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Surviving the Silence: Black Women's Stories of Rape
In this "intelligent", "stunning", and "honest" book, Charlotte Pierce-Baker weaves together the accounts of black women who have been raped and who have felt that they had to remain silent in order to protect themselves and their race.
It opens with the author's harrowing and courageous account of her rape and includes the stories of the author's own family's response, plus the voices of black men who have supported rape survivors.
It opens with the author's harrowing and courageous account of her rape and includes the stories of the author's own family's response, plus the voices of black men who have supported rape survivors.
286 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 9, 2022
I can’t begin to explain the experience of reading this book. I cried, I felt numb, I had to put it down many times because it became too difficult to read. At times, my chest ached and I felt like I couldn’t breathe, but I had to keep going. I felt like I had a responsibility to reach the end.
This book should have more than 58 ratings and they should all be above five stars.
This book should have more than 58 ratings and they should all be above five stars.
August 9, 2023
Truth be told
This book is a great read and resource for those of us wanting to and trying to understand what a survivor of sexual assault looks like. How many women have I encountered and don't even know their story of rape or sexual assault without picking up on body language. Very informative.
This book is a great read and resource for those of us wanting to and trying to understand what a survivor of sexual assault looks like. How many women have I encountered and don't even know their story of rape or sexual assault without picking up on body language. Very informative.
August 5, 2020
"For black women, where rape is concerned, race has preceded issues of gender. We are taught that we are first black, then women. Our families have taught us this, and society in its harsh racial lessons reinforces it. Black women have survived by keeping quiet, not solely out of shame, but out of a need to preserve the race and its image. In our attempts to preserve racial pride, we black women have often sacrificed our own souls."
"Some men do not know the story of rape. We have never told them. They have not heard our stories of rape-of our sisters, daughters, mothers, and grandmothers. To be exculded is heartbreaking and lonely. Not being told-not knowing-the story of the women in their lives, in their community, must make them feel accused. We must tell them the storries and keep retelling them. Black men need the stories to map a course of action, to become responsible, so sexual violence in our communities might one day cease. Men don;t always know how to ask the right questions. But once they learn, they need us to teach them how to hear the answers. And so, black men have a place here. I have asked them to speak, however briefly. In these men's stories, we have begun a conversation that breaks the other half of the silence."
"The way out is to tell: speak the acts prepetrated upon us, speak the atrocities, speak the injustices, speak the personal violations of the soul. Someone will llisten, someone will believe our stories, someone will join us. And until there are more who will bear witness to our truths as black women, we will do it for one another."
"Our souls heal on levels, as wounds flesh heal in layers."
"My spirit was broken, This must be the way you feel when you're going insanse. The others in the family were fluttering about, making all seem back to normal. They were pretending."
"I could feel in his arms his own pain and the desire to take away mine. He didn't know how to comfort me and I didn't know how to explain to him what I needed. How does anyone know what to say to ask or to do? And yet we need them to know."
"Healing is a continuous process. Sometimes a struggle. Rape affects all parts of one's life and being, and one has to work continually to become whole and intact."
"How self-ansorbed we become when consumed with our own terrors and traumas!"
"Black people could be such great help to each other, but because of our silences we can't be. With no sense of community, we end up killing ourselves."
"I think in the end it's not just about rape; it's about how we survive rape. It's about how black women were taught to survive. I would say to other women, if rape happens to them, try to think as rationally as you possibly can. I know fear over takes part of you, but I'd say, no matter what, stay alive. Do whatever it takes for you to stay alive. But your decision has to be quick (a loud clap) and positive. It's just like CPR. You can't wait. Stay alive."
"We can never know what is lurking in another person's storehouse of trauma. That's why we have to be willing to test the waters until we find what we need-without feeling that somehow we have steeped over an invisible boundry. We must be patient with our male friends, Harriett, and help them to negotiate with us, our very precarious pathway to recovery. We need them to help us heal."
"Some men do not know the story of rape. We have never told them. They have not heard our stories of rape-of our sisters, daughters, mothers, and grandmothers. To be exculded is heartbreaking and lonely. Not being told-not knowing-the story of the women in their lives, in their community, must make them feel accused. We must tell them the storries and keep retelling them. Black men need the stories to map a course of action, to become responsible, so sexual violence in our communities might one day cease. Men don;t always know how to ask the right questions. But once they learn, they need us to teach them how to hear the answers. And so, black men have a place here. I have asked them to speak, however briefly. In these men's stories, we have begun a conversation that breaks the other half of the silence."
"The way out is to tell: speak the acts prepetrated upon us, speak the atrocities, speak the injustices, speak the personal violations of the soul. Someone will llisten, someone will believe our stories, someone will join us. And until there are more who will bear witness to our truths as black women, we will do it for one another."
"Our souls heal on levels, as wounds flesh heal in layers."
"My spirit was broken, This must be the way you feel when you're going insanse. The others in the family were fluttering about, making all seem back to normal. They were pretending."
"I could feel in his arms his own pain and the desire to take away mine. He didn't know how to comfort me and I didn't know how to explain to him what I needed. How does anyone know what to say to ask or to do? And yet we need them to know."
"Healing is a continuous process. Sometimes a struggle. Rape affects all parts of one's life and being, and one has to work continually to become whole and intact."
"How self-ansorbed we become when consumed with our own terrors and traumas!"
"Black people could be such great help to each other, but because of our silences we can't be. With no sense of community, we end up killing ourselves."
"I think in the end it's not just about rape; it's about how we survive rape. It's about how black women were taught to survive. I would say to other women, if rape happens to them, try to think as rationally as you possibly can. I know fear over takes part of you, but I'd say, no matter what, stay alive. Do whatever it takes for you to stay alive. But your decision has to be quick (a loud clap) and positive. It's just like CPR. You can't wait. Stay alive."
"We can never know what is lurking in another person's storehouse of trauma. That's why we have to be willing to test the waters until we find what we need-without feeling that somehow we have steeped over an invisible boundry. We must be patient with our male friends, Harriett, and help them to negotiate with us, our very precarious pathway to recovery. We need them to help us heal."
April 13, 2015
"There is an uncanny silence surrounding the trauma of black rape." - Charlotte Pierce-Baker, author
"We all have free will, but when it comes to black men, all of a sudden everybody blames us -black women- for what goes wrong in our rae. Allof a sudden black men are not responsible for themselves. We have to be responsible for them. Then we're blamed when they go to white women; we're blamed when they kill each other. We're not valued as people to the same degree that other people are valued. Even less so than black men. A professor at the university said in class, in my presence that "you can't get raped unless you go slinking through the ghetto." As if I'm not even a human being. I was sitting there! We're disposable people, black women. I -as a black woman- have feelings. I get angry; I feel delight; I cry myself to sleep. We have the whole range of emotions that anybody else does." - Ruth
"Talking about rape is like taboo, and we all know it's taboo."
"...for black women it's taboo "to tell"; the brothers are hurting so bad we don't want to hurt 'em anymore. God forbid we should put another worry on them!" - Matilda, twenty-year old college student
"White women are usually put up on a pedestal. With the black woman it only takes one smudge, and you carry that smudge with you for the rest of your life. Most white women feel that black women should be used to being raped. When I was going to high school, I went to a racially mixed school. When we got to the Civil War, most of the white girls I went to school with felt that black women enjoyed sleeping with the masters. To me that was something that was passed on to them by their families. I figure that's how the white man justified raping black women back then; it was okay because "they enjoyed it." - Adrienne, forty-year old nurse
"...rape is a men's issue. Rape says much more about men than it ever has about women. Rape is a louder statement about masculinity than it is about femininity." - Rus Ervin Funk, Stopping Rape: A Challenge for Men
"We thought we could take care of anything ourselves! Our relationship had always been very private. Even our parents weren't privy toeven the remotely intimate parts of our life. I think if we had done therapy together, it would have made a difference. But within our marriage -and our family of three- there was ocmplete silence. I was complicitous, totally, in the silence. It would, somehow...just get better." -David, husband of rape survivor.
Speak out - don't remain Silent!
Organizations that can help:
Women Organized Against Rape (WOAR)
Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Netwoek (RAINN)
"We all have free will, but when it comes to black men, all of a sudden everybody blames us -black women- for what goes wrong in our rae. Allof a sudden black men are not responsible for themselves. We have to be responsible for them. Then we're blamed when they go to white women; we're blamed when they kill each other. We're not valued as people to the same degree that other people are valued. Even less so than black men. A professor at the university said in class, in my presence that "you can't get raped unless you go slinking through the ghetto." As if I'm not even a human being. I was sitting there! We're disposable people, black women. I -as a black woman- have feelings. I get angry; I feel delight; I cry myself to sleep. We have the whole range of emotions that anybody else does." - Ruth
"Talking about rape is like taboo, and we all know it's taboo."
"...for black women it's taboo "to tell"; the brothers are hurting so bad we don't want to hurt 'em anymore. God forbid we should put another worry on them!" - Matilda, twenty-year old college student
"White women are usually put up on a pedestal. With the black woman it only takes one smudge, and you carry that smudge with you for the rest of your life. Most white women feel that black women should be used to being raped. When I was going to high school, I went to a racially mixed school. When we got to the Civil War, most of the white girls I went to school with felt that black women enjoyed sleeping with the masters. To me that was something that was passed on to them by their families. I figure that's how the white man justified raping black women back then; it was okay because "they enjoyed it." - Adrienne, forty-year old nurse
"...rape is a men's issue. Rape says much more about men than it ever has about women. Rape is a louder statement about masculinity than it is about femininity." - Rus Ervin Funk, Stopping Rape: A Challenge for Men
"We thought we could take care of anything ourselves! Our relationship had always been very private. Even our parents weren't privy toeven the remotely intimate parts of our life. I think if we had done therapy together, it would have made a difference. But within our marriage -and our family of three- there was ocmplete silence. I was complicitous, totally, in the silence. It would, somehow...just get better." -David, husband of rape survivor.
Speak out - don't remain Silent!
Organizations that can help:
Women Organized Against Rape (WOAR)
Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Netwoek (RAINN)
March 26, 2015
necessary for men and women alike
I enjoyed this book. I realize that is not necessarily a term often applied to trauma and true crime novels, but it is my truth and I am telling it. I experienced rape and have friends who've survived it as well. Some still struggle with the victimization. Others function efficiently, just as Pierce-Baker described.
There will, in my mind, never be a time where rape is wholly eliminated, but I am confident that just opening the dialogue in the black community will make it much more infrequent. Rape and the victim response is in so many ways similar to matters of racial injustice. I find, when sharing my story with black men and women hesitant to receive it as truth, creating parallels between victim experiences in rape and racial aggressions immediately force a light bulb to turn on, a bell to ring. Then conversation flows, and that quite smoothly.
I enjoyed this book. I realize that is not necessarily a term often applied to trauma and true crime novels, but it is my truth and I am telling it. I experienced rape and have friends who've survived it as well. Some still struggle with the victimization. Others function efficiently, just as Pierce-Baker described.
There will, in my mind, never be a time where rape is wholly eliminated, but I am confident that just opening the dialogue in the black community will make it much more infrequent. Rape and the victim response is in so many ways similar to matters of racial injustice. I find, when sharing my story with black men and women hesitant to receive it as truth, creating parallels between victim experiences in rape and racial aggressions immediately force a light bulb to turn on, a bell to ring. Then conversation flows, and that quite smoothly.
August 19, 2007
Necessary, scary, brave.
Currently Reading
April 28, 2011so far i still cant believe whats going on the book is so impacting.
November 8, 2015
"There is an uncanny silence surrounding the trauma of black rape." - Charlotte Pierce-Baker, author
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews