Amy-Joyner
By Sesali B. • @BadFatBlackGirl • 8 years ago

16 year old Amy Fancis-Joyner dies after fight at her high school

As we collectively mourned the death of Prince yesterday, a family in Delaware was mourning the death of the teenager they sent to school yesterday who would not return.

Allegedly a continuation of an ongoing confrontation over a boy, Amy Francis-Joyner was involved in a fight with another girl in a bathroom at Wilmington’s Howard High school, when several other girls joined in, jumping her. Amy died at a local hospital shortly after this altercation. Authorities have yet to confirm an official cause of death.

Many have lamented on social media that this was a senseless tragedy resulting from girls being socialized to compete (violently if necessary) over male attention and affections. Perhaps this is true but I’m not one to depersonalize the experiences of young people who end up in violent situations. But as a Black girl who fought a lot in her middle and high school years, this could have easily been me, or one of the girls I came to blows with. What I know now is that in a culture that is increasingly hostile to those marked young, Black, and female – Black girls have to love and protect each other, fiercely.

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Feministing's resident "sexpert", Sesali is a published writer and professional shit talker. She is a queer Black girl, fat girl, and trainer. She was the former Training Director at the United States Student Association and later a member of the Youth Organizing team at Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She received her bachelors in Women's and Gender Studies from Depaul University in 2012 and is currently pursuing a master's in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality studies at Georgia State University in Atlanta. A self identified "trap" feminist, and trained with a reproductive justice background, her interests include the intersections of feminism and: pop culture, youth culture, social media, hip hop, girlhood, sexuality, race, gender, and Beyonce. Sesali joined the team in 2010 as one of the winners of our So You Think You Can Blog contest.

is Feministing's resident sexpert and cynic.

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