“…Beyond Benz’s detailed investigation of the “controlling images” that “cast Black women as domineering, aggressive, irresponsible mothers, who are incapable of the fear necessary to invoke SYG,” most studies lack a robustly intersectional analysis that considers how gender, race, class, and other categories of identity intersect to exclude most women, particularly women of color, from the purported benefits of SYG laws. 17 Given that Black women and other women of color are disproportionately at risk in the U.S. for violence and criminalization, we urge that ongoing studies of SYG laws take pains to place them at the center of their analyses. 18 Otherwise, we risk obfuscating the complex socio-legal, historic, and epistemic effects of SYG laws, particularly their distorting impact on the nation’s criminal legal system.…”