signal often occurs when people are driving at high speeds that exceed the speed limit, at an unsafe distance between them the cars around them, and on highways when persons are more likely to die as a result. And I think “where are the police now?”
Yet, on July 10, 2015, a little more than seven years ago, Sandra Bland, a twenty-eight-year-old African American woman, a political activist who had moved from Chicago to Texas for a new job, was stopped by a Texas state trooper named Brian Encinia for allegedly switching lanes without signaling. Sandra Bland was driving in the town of Prairie View Texas, the home of a historical Black school, Prairie View A&M University. During the stop the trooper demanded Sandra exit her car, yanked her from her car, and threatened to “light her up.” Rather than de-escalate the situation, the trooper escalated it. Three days after her controversial arrest Texas authorities claimed that Sandra Bland hanged herself with a plastic bag in a Waller County jail cell on July 13, 2015. 1
Sandra Annette Bland was twenty-eight years old when she died. People on social media, across race, gender, sexuality, and class, blamed Sandra Bland for her own death. They argued that Sandra Bland had the audacity to talk back to a police officer. For them it is reasonable for people of color, and Black women in particular, to end up dead in a jail cell for talking back to a trooper. As Audre Lorde reminded us “our silence has never saved us” (Sister Outsider). Why did he choose Sandra Bland to stop on July 10 near in the town of Prairie View A&M University? Black women and men (and other people of color) are stigmatized, stereotyped, dehumanized, and criminalized.
Who was Sandra Bland before the day officer Encina decided to harass her? Texas authorities called Sandra Bland “argumentative and uncooperative” but that should not result in arrest and death. There are probably few Black women or women in general who have not been called “argumentative and uncooperative,” for asking questions, for wanting to know more than others think we should know, and/or while subjected to disrespect and abusive behavior. Sandra Bland expressed her rights and resisted the way she had been targeted.2 Sandra’s mother, Geneva Reed-Veal, wants Sandra to be “remembered… as an activist” who was “sassy, smart … [and knowledgeable about] her rights.” 3
I remember Sandra Bland whenever I forget to signal when changing lanes. I could be stopped by an Office like Encinia, expected not to question why I’m being stopped or asked to leave my vehicle if the officer does not offer that information, treated with disrespect, manhandled, taken to jail, and so on. I am not one who believes that what happened to Bland could never happen to me. Knowing Sandra Bland’s story significantly impacted me in the similar way that the murder of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s friend Prince Jones (killed by a Prince George’s County police officer) affected Coates: “The entire episode took me from fear to a rage that burned in me then, animates me now, and will likely leave me on fire for the rest of my days…My response was, in this moment, to write.”4 And so I too write, so that I do not forget, so that we do not forget about Sandra Bland, so that more are enraged into action. Sandra Bland’s story is or can be our story. It is the story of acts of injustice committed against our sister-neighbor and her family.
Texas State Trooper Encinia was eventually charged with lying to investigators, for saying his safety was in jeopardy, but his case was dropped in exchange for his agreement to never again work in law enforcement. In September 2016, Sandra Bland’s family reached a $1.9 million settlement in a wrongful death lawsuit, which brought “joy” after a year of heartache.5 The settlement includes compensation for Bland’s death in custody as well as several changes to jail procedures in Waller County, which include the following: Use of automated electronic sensors to ensure timely cell checks; requiring an on-duty staff nurse or emergency medical technician for all shifts; continuing education for jailer screening. Sandra Bland’s mother, Geneva Reed-Veal views the settlement as “a clear victory…Right now my emotion is joy, pure joy…There’s a sense of God’s justice for me.”6 Still, we must never forget until all of us are guaranteed reasonable safety, possess rights that are protected, and our bodies are respected and not violated. Say her name. #SandraAnnetteBland
1 Ray Sanchez, CNN, “What We Know About the Controversy in Sandra Bland’s Death,”
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/21/us/texas-sandra-bland-jail-death-explain/ (accessed October 12,
2015).
2 Sanchez, “What We Know.”
3 Daniella Silva, “Sandra Bland’s Mother Speaks Out on Sandra Bland’s Life,
Investigation,” July 23, 2015, http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/sandra-blands-mother-speaks-out-daughters-life-investigation-n397576
4 Ta-Nehesi Coates, Between the World and Me (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2015) 82.
5 https://www.cnn.com/2016/09/15/us/sandra-bland-wrongful-death-
6 https://www.cnn.com/2016/09/15/us/sandra-bland-wrongful-death-
settlement.