The Myth of Black Women's Progress: A Conversation with Activist and
Filmmaker Aishah Shahidah Simmons
by Tamara K. Nopper
Aishah Shahidah Simmons is the director of NO!, a feature length documentary
that unveils the reality of intra-racial rape, other forms of sexual
violence, and healing in African-American communities. It has taken Simmons
eleven years to complete NO! because of a lack of support from various
funders and mixed responses, including those from the Black community. But
because of consistent support from some and a growing amount of support from
both Blacks and non-Blacks, NO! was finally completed in 2005. Now Simmons
is putting her efforts into getting the film out there. She sits down with
writer Tamara K. Nopper to talk about how Black women are situated in the
contemporary conversation of the "crisis facing Black men," and how this
informs how Black women's experiences of rape and sexual assault are
addressed.
"We can never talk about the rape of Black women. Black women's issues can't
ever be central."
TN: In general, I think Black men and Black women tend to be dismissed if
they talk about oppression or racism. But there's something really
fascinating to me, also being in some of these activist spaces, some of the
spaces you and I are both familiar with and different spaces as well
seeing how non-Black people, men and women, how they kind of gravitate
towards Black men to learn what does it mean to be Black. Or what is Black
oppression like from a "Black perspective"? Do you notice that?
AS: Yeah, oh yeah, definitely. Definitely.
TN: Do you think that has affected in some ways some of the non-Black
support that could have been available to you or that you thought might have
been available to you in terms of you know, people's fears of "Oh, are you
condemning Black men?" Or people's identifications with Black men for
whatever reason that might be?
AS: I think that for progressive non-Black people there's a vested interest
in seeing Black men as victims. It's like the huge New York Times piece
that came out. That to talk about, we tend to see things in kind of single
issue topics. Yes, Black men are definitely victims to a white supremacist
society but at the same time they're perpetrators in a male supremacist
world. But white folks and just folks who are not of African descent, they
don't want to see this, they don't want to deal with that. They kind of go,
"Well, you know, Black men are in jail, disproportionate amounts of
percentage of men are in jail or are Black." And yet most Black men who are
in jail are not in jail for raping Black women.
And I want to be explicitly clear: I oppose the herding of Black men into
prisons, I'm very opposed to the criminal injustice system. But I really
get tired of how that gets used in this kind of discourse.
I've had a scholar-activist ask me at a Q&A after a screening if I am
concerned about perpetuating the myths of the stereotype of Black men.
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"There's all kind of concern about how Black men are being portrayed but
what about Black women?"
The stereotype of Black men is them raping white women. Nobody wants to
like flip the coin, as Salamishah [Tillet] has taught me, the coin of the Black
male rapist. But the other side of that coin is the Black woman whore who
can't be raped. But we never address that, we never talk about that. So
there's all kind of concern about how Black men are being portrayed but
what about Black women? And it's very interesting because it's how we're
trained. I mean I think all of us are trained in terms of a patriarchal
point of view, regardless of what race we are, to make men's issues central.
I believe that's what creates this kind of gangster reality amongst the hip
hop generation, the kind of these, "Well, it's so hard being a Black
man"'and not to say that it's not, but what the hell, Black women are not
having a picnic.
Not only are we [Black women] dealing with racism and sexism from white
mainstream society but we're also dealing with sexism from our community and
who we going to tell? Because nobody going to believe us and do we want to
see our brother/father/boyfriend/lover/comrade get arrested?
TN: Different sociological conversations are going on where they're
suggesting that Black women are having it much easier because they're not in
prison or their unemployment rates are not so high, even though in some
cases they are as high, right? How do you think those narratives of Black
female progress that are kind of being put out there sociologically, how do
you think they affect the ability of Black women's rape to get dealt with?
AS: Oh, I think it plays I'm not saying that it's not a rough time for
Black men by any stretch of the imagination. But I do think that it
still, it's the divisive way that somehow that Black women are having a
picnic. And I think that as Elaine Elaine Brown doesn't say it in NO! but
she says it in the raw footage of NO! she talks about the types of jobs
where many Black women are working. And let's talk about what sexual
harassment looks like at Popeye's, you know, this is not Anita Hill. Is
there a sexual harassment policy at Popeye's or McDonald's? And if there
are, what are they?
TN: Or in sex work.
AS: Yes! Exactly! Definitely in sex work. And so I think there's this way
in which clearly, here's the example, let's talk about the example of the young
sister at North Carolina Central. A single mother of two, a student, and
also a sex worker, somebody who's a stripper. And so nobody, we don't want
to look at that she's a single mother of two where the hell is the father
of her children I'm not saying that he's not having a hard time
somewhere. And she's at school, so clearly, she didn't want to be a sex
worker until she dropped dead. But clearly she's thinking about something
else in addition to sex work, you know, in terms of furthering her formal
education.
"Not only are we [Black women] dealing with racism and sexism from white
mainstream society but we're also dealing with sexism from our community."
And yet, look at how she's being treated. I just can't even imagine if this
were a Black man. I can't even imagine if a Black man were a single parent,
raising two kids, managing a stripper's club to support himself/his family
while he's in school, was accused of sexually assaulting a white woman Duke
student, how the [Black] community would respond. I do believe that it
plays a role because I think there's always suspicion already that Black
women, they have it good, they're already out to get the [Black] man
anyway. You know, I really think there is this way in which if Black men
are guilty of rape, the overwhelming feeling in the [Black] community is
that they are under siege
they can't help it
this is what's going on. So I
do think that it does create this kind of hostile environment for Black
women.
TN: You were talking about the prison industrial complex and we know the
statistics around Black people and specifically Black men in prison. And
when I was at your event at Temple University a few years back, I saw where
somebody said, "Okay, but are we going to deal with Black men being raped in
prison?"' And I'm sure that conversation has come up more than once,
correct?
AS: Yeah.
TN: So what are your responses to that critique because it's a pretty
prominent critique, right?
AS: It is a prominent critique. I think we do have to deal with prison and
rape, I really do think we have to deal with that. But the question is if
I'm talking about the rape of Black women, can we talk about the rape of
Black women? There's always this way in which we can never talk about the
rape of Black women. Black women's issues can't ever be central. We always
have to look elsewhere. Black men are in jail, Black men are being raped.
All of that is true, but what about Black women?
Can we talk about the violence that Black women experience? Can we talk
about the rape that they experience? And it's this interesting struggle,
very sobering and painful. I'm not a man, but anytime I hear about police
brutality, high incarceration rates, that's perpetrated against him the by
state/white supremacy, I am called to action. I'm not like, well, "What did
Rodney King do, what did he do to get beat?"
TN: Or what was he wearing?
AS: Exactly! All of that. I'm called to action. Having a brother and a
father and many Black men who are related to me by blood and by spirit, I
worry about what will happen if they get stopped by the police.
"We're constantly told and taught and trained to think about Black men's
lives at our own expense."
But that very, very rarely happens with Black women and rape, any women
really, but I'm talking about Black women, that just doesn't happen. It's
like, what was she doing out? She's just probably just a "golddigga," to
use the language of Kanye's song. Violence against Black women is always
presented in that way. So we're constantly told and taught and trained to
think about Black men's lives at our [Black women's] own expense. At our
own expense.
I had this conversation with this brother whom I really love and respect,
and I think there's this kind of misinformation because he said something to
the effect, "Part of the problem is that, you know, we've been lynched for
defending your honor." But that's not true. You all [Black men] were
lynched because of or in defense of white women's honor. So there's all this
kind of mythology and misinformation about the reasons thousands of Black
men were murdered as a result of false allegations of rape (of white women).
I'm definitely not saying Black men have not fought to protect Black women.
I do think that there needs to be discussions of prison and rape but not at
the expense of talking about Black women and girls being raped by Black men
and boys.
TN: I noticed in your film that you had a historical conversation about
these issues, about lynching, about the myth of the Black male rapist, about
Black women being seen as 'unrapeable' and a lot of ideas that people like Ida
B. Wells helped to bring to the forefront in her anti-lynching pro-feminist
work. Did you originally mean to do that or was it a response to some of
these responses that you were getting? What informed kind of putting that
segment in?
AS: Yeah, I realized that in order to talk about rape and sexual assault in
African America, I had to address Black women's herstory in America. Because
really when it came up was during the Clarence Thomas hearings when he said
this was a 'high tech lynching.' I remember being with my brilliant friend
at the time and how Thomas' ahistorical statement stopped her dead in her
tracks.
And so it was an ahistorical thing so I realized and in talking to my mother
(Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons) and talking to Beverly Guy Sheftall and Elsa
Barkley Brown that there was this need to address the history of lynching in
this country. Because it was not only just to say hey, there have been no
Black men lynched for raping or sexually assaulting, allegedly or otherwise,
Black women. But more importantly or equally as importantly that Black
women were at the forefront of the anti-lynching movement, because there's
this way in which Black women are "traitors" to the race.
"Why aren't Black men who rape Black women traitors to the race?"
So what I realized what I need to do was lay down a Black feminist
foundation hopefully, a solid foundation of Black women's herstory in
this country, being enslaved, being raped by white men, you know, fighting
for equal rights and Black rights in this country, while still being
assaulted. So it was just this way of kind of saying, who is the fucking
traitor here? 'Cause you know, to quote my dad (Michael Simmons), the
traitor is to have a rapist in our community and not warn anyone. Why aren't
Black men who rape Black women traitors to the race? You know, why is it
that Black women who come forward are traitors to the race? I had people
say, "How you gonna lynch another brother with that documentary? How you
gonna talk about these issues when Black men are doing so bad?" And my
response is, "Does that give them the right to rape me or any Black woman
because they're doing bad? Why not bring an end to white and male
supremacy?"
TN: Switching gears, I want to ask you about your thoughts about Hurricane
Katrina and how the issue of rape was dealt with. Among activists, there's
been this kind of emphasis on trying to challenge images of Black people
that were being circulated by mainstream media and the most famous of course
being the "looting versus finding debate." But do you think that
contributed to the invisibility around sexual assault and rape in the way
that those conversations were getting framed by activists?
AS: Oh, I definitely think it. I think it's in response to racism in this
country, we keep having this knee jerk reaction. So definitely Black people
were not looting, I mean in the way in which the media was saying they were
they weren't shooting at the helicopters in the same way. But then we go,
"They weren't raping." It's like, again, it goes back to NO! where Aaronette
White says in the film, "Black men are not the stereotypical rapist and
they're not the only rapist. But at the same time Black men are raping.
They're not raping more than white men, they're raping period." But there's
this way where we feel like we have to say, "But they weren't even raping."
And it's like, that's not true, there are Black women victim survivors who
have disclosed that they were sexually assaulted during the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina. And again, the discourse is always geared to the defense
of Black men. Painfully, Black women aren't really in the equation in many
ways. I think that we have to be able to talk about the intersectionalities,
as so many Black feminists Audre Lorde, Barbara Smith, Kimberle Crenshaw
have written and lectured about. We're not all good, we're not all bad,
we're complex. You know, my dad always says that "equality is the right to
be mediocre." Black people don't have to be the best people on the planet.
We do a lot of good and we also do a lot of bad. We, like the rest of the
human family, are complex individuals. So we do a tremendous disservice to
say there were no rapes going on
I feel as a community we're always trying to stop a lynching. And as a
result we can't even sort out the intersections of race, gender, class,
sexuality, because we're just trying to save somebody, almost always a Black
man, from being lynched, metaphorically, by the media or even literally, by
the state/white supremacy.
This is exactly why NO! is all Black and I addressed racism, while
addressing sexism and homophobia in our non-monolithic community. I'm very
much aware of racism, but at the same time, we're going to talk about
sexism, goddamnit, in this documentary. And we're going to talk about how
it impacts Black women's lives.
Tamara K. Nopper is an educator, researcher, writer, and activist living in
Philadelphia. She is a graduate student in the Department of Sociology at
Temple University and a volunteer for the Central Committee for
Conscientious Objectors (CCCO), a national anti-war and counter-military
organization.
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