Each April during Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM), the all-too-common experience of sexual violence is thrust into mainstream culture. News organizations run stories spotlighting survivors leading important advocacy work; local and national organizations launch campaigns laying out the crisis of sexual assault in the U.S., documenting the myriad ways this violence is experienced in structural and unique ways, especially by Black women and Black TGNCI (transgender, gender nonconforming, and intersex) folks. Corporations create social media ads, and millions are spent promoting SAAM online. All of the above are important, as they help inform our communities about the insidiousness of sexual violence. But SAAM is over, and survivors and those committed to survivor justice are calling on us to make sure the conversation continues and to focus on the data. Because it’s telling us that while progress has indeed been made, the efforts to roll back our wins are strong. In order to realize a vision of survivor justice that doesn’t rely on the carcel state, we have to prioritize building community-based violence prevention and intervention solutions.When we think about the most vulnerable among us, the stats are clear: Black women and girls are still disproportionately at risk of sexual violence. Nearly 1 in 5 Black women are survivors of rape; 41% of Black women experience sexual coercion and other forms of unwanted sexual contact; and 60% of Black girls will experience sexual violence before the age of 18.
For every Black woman or girl who reports rape, at least 15 do not report. Even after the “me, too” movement transformed the mainstream perception of survivor justice, attacking the cultural stigmas that previously left millions without the support to disclose their assaults, so many survivors still do not report their assault—and we know why: The system fails survivors consistently, as is blatantly apparent with the recent news of Harvey Weinstein’s overturned conviction, which shows just how hard it is to achieve justice inside a system that was never designed to protect us.
Many survivors fear shame and humiliation that come with not being believed. Others fear retaliation from those who hurt them. Many survivors feel a deep mistrust in the criminal legal system and its history of racism, and some even fear that the system will result in unjust harm to their Black partners and family members. For children, there’s an added layer of possibly not understanding the harm they’re experiencing, fearing they’re somehow at fault, or not knowing who is safe to confide in.
We know that discrimination, harassment, and violence against Black TGNCI people are so systemic that our people cannot rely on any system to protect them. Reports repeatedly show that Black trans women and gender-nonconforming people, in particular, experience some of the highest levels of killings, violence, poverty, policing, criminalization, and incarceration of any group in the U.S.
Add to all of that the fact that Black survivors who do report sexual assault or violence are less likely to be believed than their white counterparts, and we have a world in which not only is there systemic and interpersonal violence, but there is little to no safe recourse.
In the midst of political tension and electoral drama, we need to remind those who care deeply about ending sexual and gender-based violence that several strategies and solutions are available that were developed through decades of community organizing.
First and foremost, we call for deep investment in Black communities. Chronic divestment in our communities creates and fosters the conditions where violence is more likely to occur.
Investment can look like many things. One of the most significant is access to safe, accessible, and affirming housing and health care. Just behind those is access to child and elder care support, as well as good jobs that help people thrive. When we ask survivors of sexual assault and violence what they need, these are the things they name. These are the things that create safety.
Second, we must divest from policing. People ask what we would do about harm and violence in our communities without policing. However, they’re not considering that divestment from policing would create more non-carceral responses to emergencies in our communities. Survivors have already started the work of both envisioning and building a reality where safety is determined by the people. And we’re inviting more people into that work.
Our first question is whether this current system is working. Is it keeping you safe? Is it stopping perpetrators? The answer is overwhelmingly no.
The myth that police protect us falls apart when we look at Black survivors of sexual assault. Police sexual misconduct is deeply ingrained in the structure of law enforcement, as countless studies have shown. One of the ways that Black women, girls, and TGNCI people routinely experience such violence is by being targeted by police for sexual harassment, extortion, and assault. This system doesn’t prevent sexual violence; it often inflicts violence or creates more trauma for survivors. And it does nothing to change the behavior of perpetrators or the culture that creates them.
The current system fails us daily, so we must move toward a different reality. Community organizers have proven there is a better way—one that treats the conditions that foster sexual violence; that focuses on care, healing, harm-reduction, and culture change. What we need is divestment from mass criminalization and policing, and investment in community-based sexual assault prevention, intervention, and support for Black women, girls, and TGNCI survivors. There is a deep need for community-based transformative violence prevention and intervention strategies, or other kinds of long-term support for communities that have been hyper-criminalized and surveilled. These programs are effective and should be supported by anyone who wants to address harm without immediately funneling people into a system that only creates more and more violence and harm.
In four cities, the Anti-Patriarchal Violence (APV) table in the Movement for Black Lives is piloting Black feminist safety pods as a model of community care that seeks to create networks of support for those experiencing harm, as well as accountability and transformation for those who cause harm.
As we close out SAAM, then, let’s remember the data and let it anchor the next phase of our work. More importantly, let’s recommit to building a world where we don’t have to track data points about rates of assault and violence; where organizing paves our way to a future that is safe, affirming, and healing for everyone.
Monaye Johnson and Damala Denny work with members of the Anti-Patriarchal Violence Table, Movement for Black Lives.