When the Silence Shatters: Post-Black Women's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Reflections f
“The fact that we are here and that [we] speak these words is an attempt to break that silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not difference which immobilizes us but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken” – Audre Lorde Photo by Maybelline McCoy The time between mid-July till mid-September is rough for me. July 11th and September 13th bookend my summer as the dates of two of my sexual assaults. Some people name the date the “annive
Not Having It: Nate Parker and the False Choice for Black Women
As college students head back to school, the media and social media are abuzz with daily news about filmmaker Nate Parker and his college roommate Jean Celestin who were accused of raping a woman—who later committed suicide—when they were students at Pennsylvania State University. With their much anticipated Birth of a Nation film coming out in a few months, this story is both timely and critically important. Many black women, specifically survivors of sexual assault, and the
Post-Truth and Reconciliation Commission: The Sacred-Political Lives of Black Women Survivors of Rap
Photo Credit: Maybelline McCoy “we need a god who bleeds now a god whose wounds are not some small male vengeance some pitiful concession to humility a desert swept with dryin’ marrow in honor of the lord we need a god who bleeds spreads her lunar vulva & showers us in shades of scarlet thick & warm like the breath of her our mothers tearing to let us in this place breaks open like our mothers bleeding the planet is heaving mourning our ignorance the moon tugs the seas to hol
Sexual Abuse and Power: Disabled Black Girls' Positions In the World
“And she looks clean” This is what was said to me by a male teacher who thought I was attractive. I was 13 years old, in special education, and this kind of behavior from male authority was normal. I was “clean” but not something to be protected from such sexualization. I was something to be consumed, to be sullied by the male gaze, to be objectified by the dehumanizing gaze. Being disabled, considered high functioning, and a girl is a very unique intersection. The rapid deve
For Cassandra Butts Who Made a Way Out of No Way for Rape and Sexual Assault Survivors at the UN
(photo Legal Defense Fund: http://www.naacpldf.org/press-release/tribute-cassandra-q-butts-former-ldf-assistant-counsel) With each of our dead, we mourn the loss of a piece of ourselves and with each of our raped we mourn the loss of a piece of our souls. On this day, August 2, 2016, exactly three short months since Black women across identities and around the country lifted their voices in testimony, while bearing witness to the first Truth and Reconciliation Commission on S
Black Women Lead a Truth and Reconciliation Commission on U.S. Rapes
Rarely is gender and violence against women considered when the plight of people of African descent are addressed. The Black Women’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission is inherently a transnational initiative with a diasporic analysis and international implications for full achievement of recognition, justice and development, which are the objectives of the International Decade of People of African Descent. From April 28-May 2, 2016 women of African descent and their allies
A Rainbow In Her Cloud: A Lesson In Sisterhood On A Ride to Oklahoma City
In 2009, at the New Jersey Governor’s Conference for Women in Atlantic City, I sat under the sound of one of most beautiful voices I had ever heard. She was assisted onto the stage, and into a chair where her body, though frail, sat tall. Her shoulders evoked an eagle’s wings - broad, regal. She was everything I had imagined her to be when I read her work and teary-eyed, I remember thinking I would never forget this moment. Ever. As she shifted for comfort in her seat, Dr. Ma
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