Dr. Denese Shervington | Ending Violence Against Black Women | Healing Black Communities
June 12, 2008
NO! The Rape Documentary unveils the reality of rape, other forms of sexual violence, and healing in Black communities. Through the testimonies of the featured women survivors, Violence prevention advocates, theologians, sociologists, historians, anthropologists, and other leading scholars and human rights activists NO! is a rape prevention tool.
“NO! is a MUST SEE for any of us who are concerned about raising happy, healthy Black families and ultimately fucntional Black communities.” — Dr. Denese Shervington
Denese Shervington, M.D., MPH, a Professor of Clinical Psychiatry of Columbia University Medial Center, who divides her time between Columbia’s HIV Center in New York and The Institute for Women and Ethnic Studies, the New Orleans based-non profit organization, which she co-founded in 1990, where she is presently developing a post-Katrina mental health recovery division. Dr. Shervington had the opportunity to view NO! and participate in the dialogue following the screening, at a New Orleans community-based screening, sponsored by the Ashe Cultural Arts Center, during Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
Order your organizational or institutional copy of NO! and Breaking Silences today. Click here for more information.
If you’re insitution or organization is interested in bringing Aishah Shahidah Simmons to present NO! and facilitate dialogue or a workshop around the issues addressed in NO! please click here for more information.
Together we can raise awareness and works towards ending rape, sexual assault and other forms of violence against women and children.
College Administrator says “YES!” to NO! The Rape Documentary
June 12, 2008
College campus rape survivors share their stories in NO! The Rape Documentary and Breaking Silences: The Supplemental Video to NO!. Both of these works, which compliment each other, feature riveting testimonies of women who experienced rape, other forms of sexual violence, and/or battering in college and university settings both in the United States and on a Study Abroad program. Their testimonies are supported by men and women activists, scholars, theologians, and cultural workers who work towards ending all forms of violence against women.
“This is such a taboo issue to talk about it. Not only for the African-American community, but for White communities, Asian Communities…all communities.” — Tonya Schmidt
Following a screening and discussion, facilitated by Aishah Shahidah Simmons and Monica Dillon, with college administrators and students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Tonya Schmidt from the Office of Dean of Students, said “‘NO!’ was entirely empowering” and she encouraged all college students and any administrators or staff that work with college students to view NO! The Rape Documentary.
Click here to hear Tonya Schmidt’s testimonial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uyk20FpjHDI
Order your institutional copy of NO! and Breaking Silences today. Click here for more information.
If you’re intersted in bringing producer, writer, and director Aishah Shahidah Simmons to present NO! or Breaking Silences and facilitate dialogue or a workshop with the students at your campus or university, please click here.
Together we can raise awareness and works towards ending rape, sexual assault and other forms of violence against women and children.
Passion Life Magazine | NO! The Rape Documentary
June 12, 2008
Aishah Shahidah Simmons, Independent Documentary Filmmaker interviewed by Sonya Shields
“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
Nancy Schwartzman | NO! The Rape Documentary Testimonial
June 12, 2008
“‘NO!’ continues to inspire me along my filmmaking journey. The courageous women and men who come forward and share their stories are treated with respect in the film, thus enabling their experiences to resonate powerfully and universally. Aishah has paved the way for filmmakers who want to make a change and confront their communities in a positive way.“
Nancy Schwartzman, Independent Filmmaker, 5th Floor Walk Up Films www.nancyschwartzman.com
Domestic Violence Video Testimonial | NO! The Rape Documentary
June 10, 2008
While NO! predominantly focuese on rape and sexual assault, half of the featured rape survivor stories talk about being physically battered by their perpetrators who were their intimate partners and friends. NO! makes the link between domestic violence and sexual violence.
“I really loved this film!” — Jennifer Young
In her video testimonial, Jennifer Young of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, talks about how “incredibly powerful” NO! was and that (Aishah Shahidah Simmons and Monica Dillon) were “phenomenal” in talking about the intersections of classism, racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of oppression on any college campus or organization in the world. Ms. Young was also deeply impacted by the discussions, in NO!, about the direct ole of religion in violence against women in communities of color and hopes that NO! will provide a space for all women and men to tackle the issues of ending domestic violence, rape and other forms of sexual violence against women.
Click here to hear Jennifer Young’s testimonial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfJkxwinhe0
Order your institutional copy of NO! and Breaking Silences today. Click here for more information.
If you’re intersted in bringing producer, writer, and director Aishah Shahidah Simmons to present NO! and Breaking Silences; and facilitate dialogue or a workshop with the students at your campus or university, please click here.
Together we can raise awareness and works towards ending rape, sexual assault and other forms of violence against women and children.
Ending Sexual Violence on College and University Campuses | NO! The Rape Documentary
June 10, 2008
NO! examines rape and other forms of sexual assault through testimonies, cultural work, activism and scholarship of African-Americans. It is an educational and organizing documentary that is also a very valuable training tool on college and university campuses.
“I thought NO! was a really phenomenal film.” — Laura Klunder
Laura Klunder is Residence Life Coordinator at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She works with 1100 first year students and a core group of 16 third year students/juniors. In her video testimonial, she talks about how NO! will speak to the students with whom she works. She also talks about the importance of students, on a predominantly White university campus, having the opportunity to hear the rape and sexual assault survivor stores of women of Color because it’s both a learning and training tool on how to centralize the margins especially for the anti-sexual violence activists on campus.
Click here to hear Laura Klunder’s testimonial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2poF_Ak_lU
Order your institutional copy of NO! and Breaking Silences today. Click here for more information.
If you’re intersted in bringing producer, writer, and director Aishah Shahidah Simmons to present NO! and facilitate dialogue or a workshop with the students at your campus or university, please click here.
Together we can raise awareness and works towards ending rape, sexual assault and other forms of violence against women and children.
Lisa Richardson | Rape Survivor Stories Testimonial Educate and Heal Communities
June 10, 2008
The power of rape survivor testimonials as featured in NO! the Rape Documentary, play a very critical role in both educating and organizing communities around ending violence against women and children. Through nine different rape survivor testimonials ranging from intimate partner to complete stranger, viewers of NO! The Rape Documentary are given the rare opportunity to hear the un-interrogated voices of women rape survivors who broke their silence with the hope that by breaking their silence, more rape survivors will publicly disclose what happened to them.
“EVERY organization that works with young women, works with women’s health, works with community healing, should see NO! [and] use it as a teaching tool and to spark discussion… NO! is the path to healing that we all need.” — Lisa Richardson, Ph.D.,
Lisa Richardson, Ph.D., is the Chief Development Officer of The Institute for Women and Ethnic Studies, a community-based national organization in New Orleans that has been a pioneer in developing innovative information, education, and communication projects and training opportunities to promote sexual and reproductive health awareness and activism for and by women and youth of color.
Click here to hear Lisa Richardson’s testimonial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjRW5wzk0Zc
Order your institutional or organizational copy of NO! and Breaking Silences today. Click here for more information.
If you’re insitution or organization is interested in bringing Aishah Shahidah Simmons to present NO! and facilitate dialogue or a workshop around the issues addressed in NO! please click here for more information.
Together we can end violence against women and children.
Kenyon Farrow’s Testimonial on NO! A Documentary on
May 19, 2008
“I don’t know if I have seen a more nuanced and comprehensive film dealing with rape and sexual violence in the Black community.
Aishah Shahidah Simmons’ NO! forces us to deal with the lasting trauma Black women survivors have to endure, but also forces us to confront our own ambivalence about the rape of Black women as men, and an entire Black community.
This film gives us the language and the context by which we can examine the racism, sexism and homophobia within the Black community, but also helps us see the way Black women have struggled to heal, and what we as allies to Black women can do to end sexual violence in our communities.
NO! is a gift to those of us who who know that there can be no Black liberation where women cannot be self-determining.”
Kenyon Farrow, essayist, organizer, media and communications specialist, and board co-chair for Queers for Economic Justice.
African American Scholars, Activists and Artists Gather at Temple University
May 2, 2008
Stand Up! The New Politics of Racial Uplift
A Public Philosophy Symposium
Temple University
Friday, May 2nd, 2008
9am to 5pm
Kiva Auditorium and Tuttleman Learning Center, Room 101
For information about participants, schedule, and work by participants and material relevant to symposium themes, go to our website:
http://www.temple.edu/philosoph
Purpose of Symposium:
The Millions More Movement, Cosby’s ‘call-outs,’ and other recent trends renew an old approach to black political thought and practice. The racial uplift tradition tries to improve the conditions of black life by insisting on moral refinement and race-based organization. Uplift ideology and practice have a long and storied past, but critics of the tradition worry over its limitations. Some express concern that it is anti-democratic, intolerant, elitist, sexist, and heterosexist. Others think it focuses too much on personal morality and cultural pathology and not enough on social justice and political economy.
The participants in the ‘Stand Up!’ symposium will think through the risks and rewards of this new racial uplift politics. This interdisciplinary exercise in public philosophy will explore the implications of a social phenomenon with broad ethical significance. The new politics of racial uplift emerges from a widely shared conviction that something is deeply wrong in American society. Our public philosophy conference will take this judgment seriously, and subject this politics to searching and critical scrutiny.
Confirmed Participants:
Angela D. Dillard, Afroamerican and African Studies and Residential College, LSA, at the University of Michigan
Kenyon Farrow, essayist, organizer, media and communications specialist, and board co-chair for Queers for Economic Justice
Kevin Gaines, Afroamerican and African Studies and History at the University of Michigan
Kathryn T. Gines, African American and Diaspora Studies and Philosophy at Vanderbilt University
Eddie S. Glaude, Jr., Religion and African American Studies at Princeton University and the Jamestown Project
Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Women’s Research and Resource Center and the Women’s Studies at Spelman College
Joy James, Humanities and Political Science at Williams College and Senior Research Fellow in the Center for African and African American Studies at the University of Texas-Austin
Adolph Reed, Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania
Jared Sexton, African American Studies and Film & Media Studies at the University of California, Irvine
Aishah Shahidah Simmons, AfroLez® Productions and award-winning African-American feminist lesbian documentary filmmaker, international lecturer, writer, activist, and producer, writer, and director of the internationally acclaimed documentary NO!
Ronald S. Sullivan, Jr., Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard University Law School and the Jamestown Project
Paul C. Taylor, Philosophy at Temple University and the Jamestown Project
Sponsors:
Temple University Department of Philosophy, the Office of the Provost, the College of Liberal Arts, the Center for Humanities at Temple, the Ira Lawrence Family Fund, and the Jamestown Project
The symposium is free and open to the public.
For more information, contact Tamara K. Nopper, assistant organizer, at tnopper (at) temple.edu
Kevin Powell’s Poem “NO!” Addresses Violence Against Women
May 1, 2008
NO!
for Aishah Shahidah Simmons
By Kevin Powell*
Will us boys ever learn that power
can’t be pulled from the meat of our third leg
like the last taste of malt liquor sucked from the
bottom of a bottle? Will we ever cease to find
our torsos slow-dragging with death, our dance
a series of grenades aimed at the bellies of our
mothers’ daughters? Will us boys ever break ranks
with the devil, his bible telling us it is mad cool
to rape women because the master does it, and
don’t we, too, yearn to be masters? Will we ever
be able to glue back the hair, unswell the eye,
dab away the blood, and stitch up the holes of the women
we have knifed, repeatedly, with our hatred and
fear? Will us boys ever be able to admit that
some of us have become predators, our prey the
neighbor, the girlfriend, the wife, the sister,
the niece, the granddaughter whose life is an
unguarded prison cell loaded with screams,
paranoia, and a body unsure why it now eats itself?
Friday, December 31, 1999
*Kevin Powell is a political activist, poet, journalist, essayist, hiphop historian, public speaker, and entrepreneur. He is running, as a Democrat, for a seat in the United States Congress in the 10th Congressional District here in Brooklyn, New York.
-
Subscribe To Our Blog | Get It In Your Reader
