Breonna Taylor’s name has been heard around the world for the past eight months following her tragic killing, but according to Missouri Congresswoman-elect Cori Bush, several Republican leaders still don’t know she is.
Earlier this month, Bush was elected as Missouri’s first Black woman representative in Congress. On Friday (Nov. 13), she celebrated her first day in office with a photo of herself wearing a mask with “Breonna Taylor” written across it. She accompanied the picture with the caption, “Change does not come from this place unless we bring it here ourselves. We’re bringing change to the 117th Congress.”
A few hours later, Bush sent out another tweet saying that Republican members of Congress mistook her for Taylor. “It’s Day One, so I’m wearing my ‘Breonna Taylor’ mask,” she wrote. “A few of my Republican colleagues have called me Breonna, assuming that’s my name. It hurts. But I’m glad they’ll come to know her name & story because of my presence here. Breonna must be central to our work in Congress.”
The New York Times obtained a video where Bush spoke about the incident and said that she was mistaken for the late EMT many times. “I am Breonna Taylor, as far as I could be a Black woman murdered in my bed tonight, you know?” she said in the clip. “But I am not Breonna Taylor. This Breonna Taylor was murdered in her bed at night. She does not have justice — murdered by the police.”
“We have to stretch ourselves and pay attention to what’s happening in other parts of the country,” Bush continued. “But this has been national news for a long time. People have protested in the streets with this name and it just saddens me that people in leadership, people [who] want to be in leadership, don’t know the struggles that are happening to Black people in this country. And it’s just disheartening. And it was hurtful, absolutely hurtful. I didn’t hear it once, I didn’t hear it twice. I heard it several times.”
Check out Bush’s comments below.