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Wounds of the Spirit: Black Women, Violence, and Resistance Ethics
A collection of first-person accounts documenting a historical legacy of violence against black women in the U.S.
In Wounds of the Spirit , Traci West employs first person accounts-from slave narratives to contemporary interviews to Tina Turner's autobiography-to document a historical legacy of violence against black women in the United States. West, a black feminist Christian ethicist, situates spiritual matters within a discussion of the psycho-social impact of intimate assault against African American women.
Distinctive for its treatment of the role of the church in response to violence against African American women, the book identifies specific social mechanisms which contribute to the reproduction of intimate violence. West insists that cultural beliefs as well as institutional practices must be altered if we are to combat the reproduction of violence, and suggests methods of resistance which can be utilized by victim-survivors, those in the helping professions, and the church.
Interrogating the dynamics of black women's experiences of emotional and spiritual trauma through the diverse disciplines of psychology, sociology, and theology, this important work will be of interest and practical use to those in women's studies, African American studies, Christian ethics, feminist and womanist theology, women's health, family counseling, and pastoral care.
In Wounds of the Spirit , Traci West employs first person accounts-from slave narratives to contemporary interviews to Tina Turner's autobiography-to document a historical legacy of violence against black women in the United States. West, a black feminist Christian ethicist, situates spiritual matters within a discussion of the psycho-social impact of intimate assault against African American women.
Distinctive for its treatment of the role of the church in response to violence against African American women, the book identifies specific social mechanisms which contribute to the reproduction of intimate violence. West insists that cultural beliefs as well as institutional practices must be altered if we are to combat the reproduction of violence, and suggests methods of resistance which can be utilized by victim-survivors, those in the helping professions, and the church.
Interrogating the dynamics of black women's experiences of emotional and spiritual trauma through the diverse disciplines of psychology, sociology, and theology, this important work will be of interest and practical use to those in women's studies, African American studies, Christian ethics, feminist and womanist theology, women's health, family counseling, and pastoral care.
249 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 1999
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July 21, 2022
Wounds of the Spirit by Traci West examines the conditions for, consequences of, and solutions to what West calls intimate male violence, which encompasses male-perpetrated rape, childhood sexual abuse, and domestic violence and assault. West is specifically concerned with intimate male violence experienced by black women, which she pointedly claims is the social problem most in need of redress (1). In view of how the destructive effects of intimate male violence directed toward black women intersect with and are exacerbated by white supremacy, patriarchy, and racist cultural myths, Wounds of the Spirit aims to analytically deconstruct the consequences of this violence on black women and identify methods of resistance developed by victim-survivors both past and present. In all this, West, a womanist Christian ethicist, “presupposes the importance of . . . spiritual needs,” the satisfaction of which “is an entitlement of human personhood” (4). Concomitant with this presupposition, she underscores the pernicious emotional and spiritual consequences of intimate male violence on black women as well as the emotional and spiritual resources utilized by victim-survivors in their resistance efforts. For West, because “spiritual concerns are present within and amidst all the personal and political dimensions of the experience of violence,” any viable solution to the problem of this violence must account for the spiritual dimension of human life (3).
To situate her theoretical discussion of intimate male violence, West presents the testimony of black victim-survivors compiled from nonfiction literature (such as the memoirs of former slaves) and interviews she conducted for the purposes of this book. This testimony, which is perhaps the most affectively powerful part of Wounds of the Spirit, serves several important functions. First and foremost, it allows black women to speak the truth about their experience of intimate violence, when so often silence is imposed on victim-survivors by an array of institutional, structural, and interpersonal factors in their lives. Second, it discloses “some of the buried truths about the harmed caused by the violence” as well as methods used to resist it (12). Third, black women’s testimony illustrates how “male dominance and white supremacy . . . compound the impact of intimate violence” and “how the emotional and spiritual consequences of intimate and systematic violence fuse and collide with a woman’s self-perceptions” (13). And finally, this testimony helps us appreciate the diverse spectrum of perspectives on and interpretations of the impact of intimate male violence experienced by black women.
West then draws on these narratives from black women in subsequent chapters to analyze the emotional and spiritual consequences of intimate male violence on victim-survivors. She observes that intimate violence can result in fractured community ties and a sense of alienation on behalf of black women; that it can make women feel as if they have been abandoned or deliberately rejected by God; that it can contribute to self-erasure and the suppression of selfhood as a method of survival; and that it can lead to a profound sense of shame accompanied by self-blame (57-74). Based on her interviews and her own experience as a Christian minister, West astutely notes how androcentric Christian attitudes toward sex and sexuality can accentuate the shame felt by victim-survivors, even when women find comfort in a spiritual connection with God in the wake of their experience of violence (74-7). Lastly, West identifies how some of the consequences of violence in black women’s lives stem from social and communal expectations about how black women should behave. Two, in particular, stand out. First, the stereotypical portrait of the stalwart and tenacious black woman can lead women who internalize this concept to sacrifice their individual needs for the protection and care of others. That basic issues of economic survival are often bound up in black women’s experience of intimate violence can exacerbate a victim-survivor’s sense that she should prioritize her own material needs and those of her children over and above her need for self-care and psychic health. Second, the need felt by many black women to support black men in the face of racism can complicate their response to black male assault. For example, out of a desire not to mimic the shameful violation that her black assaulter endures from whites, a victim-survivor of intimate violence may be hesitant to call “white authorities” like the police. Similarly, she may be reluctant to discuss her victimization in front of white people so as not to “betray the race” or reinforce a stereotype of black depravity that her white interlocutors may already have. “Consequently,” West explains, “these women are under pressure to keep the violence ‘private’ in order to maintain their status as an example who disproves white assumptions of black inferiority” (87-8). This is but one of many ways in which “silence is exacted from black women” when it comes to their experiences of intimate male violence (11).
With the destructive consequences of intimate male violence on black women in view, West turns to examine the conditions for the possibility of such violence. In other words, what, beyond the individual choices of men to enact violence toward black women, are the cultural and institutional sources of intimate male violence? How is male violence toward women socially promoted, sanctioned, and reinforced? And how do social norms reproduce the trauma victim-survivors endure once the violence has already occurred? Answers to these questions are essential, West contends, if we are to achieve the “moral transformation that is needed” to eliminate intimate male violence and collectively affirm “the entirety of black women’s personhood” (121).
Central to West’s analysis in relation to these questions is the assumption that intimate male violence “is a problem that society has helped to create and sustain” (91). More specifically, she claims that society is complicit in the perpetuation of intimate male violence in two interrelated ways: widespread cultural myths and institutional practices that actualize these myths. Some of the myths West identifies include the assumption that women are liars and inherently unreliable; that black women in particular “need” to be beaten by black men in order to promote black unity or help actualize black male identity; that sexual assault is sexually desirable, either for men, for women, or both; and that black women’s faults, such as their laziness, promiscuity, or propensity to emasculate men, invite violence. With respect to institutional practices that sustain such myths, West discusses the suspicion with which police often approach women who report sexual assault, how the internal dynamics of church communities can serve to silence women who have experienced intimate violence, and how staff and volunteers at battered women’s shelters frequently assume that black women are not as affected by trauma as white women, and hence do not need therapeutic help. Given that society is partially responsible for the perpetuation of intimate male violence in these ways, the abuse suffered by black women is, West asserts, a “communal problem.” It is therefore up to us not only to comprehend the emotional torment of victim-survivors, but also to “equip ourselves to dismantle its societal reinforcement” (55).
West pivots toward a constructive solution to the problem of intimate male violence toward black women in the last part of the book. This solution revolves around what West denominates an “ethic of resistance” and involves two steps. The first step is to identify forms of resistance to intimate male violence already utilized by black women. For West, resistance is a multifaceted concept; most broadly, it involves any mark of dissent toward intimate violence and its destructive effects on victim-survivors (151). Importantly, West does not seek to strictly demarcate what does and does not constitute resistance; there is no “proper” mode of resistance, but rather various resistance behaviors that reflect the limited possibilities for action available to those who suffer abuse. Most expansively, “when a woman survives, she accomplishes resistance” (ibid.). Yet resistance behaviors also include physical self-defense, the creative use of psychospiritual resources, therapy, and the self-affirmation of basic emotions. Beyond these resistance behaviors exhibited by women are more public, political forms of resistance, like when “a community leader publicly contests . . . the male-centered notions of power, authority, and status” that authorize violence toward women (151). In fact, West claims that these communal forms of resistance are especially central to the project of moral transformation. When resistance is “communally carried out with a persistence and comprehensive approach that matches the violence,” it has the power to provoke “a broad-based transformation of cultural values and practices” (152).
The second step to West’s constructive proposal is to sustain those modes of resistance that have been identified and hence promote an overall ethic of resistance. Insofar as women’s resistance efforts “advance the interests of a civil society,” West explains, “it is incumbent upon their communities to continue that momentum” (181). That is, citizens must join women as allies in their resistance to intimate male violence so as to help build a social movement that creates inclusive moral communities in which violence toward women is not only not sanctioned, but actively condemned. In the last chapter, West articulates an ethic suited for this kind of social movement that incorporates several core elements. First and foremost, an ethic of resistance must center the lived experiences of women; it demands that we listen carefully to women’s stories of violence as an act of solidarity, no matter how much this testimony may make us uncomfortable. Second, to sustain an ethic of resistance, “black women must be understood as prototypical of the way agency is conceived in moral discourse,” and not treated “as moral outsiders and exceptions” (184). That is, in an ethic of resistance, agency is not conceived in opposition to conditions of oppression, but is rather understood as operative within oppressive circumstances (161). When we situate black women “at the very focal point of moral discourse,” we see that it is possible to be both an agent and a victim at the same time (184). Third, an ethic of resistance unmasks and demystifies cultural falsehoods about women; it demands that we wake ourselves up to “cultural customs of deception” and actively confront “our concerted blindness to daily deceptions” disseminated by the state, corporations, and industry leaders (185). Finally, “communal opposition to [intimate male] violence must be conceived of and structured as a social movement to infuse communities with an alternative moral consciousness” (187). That is, an ethic of resistance posits the need for collective action ordered toward widespread moral transformation. For West, the social movement powered by an ethic of resistance is both political and spiritual: the “liberative capacity within political dynamics can then be connected with similar possibilities offered by spiritual dynamics that are also present in our social relations,” she writes. This liberative spirituality could be based “on an awareness of God’s presence, inspiration from nature or one’s ancestors, or some other form of spirituality with the capacity to affirm the innate . . . worth of women” (188).
With the basic contours of an ethic of resistance established, West offers several concrete examples of how this ethic can be put into practice. Perhaps her most valuable contribution in this final portion of the book comes in the form of specific prescriptions for Christian churches committed to communal resistance to intimate male violence. First, West provides a rationale for Christian involvement in this sort of communal resistance: she claims that the “truth-work” central to an ethic of resistance “exemplifies an important tenet of the Christian faith that commends the appropriation of Jesus Christ as truth.” Moreover, she observes that this appropriation “does not consist of an intellectual assent, rather it demands a specific praxis. . . . In the Christian faith, to know Jesus is to participate in the ways of Jesus” (198). West then delineates more specific forms of resistance behaviors practicable in Christian ecclesial communities. These include continual self-critique of the manifest ways Christian scriptures, rituals, and doctrines uphold the subordination of women; the incorporation of new rituals to resist violence; instruction in communal ethics, with a special emphasis on how to analyze and evaluate power relations; church assistance in the documentation of women’s stories of abuse and resistance; and solidarity with victim-survivors embodied by individuals trained by churches to serve as advocates. While, admittedly, Christian ethics does not provide the principal lens via which West analyzes intimate male violence toward black women, she does ultimately think that Christian churches can and should play a major role in women’s liberation efforts.
To situate her theoretical discussion of intimate male violence, West presents the testimony of black victim-survivors compiled from nonfiction literature (such as the memoirs of former slaves) and interviews she conducted for the purposes of this book. This testimony, which is perhaps the most affectively powerful part of Wounds of the Spirit, serves several important functions. First and foremost, it allows black women to speak the truth about their experience of intimate violence, when so often silence is imposed on victim-survivors by an array of institutional, structural, and interpersonal factors in their lives. Second, it discloses “some of the buried truths about the harmed caused by the violence” as well as methods used to resist it (12). Third, black women’s testimony illustrates how “male dominance and white supremacy . . . compound the impact of intimate violence” and “how the emotional and spiritual consequences of intimate and systematic violence fuse and collide with a woman’s self-perceptions” (13). And finally, this testimony helps us appreciate the diverse spectrum of perspectives on and interpretations of the impact of intimate male violence experienced by black women.
West then draws on these narratives from black women in subsequent chapters to analyze the emotional and spiritual consequences of intimate male violence on victim-survivors. She observes that intimate violence can result in fractured community ties and a sense of alienation on behalf of black women; that it can make women feel as if they have been abandoned or deliberately rejected by God; that it can contribute to self-erasure and the suppression of selfhood as a method of survival; and that it can lead to a profound sense of shame accompanied by self-blame (57-74). Based on her interviews and her own experience as a Christian minister, West astutely notes how androcentric Christian attitudes toward sex and sexuality can accentuate the shame felt by victim-survivors, even when women find comfort in a spiritual connection with God in the wake of their experience of violence (74-7). Lastly, West identifies how some of the consequences of violence in black women’s lives stem from social and communal expectations about how black women should behave. Two, in particular, stand out. First, the stereotypical portrait of the stalwart and tenacious black woman can lead women who internalize this concept to sacrifice their individual needs for the protection and care of others. That basic issues of economic survival are often bound up in black women’s experience of intimate violence can exacerbate a victim-survivor’s sense that she should prioritize her own material needs and those of her children over and above her need for self-care and psychic health. Second, the need felt by many black women to support black men in the face of racism can complicate their response to black male assault. For example, out of a desire not to mimic the shameful violation that her black assaulter endures from whites, a victim-survivor of intimate violence may be hesitant to call “white authorities” like the police. Similarly, she may be reluctant to discuss her victimization in front of white people so as not to “betray the race” or reinforce a stereotype of black depravity that her white interlocutors may already have. “Consequently,” West explains, “these women are under pressure to keep the violence ‘private’ in order to maintain their status as an example who disproves white assumptions of black inferiority” (87-8). This is but one of many ways in which “silence is exacted from black women” when it comes to their experiences of intimate male violence (11).
With the destructive consequences of intimate male violence on black women in view, West turns to examine the conditions for the possibility of such violence. In other words, what, beyond the individual choices of men to enact violence toward black women, are the cultural and institutional sources of intimate male violence? How is male violence toward women socially promoted, sanctioned, and reinforced? And how do social norms reproduce the trauma victim-survivors endure once the violence has already occurred? Answers to these questions are essential, West contends, if we are to achieve the “moral transformation that is needed” to eliminate intimate male violence and collectively affirm “the entirety of black women’s personhood” (121).
Central to West’s analysis in relation to these questions is the assumption that intimate male violence “is a problem that society has helped to create and sustain” (91). More specifically, she claims that society is complicit in the perpetuation of intimate male violence in two interrelated ways: widespread cultural myths and institutional practices that actualize these myths. Some of the myths West identifies include the assumption that women are liars and inherently unreliable; that black women in particular “need” to be beaten by black men in order to promote black unity or help actualize black male identity; that sexual assault is sexually desirable, either for men, for women, or both; and that black women’s faults, such as their laziness, promiscuity, or propensity to emasculate men, invite violence. With respect to institutional practices that sustain such myths, West discusses the suspicion with which police often approach women who report sexual assault, how the internal dynamics of church communities can serve to silence women who have experienced intimate violence, and how staff and volunteers at battered women’s shelters frequently assume that black women are not as affected by trauma as white women, and hence do not need therapeutic help. Given that society is partially responsible for the perpetuation of intimate male violence in these ways, the abuse suffered by black women is, West asserts, a “communal problem.” It is therefore up to us not only to comprehend the emotional torment of victim-survivors, but also to “equip ourselves to dismantle its societal reinforcement” (55).
West pivots toward a constructive solution to the problem of intimate male violence toward black women in the last part of the book. This solution revolves around what West denominates an “ethic of resistance” and involves two steps. The first step is to identify forms of resistance to intimate male violence already utilized by black women. For West, resistance is a multifaceted concept; most broadly, it involves any mark of dissent toward intimate violence and its destructive effects on victim-survivors (151). Importantly, West does not seek to strictly demarcate what does and does not constitute resistance; there is no “proper” mode of resistance, but rather various resistance behaviors that reflect the limited possibilities for action available to those who suffer abuse. Most expansively, “when a woman survives, she accomplishes resistance” (ibid.). Yet resistance behaviors also include physical self-defense, the creative use of psychospiritual resources, therapy, and the self-affirmation of basic emotions. Beyond these resistance behaviors exhibited by women are more public, political forms of resistance, like when “a community leader publicly contests . . . the male-centered notions of power, authority, and status” that authorize violence toward women (151). In fact, West claims that these communal forms of resistance are especially central to the project of moral transformation. When resistance is “communally carried out with a persistence and comprehensive approach that matches the violence,” it has the power to provoke “a broad-based transformation of cultural values and practices” (152).
The second step to West’s constructive proposal is to sustain those modes of resistance that have been identified and hence promote an overall ethic of resistance. Insofar as women’s resistance efforts “advance the interests of a civil society,” West explains, “it is incumbent upon their communities to continue that momentum” (181). That is, citizens must join women as allies in their resistance to intimate male violence so as to help build a social movement that creates inclusive moral communities in which violence toward women is not only not sanctioned, but actively condemned. In the last chapter, West articulates an ethic suited for this kind of social movement that incorporates several core elements. First and foremost, an ethic of resistance must center the lived experiences of women; it demands that we listen carefully to women’s stories of violence as an act of solidarity, no matter how much this testimony may make us uncomfortable. Second, to sustain an ethic of resistance, “black women must be understood as prototypical of the way agency is conceived in moral discourse,” and not treated “as moral outsiders and exceptions” (184). That is, in an ethic of resistance, agency is not conceived in opposition to conditions of oppression, but is rather understood as operative within oppressive circumstances (161). When we situate black women “at the very focal point of moral discourse,” we see that it is possible to be both an agent and a victim at the same time (184). Third, an ethic of resistance unmasks and demystifies cultural falsehoods about women; it demands that we wake ourselves up to “cultural customs of deception” and actively confront “our concerted blindness to daily deceptions” disseminated by the state, corporations, and industry leaders (185). Finally, “communal opposition to [intimate male] violence must be conceived of and structured as a social movement to infuse communities with an alternative moral consciousness” (187). That is, an ethic of resistance posits the need for collective action ordered toward widespread moral transformation. For West, the social movement powered by an ethic of resistance is both political and spiritual: the “liberative capacity within political dynamics can then be connected with similar possibilities offered by spiritual dynamics that are also present in our social relations,” she writes. This liberative spirituality could be based “on an awareness of God’s presence, inspiration from nature or one’s ancestors, or some other form of spirituality with the capacity to affirm the innate . . . worth of women” (188).
With the basic contours of an ethic of resistance established, West offers several concrete examples of how this ethic can be put into practice. Perhaps her most valuable contribution in this final portion of the book comes in the form of specific prescriptions for Christian churches committed to communal resistance to intimate male violence. First, West provides a rationale for Christian involvement in this sort of communal resistance: she claims that the “truth-work” central to an ethic of resistance “exemplifies an important tenet of the Christian faith that commends the appropriation of Jesus Christ as truth.” Moreover, she observes that this appropriation “does not consist of an intellectual assent, rather it demands a specific praxis. . . . In the Christian faith, to know Jesus is to participate in the ways of Jesus” (198). West then delineates more specific forms of resistance behaviors practicable in Christian ecclesial communities. These include continual self-critique of the manifest ways Christian scriptures, rituals, and doctrines uphold the subordination of women; the incorporation of new rituals to resist violence; instruction in communal ethics, with a special emphasis on how to analyze and evaluate power relations; church assistance in the documentation of women’s stories of abuse and resistance; and solidarity with victim-survivors embodied by individuals trained by churches to serve as advocates. While, admittedly, Christian ethics does not provide the principal lens via which West analyzes intimate male violence toward black women, she does ultimately think that Christian churches can and should play a major role in women’s liberation efforts.
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