Don’t worry. This isn’t another damning article about R. Kelly or Daniel Holtzclaw or Bill Cosby. Polarizing headlines provide little context behind an issue like rape culture, and it’s time we refocus our attention on Black women and girls we know and love, yet fail to support in incremental, severely damaging ways. We’ve heard their stories, their names whispered behind closed doors of our homes, schools and places of worship. We recite the litany of excuses to justify pervasive sexual violence and quell any meaningful conversation about how to end its havoc in our communities.
At 7, her favorite cousin touched her genitals during a game of hide-and-seek. She’s a liar. At 10, her body, covered head to toe in school uniform, invited attention from older men waiting on her at the bus stop. She’s fast-tailed. At 14, the youth minister at church sent her text messages pressuring her for sex. She’s a Jezebel. At 17, she fell victim to the sex trade, her body sold against her will to the highest bidders by a stranger she met online. She’s a hoe. At 20, she was sexually assaulted at a house party by a student athlete she tutored once a week. She’s too ugly to be a rape victim. At 35, her husband of seven years forced himself on her when she told him she didn’t want to make love that night. She has no right to refuse. At 50, a man the age of her adult son groped her on the city bus. She’s a bitch. At 75, she was beaten and raped in her home by two teenage intruders. She didn’t fight hard enough. Many of us have lived through similar narratives. Many of us carry each harrowing experience to our graves.
Recent studies found Black girls tend to reach puberty earlier than their counterparts of the same age group. Food access issues and environmental disparities bolstered by systemic racism and classism contribute to the trend tracked over the past 20 years. Statistics show 60 percent of Black girls are sexually abused before turning 18. The percentages are potentially higher as cases are usually not reported or properly investigated by authorities. Additionally, most incidents of rape, molestation or sexual assault are committed by someone close to the victim. The Department of Justice estimates for every Black woman who reports her rape, 15 don’t report. Black women cite the generational effects of police brutality, the school-to-prison pipeline and mass incarceration of Black people as motivation to stay quiet. They feel the need to protect their communities and, by extension, their abusers from state violence. Black women know the staggering cost of disclosure seems to outweigh the benefits. Survivors who come forward with their experiences are commonly shunned, blamed and shamed by family members, friends and strangers alike. Instead of holding perpetrators accountable, we act in collusion, unraveling the fabric of our communities.
We equate the actions of young girls experiencing dynamic hormonal changes and predatory adults taking advantage of their naivete. We’re invested in a narrow view of Black masculinity, heralding sexual dominance to such a degree abusive tendencies are nearly indistinguishable. We submit to respectability politics, convincing ourselves modest clothing and sobriety effectively shield women and girls from bodily violation. We simply don’t grant Black women and girls ownership over their bodies and willfully gloss over abuse at the hands of people they intimately trust, reinforcing a cyclical culture of sexual violence. The practice of protecting family and friends at the expense of people they harm is not unique to the Black community, but this global reality doesn’t give us a free pass. We can’t let sexual abuse go unchecked in spaces meant to be safest for Black women and girls.
It’s a common misconception that Black women do not experience gendered oppression from within the Black community. To insinuate otherwise incites false claims of divisiveness and internal attacks on hollow unity. Black women exist at a crossroads of race and gender, each social identity operating in our lives simultaneously and interdependently. Black women are Black and woman all the time, but when issues of sexual violence against us arise, we are unfairly pushed to compromise a part of ourselves.
We must unearth and unlearn long-held beliefs rooted in misogyny that keep us from affirming sexually abused women and girls. The integrity of our homes, schools and places of worship requires accountability. This isn’t an indictment of a celebrity, public servant or a single individual. This is an indictment of our complicit behavior.
Elle Roberts is a musician and writer based in Indianapolis. She is the founder of shehive, a grassroots gender equity project. To contact her, email elle@inxof.com.
