Megan, Halle, Cassie & All Others: Challenging Our Responses to Sexual and Intimate Partner Violence Within Our Community

There are some things that surprise me, and others that simply pull for righteous anger. The recent press about famous Black women who have experienced sexual assault and/or intimate partner violence have brought to the forefront again how the world and even our own community views them, especially when those who have caused the harm are from within the community.

Working in the field of violence against women and girls, I am not surprised; yet my anger is fully on display.

Because research indicates that Intimate partner violence is the leading cause of death among Black women 18–34, more than 20% of black women are raped during their lifetime, and approximately 1 in 4 Black girls will experience some form of sexual abuse before they turn 18, hearing about Black women celebrities (and any Black woman/girl) being victims of such violence should be met with understanding, compassion, and belief. Yet, we know within our community, when those who have harmed them look like us and especially when they inhabit cis-heterosexual male bodies, we will attempt to find every reason not to believe Black women and girls.

And even if we do believe harm was done to them, we either justify it or minimize it.

Because it is more important to protect the images of Black males than it is to protect the bodies and minds of Black women and girls.

Whether we are talking about Megan, or Cassie, or Halle, or other Black celebrity women who have spoken up about their victimization, somehow we choose to fall into the comfort of victim-blaming, instead of facing the discomfort in accountability and the need to own within our community what makes it acceptable to sacrifice the physical and psychological well-being of Black women.

I could choose to ask the question “what if it was your mother/daughter/sister?”; yet, if we are truly community, all Black girls and women are our family who deserve to be heard, get justice (in whatever ways they decide it should occur), and to expect our community to acknowledge the belief systems within it that view their speaking about their abuse as intracultural betrayal — -instead of the abuse being done to them being where the betrayal truly lies.

Support of survivors — -whether famous, within our families, within our universities (which includes our HBCUs), or our neighborhoods needs to be a priority. Even in this time as people ask the age-old questions of “why did they not just leave?” (when we know that leaving is the most dangerous time for victims of intimate partner violence including a higher likelihood that they will be murdered during that time), or insist that “if they were really sexually abused, they would have said it at the time” (failing to admit that community response to Black women and girl survivors often includes denial, an insistence on silence, or even the ostracization of the survivor) — -we must begin to question the authenticity of such statements as they are often used to shift the narrative from shining the light on the abuse to silencing survivors.

As the media and social media focus on Megan, Halle, Cassie and other celebrities, we must also remember that there are those within our families and our neighborhoods who have and continue to have similar experiences as victims of sexual abuse and intimate partner violence. We must also admit that those who are harming them exist within those same circles. All of them are watching, and the lessons we are teaching them are

Victims should remain silent

Victims will be blamed for their own victimization

Those who choose to harm us will be valued first

Harm-doers are not expected to change

For our community to truly be well for Black women, girls, and those who harm them, we must do and expect better.

Dr. Tyffani is a licensed psychologist who centers the needs of Black Women and Girls in her work. She is the developer of several curricula and trainings that address sexual and intimate partner violence within her community. She is a firm believer that believing survivors and expecting change in those who harm them is what our community needs — -even when it is uncomfortable and difficult. Failure to do so fuels her advocacy and righteous anger. She often dedicates her works to her sister Lynn who was murdered by her intimate partner on Mother’s Day in 1991.

#DrTyffani

#SexualAssaultAwareness

#Believe Survivors

#DomesticViolenceAwareness

#ToLynnWhoKnewButNeverGotTheChanceToSee

#SistersOfTamarSupportCircle