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Black Women, Sexual Assault, and the Art of Resistance

April 27, 2012

Aishah Shahidah Simmons and NO! The Rape Documentary featured in FORBESWOMAN article, by Brooke Axtell, on Black Women and Sexual Assault

On April 25, 2012, FORBESWOMAN published Brooke Axtell’s “Black Women, Sexual Assault, and the Art of Resistance” article. Axtell is the creator of SHE: Survivor, Healing & Empowerment, which is “a healing community for survivors of rape, abuse and sex trafficking, as well as their allies.” So, it comes as no surprise that she would write an article exploring the specific challenges facing Black women survivors of rape and sexual assault.

Citing sobering statistics compiled by Black Women’s Blueprint, The Black Women’s Health Imperative, and the US Department on Justice, Axtell delves into the various reasons why so many Black women choose not to report their rape. She references the scholarship and activism of Lori Sasai Robinson, Dr. Gail Elizabeth Wyatt, Dr. Danielle L. McGuire, and Dr. Charlotte Pierce-Baker, who have each spent numerous years researching and writing about Black women and rape.  Axtell also places Aishah Shahidah Simmons and her documentary film NO! along a continuum of Black women’s creative resistance against all forms of sexual violence perpetuated against Black women and girls.

Black Women, Sexual Assault, and the Art of Resistance is another powerful intervention in raising awareness about the horrific impact of the intersections of race, gender, class, and sexuality on many Black women rape and sexual assault survivors. Axtell writes,

[...]Historically, law enforcement has been used to control African-American communities through brutality and racial profiling. It may be difficult for a Black woman to seek help if she feels it could be at the expense of African-American men or her community. The history of racial injustice (particularly the stereotype of the Black male as a sexual predator) and the need to protect her community from further attack might persuade a survivor to remain silent.

We need more research to fully understand the scope of violence against Black women and the barriers they face to receiving support services. This requires both the political will and funding to make their lives a priority. Unfortunately, due to a long history of systemic racism and classism in the United States, the violation of Black women’s bodies is often rendered invisible.

You may read the article in its entirety by clicking here.

As of April 30, 2012, ?Black Women Sexual Assault and the Art of Resistance? has been picked up by several sites including:

http://blackpoliticsontheweb.com/2012/04/25/black-women-sexual-assault-and-the-art-of-resistance/

http://tbann.com/blog/black-women-sexual-assault-and-the-art-of-resistance/

http://legalnews.findlaw.com/article/05Gt4B5cBggO6

http://www.ncrw.org/news-center/media-roundup

Aishah Shahidah Simmons asks “Who Will Revere Us? (Black LGTBQ People, Straight Women, and Girls)”

April 27, 2012

None of Us are Free until All of Us are Free

From April 23, 2012 through April 26, 2012, The Feminist Wire published Aishah Shahidah Simmons‘ four part series titled “Who Will Revere Us? (Black LGTBQ People, Straight Women, and Girls).” Through a comparison of selected cases, Simmons interrogates why Black/African-American/African descendant communities have tremendous difficulty addressing various forms of  violence perpetuated against LGTBQ people, straight women, and girls. Following is the introduction to the series.

Introduction

The title of this four part article is a metaphorical nod to the legendary jazz singer, songwriter, actor, and activist Abbey Lincoln (also known as Aminata Moseka) whose essay, “Who Will Revere The Black Woman?” is featured in the ground-breaking anthology The Black Woman. Edited by Black feminist author, screenwriter, and visionary activist Toni Cade Bambara, this all-Black woman anthology focused on the issues most pertinent to Black women and our communities. Originally published in 1970 and reissued in 2005 with a forward by Dr. Eleanor W. Traylor, The Black Woman was the literary wo/manifestation of the impact of the intersection of the Civil Rights/Black Power movements and the second wave of the Women’s Rights movement on Black women’s lives. In short, Ms. Lincoln’s ageless essay is a demand for justice and protection for Black women. In her concluding paragraph she writes,

[…]Who will revere the Black woman? Who will keep our neighborhoods safe for Black innocent womanhood? Black womanhood is outraged and humiliated. Black womanhood cries for dignity and restitution and salvation. Black womanhood wants and needs protections, and keeping and holding. Who will assuage her indignation? Who will keep her precious and pure? Who will glorify and proclaim her beautiful image? To whom will she cry rape?

In her 1983 prophetic and timeless essay, “There Is No Hierarchy of Oppression,” self-defined Black feminist lesbian mother warrior poet Audre Lorde writes,

I cannot afford the luxury of fighting one form of oppression only. I cannot believe that freedom from intolerance is the right of only one particular group. And I cannot afford to choose between the front upon which I must battle these forces of discrimination, wherever they appear to destroy me. And when they appear to destroy me, it will not be long before they appear to destroy you.[1]

I am struggling to find the right time to discuss inter and intra-racial gender-based violence in the midst of the justified outrage about the rampant and virulent racialized violence perpetrated against straight Black boys and men. Even with this being Sexual Assault Awareness Month, now doesn’t feel like the best time to write about the gender-based and state-sanctioned violence perpetuated against Black straight women, girls, and LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer) people both inside of and outside of our racial/cultural communities. I fear that sharing what’s on my heart and mind, might be construed as my taking away from the “real” issue at hand in most Black communities, which seems to be solely white supremacist and/or state-sanctioned racist violence against straight Black men and boys.

Audre Lorde’s writings remind me, however, that discussions on oppression within Black communities should never be taken up within an either/or frame. The diverse herstories/histories and contemporary realities of Black straight women, girls, and LGBTQ people have consistently revealed that the issues that directly impact us often take a back seat, if they even make it into the metaphorical car on the freedom and liberation highway.

There is a collective understanding among many in multi-racial, radical progressive movements, that the white supremacist, patriarchal, heterosexist, imperial, and capitalist power structure is the root of all oppressions in the United States. While I believe that to be true, even in the company of other oppressed people, Black straight women and LGBTQ people are still under attack. Too often we are caught at the intersections of race, gender, and if we identify as LGBTQ, sexuality. In spite of our shared his/herstories of oppression, struggle, and perseverance against the odds, not enough Black people view sexism, patriarchy, misogyny, heterosexism and transphobia with the same kind of activist passion that we view racism, white supremacy, and state-sanctioned violence perpetuated against straight Black men and boys.

The reality is this: when Black straight men and boys are beaten, brutalized, and/or murdered as a result of state-sanctioned and/or white supremacist violence, it becomes (as well it should be) a national issue in the Black community and in a few, definitely not all, instances, the outrage moves beyond the Black community. Yet, when Black straight women, girls, and LGBTQ people are raped, sexually assaulted, beaten, brutalized, and/or murdered as a result of misogynist, patriarchal, state-sanctioned, and/or white supremacist violence, it is too often the victim’s individual issue.

There are so many egregious, known and unknown, cases of racial and gender-based violence perpetuated against all Black people, regardless of their gender, gender identity, and sexuality, that it is literally impossible to write about all of them. I want to highlight a selected few of the far too many, however, to ask Black/African-American/African descended people to consider our responses when any of us have been railroaded into the prison industrial complex, sexually or otherwise assaulted, or murdered. I want us, Black/African-American/African descended people, to consider our responses to issues that affect many as opposed to those issues affecting some of us based on our gender, gender identity, and/or sexuality.

***

Part 1, which was published on April 23, 2012, can be read in its entirety here. On April 24, 2012, Ebony.com aggregated part one. You can read it here.

Part 2, which was published on April 24, 2012, can be read in its entirety here. Part 3, which was published on April 25, 2012, can be read in its entirety here. Part 4, which was published on April 26, 2012, can be read in its entirety here.

An Evening w/ Filmmaker/Artist tiona.m. in conversation with Filmmaker/Activist Aishah Shahidah Simmons

April 19, 2012

Black Lesbian FilmmakerS/Artist/ActivistS in Conversation

Father and Daughter discuss “coming out process,” and eradicating violence against women on Left of Black

April 3, 2012

Michael Simmons and Aishah Shahidah Simmons discuss her “coming out process,” and eradicating violence against women on Mark Anthony Neal’s “Left of Black” series.

http://afrolez.tumblr.com/post/20429587910/aishah-shahidah-simmons-and-michael-simmons-on-left-of-b

Michael Simmons, Aishah Shahidah Simmons, and Mark Anthony Neal on the set of Left of Black. Photograph by Linda Carranza

Award-winning filmmaker and international lecturer Aishah Shahidah Simmons shared the stage with International Human Rights Activist Michael Simmons who is her father/friend/confidante/comrade on the first segment of Season 2, Episode 26 of Left of Black, which is a phenomenal series hosted by Duke University Professor and prolific writer Mark Anthony Neal.

During their segment, Michael and Aishah talk about what it meant for a father to both  both nurture and support his daughter’s coming out as a Black feminist lesbian (over 20-years ago). Equally as important they discuss about their individual and collective work to address violence against women both nationally and internationally. Their conversation includes Aishah discussing about the some of the seeds planted over 20-years ago, which WOmanifested into her award-winning, internationally acclaimed film NO! The Rape Documentary.

Their segment is followed by an interview with Meta DuEwa Jones who is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin. discusses the Legacy of Jazz Poetry in her new book The Muse is Music: Jazz Poetry from the Harlem Renaissance.

Michael Simmons is the co-director, with Linda Carranza, of the Raday Salon, an independent human rights oriented program in Budapest, Hungary. The Salon is rooted in both Simmons’ and Carranza’s own individual his/herstories as international human rights activists. For more information about the Salon please visit
http://raday.blogs.com

You can view the entire Left of Black episode featuring Michael Simmons, Aishah Shahidah Simmons, and Meta DuEwa Jones, with Mark Anthony Neal by clicking HERE (http://afrolez.tumblr.com/post/20429587910/aishah-shahidah-simmons-and-michael-simmons-on-left-of-b)

***

Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.

***

Episodes of Left of Black are also available for free download in HD @iTunes U

Aishah Shahidah Simmons will speak at Duke University on Tuesday, March 27, 2012

March 26, 2012

Aishah Shahidah Simmons will deliver Duke University’s Women’s Center Annual Founder’s Lecture on Tuesday, March 27, 2012 at 4:30pm

Standing at the Intersections of Roland Martin’s Homophobia and GLAAD’s Racism

February 28, 2012

Why Roland Martin’s Homophobic Tweets Shouldn’t be Ignored, Even Now

By Aishah Shahidah Simmons, Darnell L. Moore, & Kenyon Farrow

This article was originally published on The Feminist Wire on February 15, 2012.

http://thefeministwire.com/2012/02/why-roland-martins-homophobic-tweets-shouldnt-be-ignored-even-now/

Over and over again as racially-conscious, Black feminist lesbian and gay people, we find ourselves being told to be silent when misogyny and homophobia rears its head in order to be accepted as Black by the larger community. The most recent debacle from Roland Martin’s homophobic tweets during the Super Bowl is one of too many examples:

If a dude at your Super Bowl party is hyped about David Beckham’s H&M underwear ad, smack the ish out of him! #superbowl

Who the hell was that New England Patriot they just showed in a head to toe pink suit? Oh, he needs a visit from team #whipdatass

Martin’s comments were reprehensible in any environment, but most especially during the super-macho (and super-hetero) Super Bowl. Using Suzanne Pharr’s analysis that “Homophobia [is] a weapon of sexism,” it’s also apparent that Martin’s issue with Beckham’s bikini briefs, the unmanly sport of soccer, or the fan’s “pink suit,” relies heavily on sexism to reinforce heterosexist definitions of manhood.

We can’t afford to take homophobia lightly.

For so many LGBTQ people, many of whom are Black, this is life and death. When a noted journalist like Martin uses humor to condone violence against men who appear to be gay, it is insensitive, careless, and extremely irresponsible.

Some have even argued that Martin’s fate is a result of the response of misguided people who have given too much power to words. According to Raynard Jackson, writing in response to this debacle for The Washington Post, “words have no intrinsic meaning other than meanings that are internalized by each individual.”

Words are merely words, right? No! They actually shape the climate in which someone’s “ass” may literally be beat and murdered altogether. The next day after Martin’s tweets, a video surfaced of Brandon White, a black gay man who was jumped by multiple men in Atlanta for wearing skinny jeans.  Much like Martin’s tweets, this video shows that someone’s choice of clothing, which others may view as contrary to their gender and abnormal, is a reason to be subject to assault. Our thoughts and the words that we use are reflected through actions. As a result, we need not use words that produce harm, but words that seek to ameliorate violence.

So, where are the “words” of condemnation emanating from the Black progressive establishment regarding Martin’s tweets or the numerous physical attacks on Black LGBT people that happen daily?

The deafening silence from Non-LGBTQ Black Civil Rights organizations and public intellectuals taking a stand against homophobia is unacceptable. It’s as if racism is the main/real issue worthy of being addressed, with sexism/misogyny in a very distant second place, and homophobia a practically non-existent third place on our Black civil rights platform. Why do these organizations and “leaders” continue to act as if they are not accountable to Black people who are LGBTQ? Aren’t we Black, too?

Similarly, why does GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) act is if they are not accountable to LGBTQ people who are Black? As Robert Jones, Jr., author of the Son of Baldwin blog stated, ?“I think Roland Martin deserved censure and suspension, just like Don Imus deserved being terminated. But where is GLAAD when [white gay writers like] Andrew Sullivan and Dan Savage make their racist statements? I sense a double standard and it REEKS of racism.”

GLAAD’s swift action to demand that CNN fire Martin gives us pause. Interestingly enough, GLAAD didn’t also demand TVOne, a Black-owned network, where Martin hosts a weekly show, to fire him. Clearly, based on GLAAD’s actions, they’re not very concerned about the impact of Martin’s homophobia on Black networks (if they even know the networks exist). In response to Martin’s comments, GLAAD’s website reiterates, “Our goal is to ensure better coverage that works toward ending anti-LGBT violence.”

If that is GLAAD’s goal, then why aren’t they also holding other outlets where Roland Martin has a platform accountable? Furthermore, Martin recently met with GLAAD; but none of the Black queer people who first called Martin out over Twitter was invited by GLAAD to join in such a meeting. Why is Martin only accountable to GLAAD?

Cleo Manago, CEO and founder of the Black Men’s Xchange (BMX), had this to say about GLAAD’s demand that Martin be fired from CNN: “…we are still in the process of recovering from many challenges that have resulted from being Black in America. Still, lily-White organizations like GLAAD are not in the position to complain about alleged injustice from Blacks. They clearly are not culturally competent enough to accurately interpret the voices of Black people.”

While Manago might be correct to interrogate GLAAD’s “cultural competency,” he too misses a valuable point.

The fact is: it was Black queer men and women, and not some “lily-white organization,” who were the first to call attention to Martin’s heterosexist words. GLAAD’s response, and CNN’s subsequent move to suspend Martin, followed the swift rebuke of Twitter personalities @kenyonfarrow, @Anti_Intellect, @TheFireNextTime.

The fact is: it was Black brothers and sisters who called out a Black brother. Period.

Given the facts, let’s assume that the Black men and women who rightly pointed out Martin’s violent words were indeed “culturally competent enough” to interpret Roland’s words as sexist and homophobic (because they were), where will Manago and others now point their fingers?

The claim that somehow we should ignore heterosexist remarks, particularly those spewed by other Black folk, because of the force of racism, is dangerously limited. There are no battles (i.e. calling out and resisting racism OR calling out and resisting homophobia) to choose in this regard. There is but one battle and that is our sustained resistance to oppression when and wherever it rears its head.

The idea that we should forego calling Martin out for his heterosexism because he is Black is just as myopic as thinking that we should not call out GLAAD for the lack of response to racism within and without the queer community. Both are wrong and require our resistance.

We, as individuals and organizations in the Black community, should embrace a vision of our community that doesn’t try to sacrifice any of us for the so-called progress of the majority, whether about gender/sexuality, economic status, or other complexities of Black life.  Then we might begin to make some headway with addressing the ways that multiple forms of oppression impact so many of us.

No one is free while others are oppressed.

___________________________________

Aishah Shahidah Simmons is an award-winning AfroLez®femcentric cultural worker based in Philadelphia, PA.  She blogs at AfroLezProductions.com. You can follow her on twitter @AfroLez.

Darnell L. Moore is a 2011-12 Visiting Scholar in the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at New York University. He lives and writes in Bedstuy, Brooklyn. You can follow him on twitter @moore_darnell .

Kenyon Farrow is a writer and activist living in NYC. He blogs at kenyonfarrow.com.

The Spoils and Generational Impact of War

February 11, 2012

Reflecting Upon the Generational Impact of the U.S.’s UNJUST War Against Vietnam

by Aishah Shahidah Simmons

This blog was originally posted on AfroLez®femcentric Perspectives on January 23, 2012.
http://afrolez.tumblr.com/post/16346483145/spoils-and-generational-impact-of-war

My paternal Uncle Reginald G. Simmons did several tours of duty in Vietnam in the 1960s. He, like thousands of US GI’s and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese women, children, and men were sprayed with ‘Agent Orange,’ which “is the code name for one of the herbicides and defoliants used by the U.S. military as part of its herbicidal warfare program, Operation Ranch Hand, during the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1971.”

In March 1980*, Uncle Reginald died from a cancer, which ravaged his body in six months. Fast forward to the late 80s, when his daughter, my first cousin Crystal D. Simmons, was first diagnosed with breast cancer. Since that time she gave birth to and was in the process of raising three brilliant and beautiful children while simultaneously battling multiple forms of cancer that appeared to mutate (not metastasize) in various parts of her body.  Crystal had at least 40** surgeries for 23-years and multiple bouts with chemotherapy and radiation. In the midst of her own battles, her eldest daughter Christina D. Simmons died from a cancerous brain tumor in June 2007. Crystal died on December 25, 2011, and is survived by her two younger children Reggie and Courtney who are 14 and 16.   Very recently, Courtney was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a pediatric bone cancer. While coping with the loss of her mother less than one month ago, Courtney now must AND WILL battle cancer. Decisions made in the 1960s are having a generational impact in 2012.

Unfortunately my family is not unique.

Vietnam estimates 400,000 people were killed or maimed, and 500,000 children born with birth defects. And, tragically this country hasn’t learned any lessons from their egregious, wretched, and inhumane errors in Vietnam. I reflect upon Grenada, Panama, Iraq, and Afghanistan to name a few of the countries who, since Vietnam, have been directly invaded and occupied by the US…

Too bad (what has become) the US didn’t take heed to The Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy, which says, “In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.” Instead they took deliberate actions, which resulted in the genocide of the Iroquois and millions of other Indigenous nations of this land.

No One Is Free While Others Are Oppressed!!!

*In the original posting of this blog, I wrote that my Uncle Reginald died in 1979. Michael Simmons, my father, informed me that his brother’s funeral was in March 1980.

**When my cousin Courtney read this blog, she informed me that her mother, Crystal, had 40 surgeries and not the 15 that I originally listed.

——
For additional information, please read “A Black Man Fights the Draft,” Interview with Michael Simmons by Central Committee for Conscientious Objectors

Aishah Shahidah Simmons is an AfroLez®femcentric Cultural Worker (Black, Feminist, Queer Documentary Filmmaker, International Lecturer, Published Writer, Social Change Agent, Vipassana Meditator, and Global Traveler)

NO! The Rape Documentary at the 2011 American Academy of Religion’s Annual Meeting

November 9, 2011

“’NO!’ Breaking Silences Around Black Women and Rape”

A Film Screening and Panel Discussion
Co-Sponsored by the Womanist Approaches to Religion and Society Group, and the Black Theology Group at the
American Academy of Religion’s 2011 Annual Meeting
November 19, 2011
Marriott Marquis (Session A19-407)
San Francisco, CA
8:00pm

Description
An intergenerational panel following the screening of NO! The Rape Documentary, the internationally acclaimed, award-winning feature length documentary, which unveils the reality of rape, other forms of sexual violence, and healing in African-American communities. NO! also explores how rape is used as a weapon of homophobia. The featured panelists will discuss how religion, race, and politics can both negatively and positively influence attitudes and solutions to end rape and other forms of sexual violence. They will engage in a conversation that will explore some of the issues highlighted in the documentary, which include; Black feminist/womanist Christian and Islamic perspectives that address the wrongfulness of the rape of women; Black men as pro-feminist/womanist allies in rape prevention; Rape as a community issue that reinforces interlocking systems of oppression, such as racism, sexism, classism, and heterosexism; and Activism and spirituality as healing modalities. Gender-based violence is an international atrocity that knows no boundary.  This panel will address these global acts of violence through the first-person testimonies, scholarship, activism, and cultural work of African-Americans. As Alice Walker, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Color Purple says, “If the Black community in the Americas and in the world would save itself it must complete the work ‘NO!’ begins.”

Moderator:
Rev. Carla Jean-McNeil Jackson, Esq. is an administrative law attorney, who also provides pro bono legal services in housing law. She is also an ordained minister and an accomplished vocalist, including a tour of Italy in the musical “Sister Act 2.” Her sermon, “Managing Life’s Challenges,” is published in Those Preaching Women: A Multicultural Collection, edited by the late Ella P. Mitchell and Valerie Bridgeman, with a foreword by Katie G. Cannon.

Panelists:
Aishah Shahidah Simmons, is the producer, writer, and director of NO! The Rape Documentary. Since its official release in 2006, this award-winning, internationally acclaimed documentary been used as an educational organizing tool across North America, and in numerous countries throughout the world. Ms. Simmons is a Black feminist lesbian incest and rape survivor whose writings on cinematic activism, gender-based violence, queer identity from an AfroLez®femcentric perspective, and the impact of the intersections of race, gender, and sexual orientation on the lives of Black women are featured in several anthologies and journals. She facilitates workshops, teaches classes, and lectures extensively throughout North America and internationally.

Rev. Traci C. West, Ph.D., is Professor of Ethics and African American Studies at Drew University Theological School in New Jersey. A featured interviewee in NO!, she is the author of Disruptive Christian Ethics: When Racism and Women’s Lives Matter (Westminister John Knox Press, 2007), Wounds of the Spirit: Black Women, Violence, and Resistance Ethics (New York University Press, 1999), and editor of Our Family Values: Religion and Same-sex Marriage (Praeger, 2007). She is currently working on a project interviewing activists in Ghana, Brazil, and South Africa on their strategies to address gender violence against women and girls.

Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons, Ph.D., is Senior Lecturer in African American and Religious Studies at the University of Florida. A featured interviewee in NO!, her research, teaching, and anthologized writings focus on Women and Islam; and the role of religion in the African American Struggle for Justice. She is presently under contract with The New Press, for a volume in their new religion series titled, ISLAM does not equal FUNDAMENTALISM. Additionally, for over 45 years, she has worked globally in the areas of civil rights, women’s rights, human rights, and peace work. This work includes her 23-year tenure on the staff of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker peace, justice, human rights, and international development organization.

Obery M. Hendricks, Jr., Ph.D., is one of today’s most provocative commentators on the intersection of religion, politics, and economic and social policy in America. He has been featured on MSNBC, Fox News, NPR, BBC, C-SPAN, PBS, and the Bloomberg Network. A former Wall Street investment executive and former seminary president, he is currently Professor of Biblical Interpretation at New York Theological Seminary and Visiting Scholar in Religion and African American studies at Columbia University. His newest book is The Universe Bends Toward Justice: Radical Reflections on the Bible, the Church and the Body Politic (Orbis, 2011).

Alice Walker: Beauty In Truth by Aishah Shahidah Simmons

October 26, 2011

Alice Walker: Beauty In Truth

This blog was originally posted on Ms. Magazine’s blog
http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2011/10/25/alice-walker-beauty-in-truth/

I am the woman: Dark,

repaired, healed

Listening to you. …

—Alice Walker, from her poem “Remember?”

For more than four decades, Alice Walker has used the written word to make visible that which has been made invisible as a result of exploitation and marginalization. Equally as important, she is a humanitarian and social-change agent who has literally put her body on the line for peace and justice. Alice Walker walks her talk. Her living example has inspired and challenged countless individuals around the world to live fully engaged, compassionate lives.

People had a problem with my disinterest in submission. And they had a problem with my intellect, and they had a problem with my choice of lovers … and they had a problem with my choice of everything … so, choose one, choose all, they just had a problem. …

Novelist, essayist, poet, short-story writer, anthologist, teacher, editor, publisher, womanist and activist, Walker is a preeminent American writer–the first Black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize, in 1983, for her ground breaking novel The Color Purple. She also received the National Book Award, and The Color Purple was subsequently made into both a successful film and Broadway musical.

On a very personal level, were it not for her groundbreaking art and activism, along with that of other second-wave Black women writers and cultural workers, my documentary film NO! The Rape Documentary—which unveils the reality of rape, other forms of sexual violence and healing in African American communities—would probably not exist. I, along with so many others, literally and metaphorically stand upon Alice Walker’s shoulders.

And if there were ever a time for the world to have a visual record of Alice Walker’s inspiring journey, now is it.

Internationally acclaimed, award-winning filmmaker Pratibha Parmar has joyously and boldly taken on the auspicious responsibility of documenting the life of her longtime friend in the feature-length Alice Walker: Beauty In Truth. The two women first met in 1991, when Parmar’s dear friend, the late poet and activist June Jordan, along with activist and scholar Angela Davis, introduced the two women. At the time Parmar was in production on A Place of Rage, a documentary for British television on African American women and their role in the U.S. civil rights movement. Two years later, Parmar and Walker were working together, on the poignant and powerful documentary Warrior Marks about female genital mutilation (FGM). The idea came from Walker, who at the time was completing her novel Possessing the Secret of Joy, which explored the life of a genitally mutilated African woman. Back then, voices speaking out against such atrocities were barely acknowledged in the global arena, but Warrior Marks played an important part in encouraging international AID organizations to not treat FGM as culture, but as torture. In addition to the film, Walker and Parmar co-authored the book Warrior Marks: Female Genital Mutilation and the Sexual Blinding of Women.

I don’t believe there is a filmmaker more suited or committed to make an Alice Walker documentary than Pratibha Parmar.

Since starting the film four years ago, along with her partner and producer Shaheen Haq, Parmar has captured a wide range of voices to give insight on Walker, including Gloria Steinem, Yoko Ono, Steven Spielberg, Angela Davis, the late Howard Zinn, Danny Glover, Brenda Russell, Tony Award-winner LaChanze, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Jewelle Gomez, Evelyn C. White, Allee Willis, Quincy Jones, Jack Kornfield and Arisaka Razak. But as anyone familiar with filmmaking knows, researching and producing a film is one thing; taking it through the expensive land of post-production and into theaters is another.

Parmar and Haq are now in critical need of funding to get this important documentary film across the finish line. They hope to release the film in 2012 to mark the 30th anniversary of the release of The Color Purple. They already have a broadcast deal with PBS’ American Masters, but part of the filmmakers’ agreement with PBS is that, for cinematic integrity’s sake, none of the featured interviewees, including Alice Walker, can contribute any funding towards the project.

That’s where the rest of us can step in. With their credit cards maxed, Parmar and Haq have started a crowd-funding campaign on IndieGoGo to raise a minimum of $50,000. Their ultimate goal is triple that, since they need $150,000 to complete the film.

I was humbled and honored to be asked by Pratibha Parmar to join the fundraising team. Alice Walker’s ongoing contributions to making this world a more humane place is profound. And while I always credit my teacher and mentor, the late Black feminist writer and cultural worker Toni Cade Bambara, with helping me find myself as a Black feminist lesbian cultural worker, Parmar’s films–especially A Place of Rage–played a pivotal role in shifting my gaze and challenging me to use the moving image to make compassionately humane revolution irresistible.

To date more than 20 percent of the $50,000 minimum has been raised. Now the filmmakers have less than two months to raise the rest, so time is of the essence. Donations begin at $10 and go up to $10,000. Pledges are accepted internationally.

With most independent films, especially those made by and about radical women who do not conform to patriarchal and racialized definitions of womanhood (whatever that means!), it takes a global village to transform these womanist/feminist visions into celluloid/digital realities. If there is any doubt about the importance of Alice Walker: Beauty In Truth, I invite and encourage you to view the breathtaking trailer for the film to get a taste of what’s to come with the of the completed film.

As Angela Davis’ so eloquently says in the film,

All of Alice’s writings urge us to think differently and to think critically often about those things we most take for granted. I think that’s what can change the world.

Here’s where you can offer critically needed financial support to Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth.

Photo of (left to right) Pratibha Parmar, Alice Walker and Shaheen Haq, by Trish Govoni

Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes Screening and Panel Discussion

October 24, 2011

Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes:

A Film Screening and Panel Discussion

Thursday, October 27, 2011

6:00pm (Film screening)

7:30pm (Panel discussion)

Location: Miller Theater, Columbia University

116th & Broadway

New York, NY

As part of Columbia University’s Sexual Violence Response’s Relationship Violence Awareness Month program, please join moderator

Akiba Solomon (Writer and Freelance Journalist)

and panelists

Byron Hurt (Producer/Director Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes),

Aishah Shahidah Simmons (Producer/Director NO! The Rape Documentary), and

Ted Bunch (Co-Founder, A Call To Men)

for a lively panel discussion following the screening of this award-wining, riveting film that explores sexism and other pressing issues in hip-hop culture.

For More Information: please contact Sexual Violence Response by sending an email to lr2520@columbia.edu or by calling 212.854.3500

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