J for Justice — Issue #3
The Pink Floyd
1838 • 1973 • 1989 • 2020 • Today
Get Your Foot Off Our Necks
Panel 1 — 1838: The Warning
Sarah Grimké writes beside the title page you supplied. Around her are Black and white women organizing against slavery.
The shadow of a boot crosses both a woman’s body and the abolitionist petitions. Behind the public language of “protection” are smaller images of confinement, forced dependency, sexual control and physical violence.
Narration:
Women were not merely asking to participate. They were fighting a system that claimed authority over their minds, labour, bodies, children—and survival.
Sarah Grimké:
“I ask no favors for my sex. I surrender not our claim to equality.”
The concluding words break through the boot-shadow:
“Permit us to stand upright.”
The first panel establishes that subordination is dangerous. A group taught that it owns women can escalate from restricting women to punishing, assaulting and killing them.
Panel 2 — 1973: Equality Enters the Court
Ruth Bader Ginsburg argues Frontiero v. Richardson. Lt. Sharron Frontiero stands behind her holding the unequal military-benefit rules.
On the courtroom wall, however, legal scales cast the shadows of:
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A locked household door
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A controlling partner
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A woman afraid to leave
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An empty chair belonging to a missing woman
Ginsburg:
“All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.”
Narration:
Equality before the law mattered—but discriminatory rules were only one part of women’s danger.
J watches the judgment appear in the law books.
J:
“A legal victory can remove a rule. It cannot, by itself, remove the belief that women may be controlled.”
Panel 3 — 1989: Women Were Targeted
The page becomes cold blue and winter white.
École Polytechnique is shown from outside. Fourteen white roses line the foreground. Each rose represents one murdered woman.
Do not centre or glorify the murderer. He appears only as a torn black silhouette at the edge of the panel, overwhelmed by the names, faces, futures and achievements of the women he tried to erase.
Engineering drawings rise behind the roses:
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Bridges never completed
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Buildings never designed
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Research never undertaken
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Families forced to live without them
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Futures stolen through misogynistic violence
Large caption:
THEY WERE NOT KILLED BECAUSE THEY WERE WEAK.
THEY WERE TARGETED BECAUSE THEY WERE WOMEN.
Narration:
On December 6, 1989, 14 women were murdered at Polytechnique Montréal in an act of violent misogyny.
J kneels beside the roses.
J:
“Women’s equality is not an abstract debate when hatred of women becomes permission to kill.”
Panel 4 — 2020: George Floyd
The timeline reaches Minneapolis.
George Floyd is represented respectfully as a person—not only through the footage of his death. Show his name, a family photograph, a community mural and witnesses holding up the truth their camera preserved.
The boot-shadow from 1838 and the gun-shadow from 1989 now merge with the knee-shaped shadow of state violence.
Narration:
George Floyd was killed while restrained by an officer sworn to protect life. Other officers failed to intervene.
A Black mother holds her child as she watches the public footage.
Mother:
“How many times must we watch our children become evidence?”
Beside her, a woman from the Polytechnique memorial holds one of the white roses.
Woman:
“We know what it means when hatred is excused until somebody dies.”
Neither tragedy is used to explain the other. They recognize one another as warnings about what happens when institutions normalize dehumanization.
Panel 5 — 2023: The Killing Continues
The panel becomes a global clock.
Around its face are women of different races, ages, cultures, disabilities and identities. Some are mothers; some are daughters; some are elders; some are Black women who face both racism and misogyny.
Every ten-minute mark becomes a small extinguished light.
At the centre:
51,100 WOMEN AND GIRLS
KILLED BY PARTNERS OR FAMILY MEMBERS IN 2023
Beneath it:
ABOUT 140 EVERY DAY
J looks at the clock.
J:
“The most dangerous place for many women is not a battlefield. It is the place everyone keeps calling home.”
Narration:
Femicide is not simply a private relationship problem. It is the fatal end of entitlement, coercive control, misogyny and institutional failure.
Panel 6 — The Influence Machine
The Ravens of Paradise operate the media machine.
This time the machine has two targeting lenses:
The misogyny lens
It turns women into:
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Liars
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Unstable ex-partners
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Bad mothers
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Attention seekers
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Provokers responsible for male violence
The racism lens
It turns Black people into:
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Threats
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Suspects
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Problems
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Aggressors
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People whose fear and pain are treated as suspicious
At the intersection of both lenses stands a Black woman. The machine attempts to label her simultaneously “angry,” “dangerous,” “difficult” and “unbelievable.”
J cuts the power cord with the sword of evidence.
J:
“Black women are not standing between two movements. They are living inside both dangers.”
Behind the machine, wealthy corporate and ideological interests pull purse strings connected to advertising, access, outrage and political influence.
Narration:
Media framing can decide whose fear is believed, whose anger is condemned, whose disappearance is noticed and whose death becomes temporary content.
Panel 7 — No Hierarchy of Harm
Women and Black communities meet in the centre—not as competing groups, but as overlapping families, movements and lives.
The scene includes:
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Black mothers protecting daughters and sons
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Women supporting survivors of domestic violence
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Men intervening against misogyny and racism
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Black women leading from the centre
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Indigenous women holding red dresses
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Disabled women demanding accessible protection
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Survivors carrying records and witness statements
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Children surrounded by a community shield
The shield reads:
SAFETY • DIGNITY • CONSENT • EVIDENCE • ACCOUNTABILITY
A Black woman and J lift the enormous boot together.
Black woman:
“Do not borrow our pain and forget us afterward.”
J:
“Do not call women equal while we are still being hunted, controlled and killed.”
Together:
“NO ONE’S FREEDOM REQUIRES SOMEONE ELSE’S SILENCE.”
Panel 8 — Present Day: No More Loss and Damage
The doors of INK-H-Art open.
J’s wings unfold from her coat, forming one half of a protective canopy. The other half is formed by thousands of raised hands—Black, brown, white, Indigenous, female, male, intersex, disabled, young and old.
The 14 white roses stand beside George Floyd’s memorial candle. Neither memorial is behind the other.
The historic line now reads:
1838 — WOMEN DEMANDED TO STAND UPRIGHT.
1973 — THE LAW WAS FORCED TO LISTEN.
1989 — FOURTEEN WOMEN WERE MURDERED FOR BEING WOMEN.
2020 — THE WORLD WATCHED GEORGE FLOYD BE KILLED.
2023 — 140 WOMEN AND GIRLS A DAY WERE KILLED BY PARTNERS OR FAMILY.
TODAY — WE REFUSE TO WAIT FOR ANOTHER BODY.
J faces the reader:
“We are not asking whether women are equal while ignoring whether women are alive.”
A Black mother steps beside her:
“We are not asking whether Black people are included while ignoring whether Black people are safe.”
Final united declaration:
GET YOUR FOOT OFF OUR NECKS.
GET YOUR HANDS OFF OUR BODIES.
GET YOUR HATRED OUT OF OUR INSTITUTIONS.
NO MORE LOSS. NO MORE DAMAGE. NO MORE EXCUSES.
Closing INK-H-Art statement:
Women’s safety and Black liberation are not competing causes. Black women, mothers, families and communities reveal why the struggles cannot be separated. We stand together because discrimination is not only exclusion—it can become permission to harm, permission to abandon and permission to kill. This ends when protection, intervention and accountability begin before another life is lost.
NO ONE LEFT BEHIND.