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New Orleans Social Justice Activist To Speak At Ithaca College

ITHACA, NY — Social justice activist Shana Griffin will present “Examining the Intersections of Gender, Disasters, Displacement, and Reproductive Violence” at Ithaca College on Tuesday, March 24. Her talk, which is free and open to the public, will be held at 7 p.m. in Clark Lounge, Egbert Hall.

Griffin is a radical black feminist, mother, social justice activist, researcher and director of a grassroots feminist women’s health clinic. She grew up in a racially and economically segregated public housing development in downtown New Orleans, where she became acutely aware of economic, racial and gender disparities fueled by violence and the over-policing of communities of color.

In her talk, Griffin will address how she believes the bodies of women of color and poor women are the targets of public debates, policy mandates and state-sanctioned forms of violence through public welfare and housing policies, and sexual/reproductive health policies and services. She will discuss the interlocking relations of power embodied in the politics of reproductive violence and the relationship between gender, disasters and displacement.

Griffin currently serves as the interim executive director of the New Orleans Women’s Health Clinic. She cofounded the New Orleans Women’s Health & Justice Initiative, a project to improve access by women of color to high quality, affordable and safe health care services.  She serves on the national advisory collective of INCITE! Women of Color against Violence and is an advisory member of the documentary project “Painting Our Courage: A Revolution To End Gender-Based Violence and HIV and AIDS.”

Griffin’s presentation is part of the “Chaos or Community? MLK and the Politics of Resistance” series sponsored by the Ithaca College Center for the Study of Culture, Race, and Ethnicity, which is a program of the Division of Interdisciplinary and International Studies. For more information, visit http://www.ithaca.edu/cscre/discussionseries/.