The #Standing4BlackGirls coalition is a South Los Angeles-based group of community organizations dedicated to advancing gender, racial, and social justice for Black women and girls and Black LGBTQIA+ youth.  In June 2023, Los Angeles' Civil, Human Rights and Equity department reported that there was dramatic surge in domestic and sexual violence against Black women and girls in the city of Los Angeles. While the report confirmed what many of us have experienced, our coalition members are outraged that L.A. city’s elected officials -- including Karen Bass, the city's first African American female mayor -- have done little to redress systemic violence against Black women and girls. Nor have they elevated this issue as a crisis that demands urgent action. Two years after the report, this inaction persists despite the coalition's community street actions, meetings with city officials, and public comment at L.A. City Council meetings.

As the report confirms, although violence against other ethnic and racial groups has declined, violence against Black women has skyrocketed. Here in Los Angeles, Black women comprise 4.3% of the population, yet account for 25%-33% of all female violence victims.  From 2011-2022, Black women accounted for one-third (32.85%) of female homicides and nearly a quarter (22%) of all female rape victims.  From 2021-2022, Black women were nearly one-third (28.2%) of all missing women.  Nationwide, Black women are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by an intimate partner than are white women, with gun violence being the leading form of homicide.

Moreover, Los Angeles city hate crime data analyses fail to adequately capture violent crime against Black trans and gender expansive folks.  And we know that these communities also experience disproportionately high rates of homicide, domestic violence, and sexual violence.

In response to these devastating stats, the #Standing4BlackGirls coalition is calling on Mayor Bass and the L.A. City Council to allocate funding and support for prevention, mental health, and youth leadership initiatives for Black women and girls across sexuality.  In City Council District 8 there are virtually no accessible youth centers that offer targeted wraparound programming for Black girls, women, LGBTQ+ and gender expansive youth.  To date, CD8 has more vacant, boarded-up buildings and empty lots than it does youth-serving facilities.

Our demands include the following:

o   Create dedicated funding for targeted prevention education programming, mental health supports and safe spaces for Black girls across sexuality and Black gender expansive youth.

○     Create youth/teen centers in city council districts heavily impacted by anti-Black/domestic and sexual violence (CD8, CD9, CD10).

○     Hire and train culturally responsive community responders to replace police investigators and first responders on domestic violence cases.

○     Create a Black women and girls-focused task force with emphasis on Black women-focused policy development, outreach, mentoring, and jobs programs

○     Expand the participatory budgeting window and provide targeted technical support workshops for Black women and girl-focused organizations to actively participate in the process allocating funding for so-called “REPAIR” zones (the acronym stands for Reforms for Equity and Public Acknowledgment of Institutional Racism).

○     End the practice of dual arrests, which disproportionately affects Black women and gender expansive folks.

○     Utilize data sets that take into account multiple identity categories such as gender identity, sexual orientation, disability and violence risks.

○     Identify, utilize, and amplify the stories, commentaries, and analyses of Black women and girls in City press material and media outreach.

The petition will be delivered to Mayor Bass and the L.A. City Council during an action in mid-May.