Six years have gone by since we first heard the allegations that R. Kelly had filmed himself having sex with an underage girl. During that time we have seen the videotape being hawked on street corners in Black communities, as if the dehumanization of one of our own was not at stake. We have seen entertainers rally around him and watched his career reach new heights despite the grave possibility that he had molested and urinated on a 13-year old girl. We saw African Americans purchase millions of his records despite the long history of such charges swirling around the singer. Worst of all, we have witnessed the sad vision of Black people cheering his acquittal with a fervor usually reserved for community heroes and shaken our heads at the stunning lack of outrage over the verdict in the broader Black community.

Over these years, justice has been delayed and it has been denied. Perhaps a jury can accept R. Kelly’s absurd defense and find “reasonable doubt” despite the fact that the film was shot in his home and featured a man who was identical to him. Perhaps they doubted that the young woman in the courtroom was, in fact, the same person featured in the ten year old video. But there is no doubt about this: some young Black woman was filmed being degraded and exploited by a much older Black man, some daughter of our community was left unprotected, and somewhere another Black woman is being molested, abused or raped and our callous handling of this case will make it that much more difficult for her to come forward and be believed. And each of us is responsible for it.

We have proudly seen the community take to the streets in defense of Black men who have been the victims of police violence or racist attacks, but that righteous outrage only highlights the silence surrounding this verdict.

We believe that our judgment has been clouded by celebrity-worship; we believe that we are a community in crisis and that our addiction to sexism has reached such an extreme that many of us cannot even recognize child molestation when we see it.

We recognize the absolute necessity for Black men to speak in a single, unified voice and state something that should be absolutely obvious: that the women of our community are full human beings, that we cannot and will not tolerate the poisonous hatred of women that has already damaged our families, relationships and culture.

We believe that our daughters are precious and they deserve our protection. We believe that Black men must take responsibility for our contributions to this terrible state of affairs and make an effort to change our lives and our communities.

This is about more than R. Kelly’s claims to innocence. *It is about our survival as a community*. Until we believe that our daughters, sisters, mothers, wives and friends are worthy of justice, until we believe that rape, domestic violence and the casual sexism that permeates our culture are absolutely unacceptable, until we recognize that the first priority of any community is the protection of its young, we will remain in this tragic dead-end.

We ask that you:

o Sign your name if you are a Black male who supports this statement:

http://www.petitiononline.com/rkelly/petition.html

o Forward this statement to your entire network and ask other Black males to sign as well

o Make a personal pledge to never support R. Kelly again in any form or fashion, unless he publicly apologizes for his behavior and gets help for his long-standing sexual conduct, in his private life and in his music

o Make a commitment in your own life to never to hit, beat, molest, rape, or exploit Black females in any way and, if you have, to take ownership for your behavior, seek emotional and spiritual help, and, over time, become a voice against all forms of Black female exploitation

o Challenge other Black males, no matter their age, class or educational background, or status in life, if they engage in behavior and language that is exploitative and or disrespectful to Black females in any way. If you say nothing, you become just as guilty.

o Learn to listen to the voices, concerns, needs, criticisms, and challenges of Black females, because they are our equals, and because in listening we will learn a new and different kind of Black manhood.

We support the work of scholars, activists and organizations that are helping to redefine Black manhood in healthy ways. Additional resources are listed below.

Books:
Who’s Gonna Take the Weight, Kevin Powell
New Black Man, Mark Anthony Neal
Deals with the Devil and Other Reasons to Riot, Pearl Cleage
Traps: African American Men on Gender and Sexuality, Rudolph Byrd and Beverly Guy-Sheftall

Films:
I Am A Man: Black Masculinity in America, by Byron Hurt
Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, by Byron Hurt
NO! The Rape Documentary, by Aishah Shahidah Simmons

Organizations
The 2025 Campaign: www.2025bmb.org
Men Stopping Violence: www.menstoppingviolence.org

“Aishah Shahidah Simmons and I met over ten years ago in Washington, DC when she was dating an old friend. We spent a Saturday night with friends dancing at the Hung Jury and talking about our future goals. I remember thinking that she was intensely passionate and I followed her career. I had not seen Aishah since that fun night until I ran into her this past fall when she attended the event to celebrate Katherine Acey’s 20th Anniversary with the Astraea Foundation. I knew that I wanted to talk with Aishah about her work and journey to becoming an award-winning independent documentary filmmaker, television and radio producer, published writer, international lecturer, and activist living in Philadelphia…

What is your passion?
My passion is centralizing the margins of society. Making the invisible, visible. Documenting the lives of women of color globally. I am an activist. The camera lens is my medium to make social change irresistible.

What motivates you to do your work? What do you hope to accomplish by doing this work?
Injustice in the world motivates me. Injustice fuels my passion to make change. Anytime when I feel that I can’t do it, there is an issue that I feel needs to be addressed. An issue very dear to my heart is violence against WOMEN.

I am survivor of violence. It is personal. I know more women here in the United States and abroad who have been impacted by violence than those who have not. Whether it was being the victim of violence or witnessing domestic violence and other forms of violence. It has impacted so many women…

Click here to read the interview in its entirety. http://www.passionlife.net/artmay08.html

Sexual Assault Documentary Featured On WBAI, New York

On Monday, April 7, 2008 Aishah Shahidah Simmons and Kevin Powell were featured guests Wake Up Call with host Esther Armah on WBAI, 99.5 in New York to promote the screening of NO! at Browne Memorial Baptist Church. It was a wonderful turn-out and an amazingly intense evening. There will be additional posts about that powerful event soon. Please download the audio or listen to it, here on the blog.

length – 37 min

right click to download here

Violence Against Women Documentary Featured on Joy of Resistance Program on WBAI Pacifica Radio Network | Women’s History Month

On Thursday, March 27, 2008, NO! The Rape Documentary and Aishah Shahidah Simmons were featured guests on Joy of Resistance Multi-Cultural Feminist Radio, WBAI Pacifica Radio Network in New York, with co-hosts Fran Luck and NOW-NJ President, Maretta Short, to raise awareness about rape, other forms of sexual violence, healing and feminist activism during Women’s History Month. Monica Dillon’s powerful song “No,” which is a call to action to end violence against women is featured throughout the program. Please download the audio or listen to it, here on the blog.

length – 61 min

right click to download here

From April 15, 2008 through April 17, 2008, Aishah Shahidah Simmons and Monica Dillon will be featured guest lecturers, workshop facilitators, and performers at University of Wisconsin – Madison as a part of their Sexual Assault Awareness Month programming. In addition to screening NO! The Rape Documentary and meeting with studens and faculty, they will perform “For Women and Men of Rage & Reason, a cinematic, poetic and musical journey from victim to survivor and activist in the international movements to end violence against women.

An extra highlight to this experience is that Tiona M., the fierce producer, director, photographer, and editor of the ground breaking documentary black./womyn.:conversations… will document Monica and Aishah’s performances and presentations. Tiona will also screen the black./womyn.:conversations trailer, which features the voices of over 50 lesbians of African descent, including Monica and Aishah, and talk about the process of making this important film.

Aishah and Monica are so very excited to be performing and presenting with other again. Each time they present and share together with students and faculty they learn more and more about each other as cultural workers, eradicating violence against women, and of course, what’s on the mind of students right now.

For detailed information about the two major events that are open to the public on Wednesday, April 16, 2008 and Thursday, April 17, 2008, please visit http://www.today.wisc.edu/events/view/3933 and http://www.today.wisc.edu/events/view/3183

By Salamishah Tillet | TheRoot.com

http://www.theroot.com/id/45742

April 10, 2008 — Given the staggeringly high incidence of sexual violence in black communities it is fair to ask why this problem has not risen to the level of a crisis in the public consciousness

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Perhaps one of the truest and most tragic lines in American film is spoken by the character Yellow Mary in Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust(1991) when she sadly declares that “the rape of the colored woman is as common as fish in the sea.” As a rape survivor, I speak on behalf of the 1 in 4 women who will experience sexual assault in her lifetime.

Moreover, since April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, I hope to bring awareness to the fact that even though African-American women make up about 7% of the U.S. population, we currently constitute 18.8% to 28% of the reported sexual assault victims. These women are ,and have always been, our grandmothers,our daughters, our partners. And our friends.

Given the staggering statistics, I cannot help but wonder why this pandemic does not constitute a crisis within both African-American communities and the larger American body politic. African-American women have consistently spoken out against social ills such as the War in Iraq and racial injustices experienced by black men — from lynching to police brutality to racial profiling.

And yet, they have had to confront their own experiences with race and gender-related sexual violence without the support of many African-American leaders. Today, most rapes are intra-racial. The vast majority of rape victims, almost ninety-percent, report that a member of their same racial or ethnic group sexually assaulted them.

Unfortunately, because many African-American female rape victims do not want to perpetuate racial stereotypes about the black male rapist (created and used by white mobs to justify the lynching of economically and politically mobile black men) and the black male criminal (now used to maintain racial disparities in the criminal justice system), they often do not press charges against their assailants because they fear further criminalizing African-American men.

Like most rape victims, many African-American women understand that public disbelief, sexual double standards, and sexist stereotypes such as the “gold-digger” will greet their accusations of rape. But even more egregiously, African-American women know that they risk being labeled a race traitor by some who view their actions as airing “dirty laundry.”

And yet, there is a long tradition of African-American women speaking out about sexual violence, and mixing their anti-rape discourse with anti-racist activism. In 1866, a group of African-American women testified before Congress about white mobs who sexually assaulted them during the infamous Memphis race riots. Following suit, African-American activist and journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnett continually linked her anti-lynching crusade with her clarion call to end sexual violence.

Today, we can turn to African-American women novelists such as Alice Walker and Toni Morrison, entertainers such as Oprah Winfrey and Gabrielle Union, writers such as Charlotte Pierce-Baker’s Surviving the Silence(2000) and Lori Robinson’s I Will Survive (2003) to locate models of anti-rape activism.

We should look at filmmaker Aishah Shahidah Simmons’s groundbreaking film NO! The Rape Documentary which details the history of African-American women and sexual violence and watch photographer Scheherazade Tillet’s [Full disclosure: She's my sister] multimedia performance SOARS (Story of A Rape Survivor) which brilliantly uses the visual and performing arts to document the journey of recovering from and healing after rape.

In order to end the sexual violence experienced by African-American women, we need to recognize sexual abuse as one of the most important issues facing black America today. We need to encourage and include the voices of African-American women in mainstream activism against rape. And we need ensure that our demands for political and racial justice include calls for an end to sexism, sexual violence and homophobia. Until we begin supporting and believing African-American rape victims, we will always be engaged in a half-hearted fight for racial equality.

Salamishah Tillet is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania and co-founder of the non-profit organization, A Long Walk Home, Inc., which uses art therapy and the visual and performing arts to document and to end violence against underserved women and children.

By Melissa Harris-Lacewell | TheRoot.com

http://www.theroot.com/id/45744

April 10, 2008 — Remixing the racial rule of silence.

I witnessed something truly astonishing on Monday night: a public discussion of black women’s experiences of sexual violence at the hands of black men. It was an intergenerational group of black men and women, gay and straight, survivors and perpetrators, all grappling with the legacy of rape and race.

The experience was unusual because black people rarely talk about sisters being raped. We talk about all kinds of things: trivial, critical, humorous, serious, political, painful and frivolous. But as we observe Sexual Assault Awareness Month in April, I am reminded that there are things we don’t talk about.

We are silent about black women as victims and survivors of sexual assault by black men.

In African American communities rape narratives are not women’s stories. They are men’s stories. Rape is tied to the historical legacy of white terror. Strange fruit hanging from Southern trees has led to a legacy of disbelieving women who report sexual violence and intimidation.

Black women raped by black male perpetrators often remain silent because they are alone. They don’t want to confirm white racial stereotypes; their own families and communities tell them to shut up; they have little reason to think that authorities will take their cases seriously; they fear the devastating ramifications of a manhunt in black communities if they are believed; and in the history of lynching white women have been adversaries, not allies, on the question of rape.

Recovering from rape is burden enough without having to shoulder this vicious legacy.

I do not want to diminish or deny the pain, agony, recovery and triumph of survivors who are not black women. I do not want to claim that all black women survivors have parallel experiences or that all black women experience the same traumas in the aftermath of rape. I only want to claim there is often a different dynamic that operates for black women who have been violated by black men.

As a sexual assault survivor and advocate I know the debilitating effects of silence. That is why I was so moved by Monday night’s gathering in Brown Memorial Baptist Church in Brooklyn, NY. Together we watched Aishah Shahidah Simmons’ NO! The Rape Documentary. Then Simmons, who is herself a rape and incest survivor, talked with us and answered questions to help us process the grief, anger and confusion that her exquisite film provoked.

But here was the most surprising part of all: the gathering was organized by a community group called Black and Male in America. Under the leadership of writer, activist and Congressional candidate Kevin Powell, this group of men arranged a screening of Simmons’ powerful film. Let me say this again. A group of black men arranged for an honest, difficult, intense, public discussion of intra-racial rape.

Filmmaker Aishah Shahidah Simmons revealed that it has been difficult to find wide distribution for her film because so few people want to grapple with black women’s sexual victimization. Simmons was joined on the panel by Kevin Powell and Quentin Walcott from ConnectNYC. Sitting next to these men, Simmons acknowledged that brothers from the hip-hop generation, a generation that has been critiqued as universally commercial and misogynist, have been among her strongest supporters.

Simmons said, “It’s also very important for me to note that this and many other community-based screenings that have been organized by Black men are men from the hip-hop generation. I share this because there are many justifiable critiques of hip-hop. However, hands down, the overwhelming majority of the men who have supported NO! and spread the word about NO! are from the hip-hop generation.”

Organizer Kevin Powell is certainly a central figure of the hip-hop generation. As a first season Real World cast member, Powell helped usher in the age of reality TV. As a writer and poet he has reflected on and critiqued hip-hop. Powell also has his own difficult past as a perpetrator of domestic violence. But rather than being silent and demanding silence from others, Powell has written movingly about his own awakening from violence. On Monday night he and other men of this Brooklyn organization helped provide space for sexual assault survivors to speak and be heard.

We are right to focus on and criticize the elements of hip-hop that are complicit in the violence, abuse and degradation of black women. But we are also compelled to acknowledge the possibility that some men of the hip-hop generation just might have something to teach their elders about passing the mic and being quiet while sisters share their stories. Maybe, just maybe, this generation of men will create a different path.

Reflecting on what this new path might look like Powell said, “What we’ve found in our work with black males is that many of us brothers are completely clueless about what manhood should be. So we swallow whole what society, our communities, our families, our fathers, and, yes, our mothers, tell us it is, even if that definition leads us to hurt or destroy black females or other black males. Or ourselves. There is a growing recognition, now, among many hip-hop generation black women thinkers, leaders, and artists, and a growing number of us black male counterparts, that if we do not deal with the multiple insanities we as a community have internalized, then we are doomed as a community. It is really that serious.”

Monday night’s event helped us to remember that rape is complicated by race. For many black women there is a sense of betrayal that exists alongside the personal humiliation, pain and fear. Intra-racial rape can feel like a rift between a woman and her people. The survivor is cast into silence not so much a by a desire to protect those men who perpetrated, but to protect the black men in her life who she loves, respects and trusts. As Simmons’ NO! reminds us, survivors often feel that by fingering the attacker we might somehow accuse our own fathers, husbands, friends and sons of possessing this same capacity for violence.

So it makes a huge difference for black men to stand with us and encourage us to tell. The Brooklyn gathering was a model of how black men can help create safe spaces for us. It was a reminder that men can exert power and reclaim manhood by standing with black women, bearing witness to our stories and holding one another accountable. It was a testament to the reality that men can stop rape by saying NO!

Melissa Harris-Lacewell is associate professor of politics and African American studies at Princeton University.

On Thrusday, April 10, 2008 at 7pm, The Women’s Resource Center at the University of Houston will host a screening and discussion of the award-winning, feature length documentary NO!, which is about rape, other forms of violence against women, and healing. Producer, writer, and director Aishah Shahidah Simmons will introduce the documentary and facilitate a question and answer session immediately following the screening.

Free Admission and Parking in Lots 20A and 20C.

Directions: From I-45 take Spur 5 and take a right at the first light, which is University Drive. Free parking is on the right in Parking Lots 20A and 20C. You must then walk across Calhoun Street and straight down University Drive, which dead ends into the Cullen Performance Hall. If you wish to park closer, paid parking is available at either the Welcome Center at the corner of University and Calhoun or in the underground parking under the Hilton hotel. For futher directions, click here.

Click here for a campus map.

This event is generously underwritten by the Tenneco Lecture Series.

For more information, please visit http://www.uh.edu/wrc/Nodocumentary.html. Alternatively, you may call the University of Houston’s Women’s Resource Center at 713.743.5888; or the Sanfoka Pan Afrikan Student Organization at 832.894.5015.

After a long hiatus of screenings, book signings, and lectures, the Raday Salon kicks off its 2008 season with a screening of NO! The Rape Documentary to commemorate Women’s History Month. This is not the first time that Raday Salon has hosted screenings and discussions of NO! The Rape Documentary both as a rough cut and now as a completed documentary to standing room only audiences. However given the horrific and unfortuante global manifestation of sexual violence, combined with requests from people who have not had the opportunity to view the documentary, Linda Carranza and Michael Simmons, the Salon’s co-founders, are hosting an encore screening.

“...We have developed many new ties with folks who are new to Budapest or just new to our Salon, who have expressed an interest in seeing the film. We would be happy to see both old and new Salon friends at this showing, especially as the discussion is always different and brings up new observations every time we show the film…” will be an encore screening and discussion of NO! The Rape Documentary.” — Linda Carranza & Michael Simmons

Aishah Shahidah Simmons will not be present at the screening. However, Michael Simmons, who has definitely screened NO!, more than Aishah, throughout Europe and the Middle East, will both host the screening and facilitate the dialogue following the screening.

For more information about the screening and equally as important for upcoming events at Raday Salon, please visit their site (http://raday.blogs.com).

“Our Salon is dedicated to the proposition that all people are fascinating individuals, and everybody has a story to tell.” — Linda Carranza & Michael Simmons, Co-Founders, Raday Salon

If you ever find yourself in Budapest, Hungary, definitely get in touch with both Linda and Michael. They definitely walk their talk.

On February 7, 2008, there was an almost standing room only screening NO! The Rape Documentary at the Brecht Forum. Immediately following the screening there was a very lively panel discussion with Ejeris Dixon, the Program Coordinator of the Safe OUTside the System Collective, Ebony Noelle Golden, poet and organizer, who is a founding member of UBUNTU and other groups in the Durham area after the Duke lacrosse case, and Michael Simmons, who is an international human rights activist and a featured interviewee in NO!. Unfortunately, due to illness, Salamishah Tillet, who was scheduled to moderate the discussion, wasn’t able to participate in the conversation.

One of the people who attended is a member of an organization called “SAFER (Students Active for Ending Rape)“, an advocacy group in the US which works to improve universities’ response to sexual assaults in the campus environment. After attending the event, she wrote two reaction pieces on the SAFER organization’s blog, which you can read by clicking the following two links.
NO! A Documentary about Rape
NO! Part 2