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 your 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.
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.
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
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.
University of Houston’s Women’s Resource Center Hosts Screening & Discussion of NO!
April 9, 2008
In recognition of Sexual Assault Awareness Month
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.
University of Wisconsin-Madison Hosts Aishah Shahidah Simmons and Monica Dillon
April 6, 2008
Aishah Shahidah Simmons and Monica Dillon are featured guests during Sexual Assault Awareness Month | University of Wisconsin-Madison
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
New Orleans Screening of NO! A Documentary About Rape, Sexual Assault, and Healing
April 3, 2008
On Tuesday, April 8, 2008, at 7:00pm, the Ashe’ Cultural Arts Center will host a FREE screening and discussion, in New Orleans, LA, of NO!, a feature length documentary about rape, sexual assault and healing in African-American communities.
Aishah Shahidah Simmons, an incest and rape survivor who is the producer, writer, and director of NO!, along with New Orleans-based mental health care professionals, will be present to facilitate the creation of a safe environment for the discussion immediately following the screening.
Copies of NO! and her supplemental materials (Breaking Silences, and Unveiling the Silence) will be on sale at the screening and discussion.
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