special to NewBlackMan
THE NEXT IKE AND TINA?
by Esther Armah
“Yo! Check this out! Rihanna all battered, dyamn! She look like Tina musta did!.” The scene is a New York library session with a group of high school teenagers. Young women and men scramble over chairs to get to the computer screen where the young man is seated. One teenage boy, hand over his mouth, points and creates rapid fire scenarios around the image. Another laughs. Others point at her bruises. And there are those who are quiet, shocked at the picture. Bruised, battered, busted, Baijan singer Rihanna, eyes closed, is their focus. This is the picture that travelled the globe, followed by an affidavit that colored in details from the alleged assault by her pop star boyfriend Chris Brown. Raucous and rowdy, the librarian hushes them. Blame is thrown around like a ragdoll. Some blame Rihanna. Two question Chris Brown. Words like forgiveness, money, light-skinned beauty, provocation are slung, momentarily explored, discarded. They go quiet. The teenager who found the image on the computer shouts: “They like the new Ike and Tina?!”
Really? Chris Brown = Ike. Rihanna = Tina. Really. Tina Turner? Living legend, she of ‘Proud Mary’, and ‘Nutbush City Limits’ fame. She who endured violence at the hands of Ike throughout her 16 year marriage. And Ike? He of flashy clothes, musical vision, fierce musical independence and creativity. And later of voracious cocaine use and legendary temper fame. He who ended up in and out of jail. Both brought to life courtesy of Oscar worthy performances by Angela Bassett and Lawrence Fishburne in the July 93 film ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It?’ Still, how frightening that Chris at just 19 and Rihanna at just 21, should be doomed to a relationship marked by nearly two decades of cycles of violence as told in her biography ”I, Tina”. Tina left. In the end. She went on. She got strong. She healed. She recovered. She spit in Ike’s eye with each step of her success. Ike became the focus of ridicule. Broke, a self-imploding sad dude, high on stories of has-been glory, continually denying the violence and for whom many showed more than a little contempt. Tina & Ike. We know Tina’s story. We’re still learning Rihannas’. And that of every other black girl who knows Rihanna’s bruises intimately, and who has stared in the mirror at unrecognizable features.
The numbers say that most often a Tina would be dead at the hands of the man who she shared the aisle, vows, a gold band and a bed with – or a Rihanna who shared an intimate space with her alleged abuser. The number one killer of African-American women ages 15 to 34 is homicide, at the hands of a current or former intimate partner, according to the American Bar Association’s Commission on Domestic Violence. The same study showed Black females experienced intimate partner violence at a rate 35% higher than that of white females, and about 22 times the rate of women of other races. Every number is a personal tale, a truth hidden, bruises covered, pain buried. Brenda Thomas’s book ‘Laying Down My Burdens’ shared her own behind the headlines story of a 15 year violent relationship – one that she finally escaped, but whose scars she carries. A new report “Black Girls in New York City; Untold Strength and Resilience,” by the Black Women for Black Girls Giving Circle (BWBG), a funding initiative of The Twenty-First Century Foundation and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) revealed violence remained a major fear for young black girls - and that they expected to have to protect themselves.
To the high school teenagers in that library, I wonder what Ike and Tina represent. Their laughter isn’t easy. Or comfortable. But it is there. Their eyes tell a separate truth from their laughter. They check one another’s reaction before offering their own. Older women watch them, unimpressed. Their conversation spins and spits at the video vixening of black women. They lament how these young women have been “ized” and “fied” - categor-ized, demon-ized, vili-fied, sexual-ized. I watch too. Not just these women, but depictions of us right across myriad forms of media. We have become comatose cuties, walking wounded, part of the living dead wrapped in the kind of fly fabulosity that shields external bruises and hides broken hearts and souls – even as popular American culture elevates the broken and celebrates the aristocracy of mediocrity. Back at the library. Two generations of women. One turns in horror to hear the one behind it shrug and ask what the big deal is? Other women rail against each other. Fast girls, good girls, bad girls, brown girls, light girls - the labels signify whether the violent treatment was apparently deserved. Smart women, hood chicks, Afrocentric activists, weave on crew, corporate cuties – notions of how women should and shouldn’t behave to avoid being on the receiving end of violence are too often tempered with – but she shouldn’t have, or why did she, or she should’ve known……….The generations part – each slightly disgusted by the other.
BROKEN MANHOOD = REAL MAN?
Chris Brown points to a deeper conversation – the one about manhood and masculinity and what that means in America. It reeks of the beginnings on this land of a people for whom the legacy of the lash and the lynch have become seamless and intimate parts of their relationship with this soil and one another. We are on intimate terms with violence. That experience continues to haunt via the nightmares of young women whose reaction speaks of their socialization in the acceptance of violence. What kind of man is he? Thug. Hood. Aggressive. Sexy. The marriage of aggression with manhood is an integral part of patriarchal America. Ike was a badboy, a cocaine user, a man in charge of his woman. That equaled sexy. A real man. Chris is seen as a sweet boy, a young man, a good man. So Rihanna must have provoked him, so said so many. Chris Brown’s persona was that of the good boy, the sweet man, the clean cut image, the anti-gansta sweetness of r’n’b. That affected folks’ conclusion that he “simply wouldn’t go off like that without dire provocation.” Another truth? Violent, troubled men are using women’s bodies as battlegrounds. They are the places where their internal wars are waged, their rage is poured, insecurity is fought, disrespect is mastered, pain is smothered. And then society – us, we, you, me, he, she – weighs in with versions and visions of how it happened, whose truth and whose lies linger, whose fault it is, what she should do, how he should act, that he should be forgiven, that she should know better than to provoke, that he was provoked. Manhood, masculinity and violence in America are so intimately intertwined, that to talk about violence and men is to have a conversation and exploration about what it is to be a man in America – and around the world. Add to that the protective posture of black folk when it comes to the brothers. They face such vulnerability due to the various assaults by society. So they are protected. Trouble is the way we protect young black men has been and continues to be via the sacrifice of young women. Add to that the created persona of celebrity, where image is truth, perception is everything. And versions of yourself can be packaged and sold as part of the commodification that is so much of today's black music – sometimes genius, sometimes tragic. Action around manhood does exist. Conversations about black manhood are present and live right here in New York – and across the States. Examples? ‘The Masculinity Project”, a major offering exploring the complex dynamic of manhood via film, exhibitions, personal testimony. The 10-city “State of Black Men National Townhall Meetings” tour in 2004, the 2007 “Black and Male in America, a 3-Day National Conference” followed up with monthly all male forums in Brooklyn that explore topics such as spirituality, physical health, mental wellness. All these events denote black male activists’ commitment to exploring masculinity – and the link between that and violence. And then there are the books. The most recent such as the moving and thoughtful “Be A Father To Your Child:Real Talk from Black Men on Family, Love and Fatherhood”. Edited by writer and activist April Silver, and featuring short stories, essays, interviews and poems by 25 men - a mix of activists, musicians, writers, educators and poets. There's also “The Beautiful Struggle,” by Ta’Nehisi Coates to name just two. Other books like “Black Pain: It Only Looks Like We’re Not Hurting,” by Terrie Williams reveals the untold story of black folk and depression, a sometimes contributory factor to violence. So often, domestic violence and its condemnation or discussion is led by women. In New York men like award winning film-maker Byron Hurt have been engaged in exploring masculinity and its association with violence, and his upcoming annual event “Stand Up…and Speak Out”, an annual conference in New York on May 21 and May 22nd organized by “A Call To Men”, an organization committed to ending violence against girls and women continues that work. He is one of many, many male activists right here in New York doing this work around manhood and masculinity in America. Movements of men are a welcome - and much needed - addition to the voices of women raised in continued protest and condemnation around relationship violence. For the daughters and the sons who are witnesses and who navigate this troubled terrain, this work is precious.
TRAUMA = DOLLARS
Healing. The healing is the universal word and work much needed, but also much maligned. Healing developed a bad rap. Even as it continued to be crucial. Healing got turned out like a whore by a pimp. Trauma became an industry, laid out on its back by publishing pimps who sniffed the green in the drama and spewed forth lecturers, authors, wannabe wannabes all espousing that delivery of demons lay in self love. The young women who called me after my special live radio show on violence talked about that. Some were pissed. They asked of self-love, where do I get that? Who can give me that? What would it look like? No glib notions for them. Explanations, they wanted. Break it down, they demanded. Explain where we get that, they asked. What would it feel like? And they were not satisfied with trite answers. One woman offered; ‘saying ‘you need to love yourself” is not helpful’. She continued: “clearly I don’t. I don’t know how. “ Don’t tell me what to do, show me how to do it.” Some young women spoke about the hypocrisy of healing from a previous generation. They spoke about a place where healing was little more than a conversation that sold books, created lecture circuits, and glibly paraphrased lives, experiences, complexities into neat caged sentences. The clarity of crap dominated pages of work. That’s what they thought. And they didn’t like it. It didn’t help them. Their anger at this industry for the apparently traumatized prompted suspicion and levels of contempt. They wanted answers, facts, details. And then there was a generation of women that admonished their youngsters to put away the pity party and pull themselves together. So some became silent. Or they lied. Or denied. Or built shields and armor. Learned behavior poured from breast to mouth, via the broken love of procreating previous generations doing the best they could with what they had. Healing? What did a road to recovery even look like?
ROAD TO RECOVERY……..Long and winding road…
Kyra, Ceillise, Nyema and La-vainna. Spanning a decade – from 11 to 21, each endured violence at the hands of a boy or a man. All were featured on the live radio specials for Wake Up Call, a morning talk show I host on WBAI99.5FM over a two week period. A media appetite for blood and gore prevails when it comes to domestic violence stories. Battered women, and those that batter fulfil the gory-ometer level where the news has more drama than dramas. Recovery is less sexy. It makes fewer headlines. Provokes less discussion. Sells fewer papers. Means less viewers. Equals loss of listeners. But that’s where the real work is. Erica Ford of L.I.F.E., a non-profit organization based in Queens that deals with troubled young people between the ages of 13-24 typically on the receiving end of some form of violence speaks about committing federal dollars to this work of practical healing that is long and often difficult. Her project is specifically devoted to the holistic healing of these youngsters. But it ain’t just federal, how about community dollars, ask some? Real ones, not punk dollars, states one young woman. Just as they wanted real recovery, not punk healing. They don’t want to hear what they call the proclamation healing. The proclamation without the acceptance. Not the: “I will never raise my hand to a woman again,” which one young lady likened to an alcoholic swearing they would never take a drink again, but then getting a job in a bar. Especially since, she explained, many still want to negotiate what violence means – and that no bruising or battering meant that violence hadn’t taken place. “They still negotiatin’, while I’m tryin’ to clean myself up from the pain.” Some of these younger women accused older generations – and since they are in their early 20s, they meant anyone over 35 – with hypocrisy about the notion of healing. Some explained they feel sacrificed as they listen to women negotiate acceptable levels of violence from men towards women, and then chastise their behavior. They question this notion of role-models. One said “y’all still want educated thugs, and I ain’t know the difference ‘tween an educated thug and a violent dude. Most thugs got smarts, so when dude smacks me, then yáll wanna know why I choose him. Cos you did, cos y’all did.” With recovery, these women, these witnesses to the violence between adults they love, despise and fear ask: What does a man who used to hit a woman and says he doesn’t now – where is his program? Alcoholics got a 12 step program, regular meetings, drug addicts got rehab? What about rage? How does he deal with the triggers that prompt his rage to turn into a closed fist and then a black eye? Where does he go for his sessions to tackle that rage.? What happens before rage becomes a closed fist against smooth chocolate, caramel or mocha skin that becomes a bruised, black eye – and worse? And the young men say little or nothing, struggling to control emotions but refusing to engage in any external source to quell feelings that may ultimately erupt and turn a woman into that statistic about homicide quoted earlier. One young woman said: ‘my dad had a ritual. Before he ever laid a hand on my Mama I saw there were a bunch of things he would do, so I had maybe five minutes to get outta there or find somewhere to take cover’. Others described the violence as uncontrollable and explosive. One said: ‘disagree with my Pops, expect to get a slap, then another then another, then it was on.’ Another explained: “Pops would, like black out, he wasn’t himself anymore. I wanted to ask him, where do you go? Why can’t you control where you go? If you say you’re not going to hit any more what did you do to change that?” Acceptance maybe one thing. Recovery is the next – and that is the patient, diligent, difficult, persistent work of therapy and more. Blame, like judgement, paralyzes and silences. Young women’s bodies cannot continue to be a battleground for the righteous indignation, pain and rage of black men. Young women are not just asking men to stop. They want us to heal, to do the work. All of us. Them, their men, their parents, their community. Are we willing to hear this call to practical healing? La-vainna Seaton is 17. Her friend approached her at school. Explained her boyfriend hit her. Asked for advice. What should she do? La-vainna told her: ‘where there is love, abuse cannot exist’.
***
Esther Armah is an award-winning international journalist, a radio host, a playwright and an author. Armah host 'Wake Up Call' on WBAI99.5FM New York and the tri-state area and ‘Off The Page’ on WBAI99.5FM. Every FIRST and THIRD FRIDAY of the month. 11am – 12noon.
THE NEXT IKE AND TINA?
by Esther Armah
“Yo! Check this out! Rihanna all battered, dyamn! She look like Tina musta did!.” The scene is a New York library session with a group of high school teenagers. Young women and men scramble over chairs to get to the computer screen where the young man is seated. One teenage boy, hand over his mouth, points and creates rapid fire scenarios around the image. Another laughs. Others point at her bruises. And there are those who are quiet, shocked at the picture. Bruised, battered, busted, Baijan singer Rihanna, eyes closed, is their focus. This is the picture that travelled the globe, followed by an affidavit that colored in details from the alleged assault by her pop star boyfriend Chris Brown. Raucous and rowdy, the librarian hushes them. Blame is thrown around like a ragdoll. Some blame Rihanna. Two question Chris Brown. Words like forgiveness, money, light-skinned beauty, provocation are slung, momentarily explored, discarded. They go quiet. The teenager who found the image on the computer shouts: “They like the new Ike and Tina?!”
Really? Chris Brown = Ike. Rihanna = Tina. Really. Tina Turner? Living legend, she of ‘Proud Mary’, and ‘Nutbush City Limits’ fame. She who endured violence at the hands of Ike throughout her 16 year marriage. And Ike? He of flashy clothes, musical vision, fierce musical independence and creativity. And later of voracious cocaine use and legendary temper fame. He who ended up in and out of jail. Both brought to life courtesy of Oscar worthy performances by Angela Bassett and Lawrence Fishburne in the July 93 film ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It?’ Still, how frightening that Chris at just 19 and Rihanna at just 21, should be doomed to a relationship marked by nearly two decades of cycles of violence as told in her biography ”I, Tina”. Tina left. In the end. She went on. She got strong. She healed. She recovered. She spit in Ike’s eye with each step of her success. Ike became the focus of ridicule. Broke, a self-imploding sad dude, high on stories of has-been glory, continually denying the violence and for whom many showed more than a little contempt. Tina & Ike. We know Tina’s story. We’re still learning Rihannas’. And that of every other black girl who knows Rihanna’s bruises intimately, and who has stared in the mirror at unrecognizable features.
The numbers say that most often a Tina would be dead at the hands of the man who she shared the aisle, vows, a gold band and a bed with – or a Rihanna who shared an intimate space with her alleged abuser. The number one killer of African-American women ages 15 to 34 is homicide, at the hands of a current or former intimate partner, according to the American Bar Association’s Commission on Domestic Violence. The same study showed Black females experienced intimate partner violence at a rate 35% higher than that of white females, and about 22 times the rate of women of other races. Every number is a personal tale, a truth hidden, bruises covered, pain buried. Brenda Thomas’s book ‘Laying Down My Burdens’ shared her own behind the headlines story of a 15 year violent relationship – one that she finally escaped, but whose scars she carries. A new report “Black Girls in New York City; Untold Strength and Resilience,” by the Black Women for Black Girls Giving Circle (BWBG), a funding initiative of The Twenty-First Century Foundation and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) revealed violence remained a major fear for young black girls - and that they expected to have to protect themselves.
To the high school teenagers in that library, I wonder what Ike and Tina represent. Their laughter isn’t easy. Or comfortable. But it is there. Their eyes tell a separate truth from their laughter. They check one another’s reaction before offering their own. Older women watch them, unimpressed. Their conversation spins and spits at the video vixening of black women. They lament how these young women have been “ized” and “fied” - categor-ized, demon-ized, vili-fied, sexual-ized. I watch too. Not just these women, but depictions of us right across myriad forms of media. We have become comatose cuties, walking wounded, part of the living dead wrapped in the kind of fly fabulosity that shields external bruises and hides broken hearts and souls – even as popular American culture elevates the broken and celebrates the aristocracy of mediocrity. Back at the library. Two generations of women. One turns in horror to hear the one behind it shrug and ask what the big deal is? Other women rail against each other. Fast girls, good girls, bad girls, brown girls, light girls - the labels signify whether the violent treatment was apparently deserved. Smart women, hood chicks, Afrocentric activists, weave on crew, corporate cuties – notions of how women should and shouldn’t behave to avoid being on the receiving end of violence are too often tempered with – but she shouldn’t have, or why did she, or she should’ve known……….The generations part – each slightly disgusted by the other.
BROKEN MANHOOD = REAL MAN?
Chris Brown points to a deeper conversation – the one about manhood and masculinity and what that means in America. It reeks of the beginnings on this land of a people for whom the legacy of the lash and the lynch have become seamless and intimate parts of their relationship with this soil and one another. We are on intimate terms with violence. That experience continues to haunt via the nightmares of young women whose reaction speaks of their socialization in the acceptance of violence. What kind of man is he? Thug. Hood. Aggressive. Sexy. The marriage of aggression with manhood is an integral part of patriarchal America. Ike was a badboy, a cocaine user, a man in charge of his woman. That equaled sexy. A real man. Chris is seen as a sweet boy, a young man, a good man. So Rihanna must have provoked him, so said so many. Chris Brown’s persona was that of the good boy, the sweet man, the clean cut image, the anti-gansta sweetness of r’n’b. That affected folks’ conclusion that he “simply wouldn’t go off like that without dire provocation.” Another truth? Violent, troubled men are using women’s bodies as battlegrounds. They are the places where their internal wars are waged, their rage is poured, insecurity is fought, disrespect is mastered, pain is smothered. And then society – us, we, you, me, he, she – weighs in with versions and visions of how it happened, whose truth and whose lies linger, whose fault it is, what she should do, how he should act, that he should be forgiven, that she should know better than to provoke, that he was provoked. Manhood, masculinity and violence in America are so intimately intertwined, that to talk about violence and men is to have a conversation and exploration about what it is to be a man in America – and around the world. Add to that the protective posture of black folk when it comes to the brothers. They face such vulnerability due to the various assaults by society. So they are protected. Trouble is the way we protect young black men has been and continues to be via the sacrifice of young women. Add to that the created persona of celebrity, where image is truth, perception is everything. And versions of yourself can be packaged and sold as part of the commodification that is so much of today's black music – sometimes genius, sometimes tragic. Action around manhood does exist. Conversations about black manhood are present and live right here in New York – and across the States. Examples? ‘The Masculinity Project”, a major offering exploring the complex dynamic of manhood via film, exhibitions, personal testimony. The 10-city “State of Black Men National Townhall Meetings” tour in 2004, the 2007 “Black and Male in America, a 3-Day National Conference” followed up with monthly all male forums in Brooklyn that explore topics such as spirituality, physical health, mental wellness. All these events denote black male activists’ commitment to exploring masculinity – and the link between that and violence. And then there are the books. The most recent such as the moving and thoughtful “Be A Father To Your Child:Real Talk from Black Men on Family, Love and Fatherhood”. Edited by writer and activist April Silver, and featuring short stories, essays, interviews and poems by 25 men - a mix of activists, musicians, writers, educators and poets. There's also “The Beautiful Struggle,” by Ta’Nehisi Coates to name just two. Other books like “Black Pain: It Only Looks Like We’re Not Hurting,” by Terrie Williams reveals the untold story of black folk and depression, a sometimes contributory factor to violence. So often, domestic violence and its condemnation or discussion is led by women. In New York men like award winning film-maker Byron Hurt have been engaged in exploring masculinity and its association with violence, and his upcoming annual event “Stand Up…and Speak Out”, an annual conference in New York on May 21 and May 22nd organized by “A Call To Men”, an organization committed to ending violence against girls and women continues that work. He is one of many, many male activists right here in New York doing this work around manhood and masculinity in America. Movements of men are a welcome - and much needed - addition to the voices of women raised in continued protest and condemnation around relationship violence. For the daughters and the sons who are witnesses and who navigate this troubled terrain, this work is precious.
TRAUMA = DOLLARS
Healing. The healing is the universal word and work much needed, but also much maligned. Healing developed a bad rap. Even as it continued to be crucial. Healing got turned out like a whore by a pimp. Trauma became an industry, laid out on its back by publishing pimps who sniffed the green in the drama and spewed forth lecturers, authors, wannabe wannabes all espousing that delivery of demons lay in self love. The young women who called me after my special live radio show on violence talked about that. Some were pissed. They asked of self-love, where do I get that? Who can give me that? What would it look like? No glib notions for them. Explanations, they wanted. Break it down, they demanded. Explain where we get that, they asked. What would it feel like? And they were not satisfied with trite answers. One woman offered; ‘saying ‘you need to love yourself” is not helpful’. She continued: “clearly I don’t. I don’t know how. “ Don’t tell me what to do, show me how to do it.” Some young women spoke about the hypocrisy of healing from a previous generation. They spoke about a place where healing was little more than a conversation that sold books, created lecture circuits, and glibly paraphrased lives, experiences, complexities into neat caged sentences. The clarity of crap dominated pages of work. That’s what they thought. And they didn’t like it. It didn’t help them. Their anger at this industry for the apparently traumatized prompted suspicion and levels of contempt. They wanted answers, facts, details. And then there was a generation of women that admonished their youngsters to put away the pity party and pull themselves together. So some became silent. Or they lied. Or denied. Or built shields and armor. Learned behavior poured from breast to mouth, via the broken love of procreating previous generations doing the best they could with what they had. Healing? What did a road to recovery even look like?
ROAD TO RECOVERY……..Long and winding road…
Kyra, Ceillise, Nyema and La-vainna. Spanning a decade – from 11 to 21, each endured violence at the hands of a boy or a man. All were featured on the live radio specials for Wake Up Call, a morning talk show I host on WBAI99.5FM over a two week period. A media appetite for blood and gore prevails when it comes to domestic violence stories. Battered women, and those that batter fulfil the gory-ometer level where the news has more drama than dramas. Recovery is less sexy. It makes fewer headlines. Provokes less discussion. Sells fewer papers. Means less viewers. Equals loss of listeners. But that’s where the real work is. Erica Ford of L.I.F.E., a non-profit organization based in Queens that deals with troubled young people between the ages of 13-24 typically on the receiving end of some form of violence speaks about committing federal dollars to this work of practical healing that is long and often difficult. Her project is specifically devoted to the holistic healing of these youngsters. But it ain’t just federal, how about community dollars, ask some? Real ones, not punk dollars, states one young woman. Just as they wanted real recovery, not punk healing. They don’t want to hear what they call the proclamation healing. The proclamation without the acceptance. Not the: “I will never raise my hand to a woman again,” which one young lady likened to an alcoholic swearing they would never take a drink again, but then getting a job in a bar. Especially since, she explained, many still want to negotiate what violence means – and that no bruising or battering meant that violence hadn’t taken place. “They still negotiatin’, while I’m tryin’ to clean myself up from the pain.” Some of these younger women accused older generations – and since they are in their early 20s, they meant anyone over 35 – with hypocrisy about the notion of healing. Some explained they feel sacrificed as they listen to women negotiate acceptable levels of violence from men towards women, and then chastise their behavior. They question this notion of role-models. One said “y’all still want educated thugs, and I ain’t know the difference ‘tween an educated thug and a violent dude. Most thugs got smarts, so when dude smacks me, then yáll wanna know why I choose him. Cos you did, cos y’all did.” With recovery, these women, these witnesses to the violence between adults they love, despise and fear ask: What does a man who used to hit a woman and says he doesn’t now – where is his program? Alcoholics got a 12 step program, regular meetings, drug addicts got rehab? What about rage? How does he deal with the triggers that prompt his rage to turn into a closed fist and then a black eye? Where does he go for his sessions to tackle that rage.? What happens before rage becomes a closed fist against smooth chocolate, caramel or mocha skin that becomes a bruised, black eye – and worse? And the young men say little or nothing, struggling to control emotions but refusing to engage in any external source to quell feelings that may ultimately erupt and turn a woman into that statistic about homicide quoted earlier. One young woman said: ‘my dad had a ritual. Before he ever laid a hand on my Mama I saw there were a bunch of things he would do, so I had maybe five minutes to get outta there or find somewhere to take cover’. Others described the violence as uncontrollable and explosive. One said: ‘disagree with my Pops, expect to get a slap, then another then another, then it was on.’ Another explained: “Pops would, like black out, he wasn’t himself anymore. I wanted to ask him, where do you go? Why can’t you control where you go? If you say you’re not going to hit any more what did you do to change that?” Acceptance maybe one thing. Recovery is the next – and that is the patient, diligent, difficult, persistent work of therapy and more. Blame, like judgement, paralyzes and silences. Young women’s bodies cannot continue to be a battleground for the righteous indignation, pain and rage of black men. Young women are not just asking men to stop. They want us to heal, to do the work. All of us. Them, their men, their parents, their community. Are we willing to hear this call to practical healing? La-vainna Seaton is 17. Her friend approached her at school. Explained her boyfriend hit her. Asked for advice. What should she do? La-vainna told her: ‘where there is love, abuse cannot exist’.
***
Esther Armah is an award-winning international journalist, a radio host, a playwright and an author. Armah host 'Wake Up Call' on WBAI99.5FM New York and the tri-state area and ‘Off The Page’ on WBAI99.5FM. Every FIRST and THIRD FRIDAY of the month. 11am – 12noon.
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