"Impetus behind Document the Silence”

The beginning impetus behind this project of documenting the silence is the result of a shaming campaign that Gina McCauley at whataboutourdaughters is launching against Black Leaders and Black Organizations who have chosen not to speak on the Dunbar gang rape of a Haitian woman who was forced to perform oral sex on her son. Of course, I heard the story before Gina’s campaign, but was “silently” angry. And once my anger passed and I had analyzed the power constructs at play in the situation, I became silent. My Black feminist privilege allowed me to analyze and critique the crime, but after critiquing it and posting on several blogs, I too became silent.

Silence and more silence . . . .

(The video below was submitted by Symphony)

It was not until my godmother who’s an old school Black feminist chastised my silence as a “crime.” And so, I started to think how I could aide people like Gina McCauley and brownfemipower blogger in their fight to break the silence around crimes committed against women of color. Well, I thought about what happened in West Palm Beach, but then I also thought about what happened to Sakia Gunn a 15 year-old African-American woman who was stabbed on May 11, 2003 because she told Richard McCullough that her and her friends were lesbians. Then I went on an internet search to uncover other “soul stealing” stories that were not nationalized by the media or elected/self appointed leaders. I discovered stories that dealt with rape of Iraqi girls and women. I discovered stories of Native American women raped in their tribal communities and how the federal government could not intervene given land property rights. I also discovered stories that dealt with Latina service women being raped in the US military.

In conjunction with finding stories of rape of women of color that were not nationalized by the media or elected/self appoint leaders and organizations, I also found stories that demonized women of color’s ability to mother such as the story of Carisa Ashe who was convicted in 1998 of murdering her new born because the autopsy showed that the baby was shaken to death and so in 2001 the Fulton County judge Rowland Barnes ordered Carisa to be sterilized.

At the moment, I am most concerned about the story Sametta Heyward who’s accused of killing her two children by leaving them in the car while she worked. Heyward says she left the kids in the car because her babysitter canceled. I think there is more to this story then what the media is telling especially if the story has anything to do with access to child care, poverty, racism and class. So, this is a potential story that is being investigated by some members of Ella’s Daughters.

http://charleston.net/news/2007/aug/02/detailed_suicide_note12001/

All these stories made me grieve and they made me reflect on my mother’s story of domestic violence and how my family was silent about the beatings and how their silence affected my older sister and I. So, “documenting the silence” is a way to breathe continual noise into these stories of injustice so that people are aware and take responsibility for breaking the silences.

In general, stories to document can resemble those listed above or those that are very personalized such as the story of my older sister who was laid off before the 12^th month of work so that the company did not have to provide benefits for my sister and her children. That’s a silence.

It is time to document the silences until the silences produce noises!!!