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
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.
Wear Red on April 30, 2008 to End Sexual Assault Against Women of Color
April 28, 2008
Women of Color Keeping A Social Movement Alive
On Wednesday, April 30, 2008, women of color across the United States will wear red to:
- commemorate Sexual Assault Awareness Month;
- to represent the various forms of violence that women of color experience on a daily basis; and
- to show how all forms of violence against women of color are interconnected.
Following is another moving video created and produced by my Sistren, at Document the Silence, who organized the first Be Bold. Be Brave. Wear Red. Campaign in October 2007, during Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Their life sustaining and affirming work is kindred Sister to NO! The Rape Documentary.
After April 30, 2008, the organizers of this national campaign want to flood the web with images of red. Please email your pictures and links to your videos to beboldbered@gmail.com.
Shout Out Women of Color Respond To Violence
April 15, 2008
Women of Color Shout Out Against Violence Against Women of Color in Powerful Anthology
Shout Out: Women of Color Respond To Violence
Maria Ochoa & Barbara K. Ige
Seal Press ©2008
“How do so many women survive the violence of their daily lives? Where do they find hope? How can this violence be allowed to continue? Shout Out address these troubling questions and more. This powerful collection provides a range of responses to the injustices that women sustain in their dialy lives through critical examiniations, creative non fiction, visual art, and poetry. Shout Out provides living testimony for the need to put an end to Oppression and violence.”
In January 2008, Seal Press released the powerful anthology Shout Out: Women of Color Respond To Violence. Shout Out doesn’t allow readers to be passive spectators. No, this compelling anthology will take you on a transformational journey that challenges you to be involved in the multi racial, anti colonialist, transnational movements to end all forms of violence perpetuated against women.
Aishah Shahidah Simmons’ choreopoem, “A State of Rage” which was conceived in 1994, in a Toni Cade Bambara scriptwriting workshop at Scribe Video Center, is featured in Shout Out. This choreopoem served as the literal roadmap on my eleven year journey to make my documentary NO!.
As with Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology, Shout Out: Women of Color Respond to Violence, is another ground breaking, riveting, anthology, which creates the critically needed space for women of color activists, cultural workers, scholars, and practitioners, to document the violence we face everyday, while celebrating our resistance, expressed in a myriad of ways, against all of the odds.
Beverly McPhail’s Testimonial on NO! The Rape Documentary
April 15, 2008
“Aishah Simmons spoke to our campus (University of Houston) and the larger Houston community and screened her film, NO!. The film was powerfully received and the subsequent question and answer period was quite moving as men spontaneously stood up to say they would look at women with new respect and appreciation and women who had been one-time victims and now survivors spoke of the validation that they felt seeing the film. The audience was not only moved emotionally, but felt moved to action, to change communities and get the word out that sexual violence against women must stop. No one left the auditorium unchanged. Ms. Simmons’ film examines the intersections of race, gender, class, and sexual identity on the topic of sexual violence, unlike any other film I have seen on the subject. The film is enhanced by Ms. Simmons’ introduction and fielding of quesitons. She is truly a remarkable and talented filmmaker and activist.”
Beverly McPhail, Ph.D., LMSW, Director, Women’s Resource Center
University of Houston
New Orleans Film Festival Panel Links Struggles for Human Rights in New Orleans and Around The World
April 11, 2008
Naomi Klein, author of the best-selling books Shock Doctrine, No Logo and Fences and Windows, will join Aishah Shahidah Simmons, producer, award-winning, internationally acclaimed documentary NO!, Ursula Price, organizer, Safe Streets Strong Communities (New Orleans), Monique Harden - director, Advocates for Environmental Human Rights (New Orleans), Suha Dabousseh, organizer, US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation who will all be appearing and presenting on a human rights panel during the Fifth Annual New Orleans International Human Rights Film Festival. This lively and interactive panel, which will be moderated by Aletha Strong, from the American Friends Service Committee, will link struggles for human rights in New Orleans and around the world.
Film Festival Discussion
Our Struggle Is Your Struggle:
Human Rights in New Orleans and Around the World
Sunday, April 13, Noon
Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center, 1618 Oretha Castle Haley
Free
Panelists:
Naomi Klein - Author, Shock Doctrine
Ursula Price - Organizer, Safe Streets Strong Communities (New Orleans)
Monique Harden - Director, Advocates for Environmental Human Rights (New Orleans)
Suha Dabousseh - Organizer, US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
Aishah Shahidah Simmons - Filmmaker: NO! The Rape Documentary
Moderator: Aletha Strong - American Friends Service Committee
BIOS:
Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist, syndicated columnist and author of the international and New York Times bestseller The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Published worldwide in September 2007, The Shock Doctrine is slated to be translated into seventeen languages to date. The six-minute companion film, created by Alfonso Cuaron, director of Children of Men, was an Official Selection of the 2007 Venice and Toronto International Film Festivals and a viral phenomenon as well, downloaded over one million times. Klein’s previous book No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies was also an international bestseller, translated into more than twenty-eight languages, with over a million copies in print. A collection of her work, Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate, was published in 2002. Klein’s regular column for The Nation and The Guardian is distributed internationally by The New York Times Syndicate. In 2004 her reporting from Iraq for Harper’s Magazine won the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism. The same year, she released a feature documentary about Argentina’s occupied factories, The Take, co-produced with director Avi Lewis. The film was an official selection of the Venice Biennale and won the best documentary jury prize at the American Film Institute’s Film Festival in Los Angeles. Klein is a former Miliband Fellow at the London School of Economics and holds an honorary Doctor of Civil Laws from the University of King’s College, Nova Scotia.
Monique Harden has provided legal counsel and advocacy support that have helped community organizations win important environmental justice victories. In 2003, Ms. Harden, along with Nathalie Walker, co-founded Advocates for Environmental Human Rights. Ms. Harden is a graduate of The University of Texas School of Law (1995), and received a B.A. from St. John’s College (1990). Ms. Harden has authored and co-authored numerous reports and papers on environmental justice and human rights issues. Her advocacy work has been featured in television, radio and print news, as well as books, magazines, and documentaries.
Ursula Price is Outreach & Investigations Coordinator for Safe Streets/Strong Communities, a community-based organization that campaigns for a new criminal justice system in New Orleans, one that creates safe streets and strong communities for everyone, regardless of race or economic status.
Suha Dabbouseh is a Palestinian American social justice activist for the last 10 years in human rights, including six with Amnesty International USA’s Southern Region as a Field Organizer and Acting Deputy Director for two regional field offices. Suha served at the lead organizer in developing events and campaigns on human rights issues such as racial/ethnic profiling, violence against women, police brutality and “war on terror”, and is currently the National Organizer for the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.
Aishah Shahidah Simmons is an award-winning African-American feminist lesbian independent documentary filmmaker, television and radio producer, published writer, international lecturer, and activist based in Philadelphia, PA. An incest and rape survivor, she spent eleven years, seven of which were full time, to produce write, and direct NO! The Rape Documentary. This groundbreaking documentary explores the international reality of rape and other forms of sexual assault through the first person testimonies, scholarship, spirituality, activism and cultural work of African-Americans.
The New Orleans International Human Rights Film Festival: Twelve days, more than fifty films, more than thirty filmmakers, performers, organizers, and other guests. For more information, see www.nolahumanrights.org.
Rape is a Crisis in Black Communities by Salamishah Tillet
April 10, 2008
It’s A Crisis
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.
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