Intersectionality and the Rift Between Black women and Men Over Sexual Violence

Are Black women hostages to race

How do you silence 40 million Americans? This question drove me to establish an organization to support adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse ten years ago. I had no idea the question would evolve into an internal racial conflict, much less an external one.

I became obsessed with the question during a PTSD trigger from childhood sexual abuse. Early into my healing journey, I realized that my pain, along with the other 40 million survivors, stemmed from holding onto the secret about my past.

I held the secret of sexual abuse out of shame and confusion. But mostly, I held it to protect my family members and their reputations. I had been asked directly and indirectly not to talk about the abuse.

As I began to heal, advocate, and research, I realized sexual abuse is an evolutionary iceberg. Moreover, the system of patriarchy holds silence as a response to sexual abuse in the highest regard. The focus is always on the victim and their response, while violators remain invisible.

The Vagina Monologue

The overwhelming majority of violators of sexual abuse are men. Even when males are the victims of sexual violence, the violator is usually male as well. However, victims of sexual violence are overwhelmingly female.

Violators rape one out of every four females during their college years and one out of every six women throughout our lives. Thirty-three percent of rape victims are under age 12.

Additionally, as the #MeToo movement revealed, hardly a woman exists who has not been sexually harassed. In over 90% of cases of sexual assault, the violators are males who are known and trusted by the victim.

Through my organization, I interact with women daily who carry their secrets like an overstuffed suitcase with a broken wheel. Like them, I lived in complete denial of the lingering effects of childhood sexual abuse for decades.

I assumed my powerlessness came from the shame of being a survivor. But, the experience of shame is much deeper than a response to physical contact. The shame stems from the undeniable confirmation that our body does not belong to us. It belongs to men. The shame is collective and deeply embedded into our psyche by a system that directs all blame and responsibility toward women.

The Legacy of Eve

From sex slavery and rape to female genital mutilation, men have violently dominated and governed the female body for a long time. Although women are strengthening our bonds to start a new sexual revolution, male dominance is an iceberg that cannot be abolished with hashtags.

The evolution of women over the past 100,000 years has been cruel. Men have stripped women of body autonomy using the fear and act of rape. Evolution irony is men deeming themselves as protectors in the system of pervasive rape, where they are also the rapist.

Chipping at the Iceberg

While women were isolated from men for safety, men were busy making societal rules about how to maintain control over women’s bodies. Men dictated when women could have sex and with whom, forced them to have children, and also held them responsible for men’s sexual behavior.

With women existing in the world with no rights and little control over their bodies, men mistook oppression for passivity and obedience. However, the wisdom of women knows the essence of time. Women have always been warriors. One generation has always sacrificed for the next.

With women existing in the world with no rights and little control over their bodies, men mistook oppression for passivity and obedience.

Now, women are at a pivotal place in evolution. We are going head to head with men in a battle that requires more than sheer brute. Getting the vote was about more than participating in politics. Equal pay was about more than having buying power. Legalized abortion was never about killing babies, quite the contrary. It is about choosing the father of the babies we want to bring into the world.

All of these advancements chip at the iceberg of male dominance and many men feel the stabbing. They are deeply pained by the puncture of a system that has granted them so much power.

Being My Mother’s Daughter

I have witnessed the destruction of the female spirit on many levels. The personal encounters hurt the most. I am grateful that my mother is out-living my misogynist father by many years but saddened by her internalized oppression of the system that created him.

When I published my memoir about living in silence, a family member threatened me when I refused to use pseudonyms for the violators. The threat did not come from the violator, but his son. He had known about his father’s actions for several years and had supported my decision to stop contact with his family. I did not realize his support was contingent upon my silence.

Invisible Hostage

Survivors remain invisible until they try to speak. There is a concerted effort to take the microphone out of our hands. We see the uprising of the female warrior, and we feel the force of patriarchy that slams us back into the iceberg.

Snoop Dogg, notorious for his misogynist rap music, is an epic icon of the patriarchy system. So, his vicious response to television host, Gayle King, for addressing sexual violence was no surprise. He was defending men’s right to reign over the female body.

As much inequality that exists among the races, misogyny is equally distributed. In addition to intra-racial patterns of sexual assault, criminal cases involving Black offenders and Black victims are the most likely to be cleared without a trial.

Among the many factors for the clearance is the Black community’s lack of cooperation with the police. Within the legal, social, and family system, silence prevails as a primary way of being for Black survivors of sexual violence.

If Black women are required to ignore Black men’s participation and benefits of the patriarchy, then Black women are mere psychological hostages to race.

Black women cannot abstain from dialogues about sexual violence. The racialized gendered intersections of power, privilege, and oppression must be culturally confronted.

Race sympathy has required Black women to endure sexual oppression as a way of being in the world, and in their community. But, as Oprah Winfrey has declared, “Time’s Up.”

Protecting the reputation of Black men cannot be a priority over restoring women’s bodily autonomy. If Black women are required to ignore Black men’s participation and benefits of the patriarchy, then Black women are mere psychological hostages to race.

Breaking the Silence of Intersectional Oppression

We recently watched the hostage-taking play out before our eyes as Snoop Dogg threatened Gayle King and Oprah Winfrey. Other people consider them race traitors like Anita Hill and Desiree Washington, who disclosed the sexual misconduct of Black male icons in the 1990s.

Black women’s fight for body autonomy did not create a rift with Black men. The complicity of Black men in the patriarchy draws the line in the sand. Black male leadership in the church, civil rights organizations, and politics have not only ignored but, at times, condoned the objectification of females.

Referring to Black women as queens do not protect our bodily autonomy. Affirming our beauty does not make us safe. Partnering with us over white women does not render us justice. None of these gestures have kept women of any race safe from the harms of patriarchy.

The Patriarch Pledge of Allegiance

As the President of the United States affirmed during his campaign, men can do anything to women that they want. That sentiment was confirmed with the induction of Kavanagh onto the supreme court. Men of every race expect allegiance from women to the detriment of their body autonomy.

Whether body autonomy is female entertainers defining their sexuality on stage, journalists creating critical dialogue in the media, authors using real names of violators, or survivors seeking justice, women are not backing down.

The allegiance is dwindling in the sexual revolution, and the revolution is being televised and publicized. Whether body autonomy is expressed by female entertainers defining their sexuality on stage, journalists creating critical dialogue in the media, authors using real names of violators, or survivors seeking justice, women are not backing down.

From Allegiance to Alliances

Women are building their own alliances. Young women are challenging older women to question their internalized oppression. Women of color are confronting white women about ignoring racism in the feminist agenda. Feminists are charging men who call themselves allies to speak up and expecting support from the LGBTQ community.

My commitment is to support women who are ready to heal from the harms of patriarchy by breaking their silence of sexual abuse. Silence is the most dangerous space in a woman’s world. I know all too well that silence is where violators and victims meet. Breaking the silence of sexual assault is germane to dismantling the system of patriarchy that robs women of body autonomy.

The rift between Black men and women is a drift away from patriarchy. Black women are not lashing out at Black men. We are holding a system accountable for the protection of all its members.

Snoop Dogg’s cruel outrage is a threat to all women, not just the ones he directed it to. No woman is safe in a world where men are entitled and use their entitlement to bully women into compliance.

References

Bakari, R. (2019): Rebirthing the Legacy of a Revolution. Medium. https://readmedium.com/rebirthing-the-legacy-of-revolution-1f0239467fda.

Bakari, R. (2018): Too Much Love Is Not Enough: A Memoir of Childhood Sexual Abuse. Karibu Publishing. Colorado Springs.

Brazelton, J. (2015). The secret storm: Exploring the disclosure process of African American women survivors of child sexual abuse across the life course.Traumatology,21(3), 181–187.

Laessig, G. (2020): Snoop Dogg; I Didn’t Threaten Gale King, But Her Koobe Bryant Remarks Were Disrespectful. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/snoop-dogg-i-didn-t-threaten-gayle-king-her-kobe-n1133191.

Mowatt, R. & French, B. (2013): Black/female/body hypervisibility and invisibility: A Black feminist augmentation of feminist leisure research. Journal of Leisure and Research, (45)5, 644–660.

Rainn National Sexual Assault Hotline. https://www.rainn.org/statistics/scope-problem.

Stacey, M., Martin, K., & Brick, B. (2017): Victim and suspect race and the police clearance of sexual assault. Race and Justice,7(3), 226–255.