February is Black History month, and WAVAW wants to take the time to reflect, share, and acknowledge just how integral Black women and Black trans people have been to both the anti-violence movement and the work we do. Dedicating one month out of the year to recognizing Black history, excellence, and futures is insufficient.  At WAVAW, we commit to honouring and offering gratitude to the incredible activists, creators, and community carers that have built our movement, and upon whose shoulders we stand all year round. 

bell hooks says, “… feminists believe that women of color and Black women in particular have written the cutting edge theory and really were the individuals who exploded feminist theory into the directions that has made it more powerful. So I see us as the leaders not just of Black people and Black women in terms of feminism but in terms of the movement as a whole.” Sexual violence was legally used as a tool to maintain domination, exert white supremacy, control and ownership during imperialism and slavery; a practice that has been maintained well into the post-slavery era. Black women, Black feminists, Black lesbian feminists and trans people have been offering teachings for decades about the absolute requirement for the Rape Crisis Movement to discuss sexual violence within the context of race, gender, class, and sexuality, as they are inextricably linked to how sexual violence plays out in the lives of Black folks. However, due to the white washing and professionalizing of our movements, most of these teachings were ignored by white, carceral feminism.  

We also know that Black folks are over surveilled and under protected – much of the violence against Black folks of marginalized genders goes on with impunity. The Black feminist movement has been talking about anti-carceral responses to sexual violence for decades, while advocating for community responses to deal with state violence, police brutality, and sexual violence. Once again, due to the white washing of our movements and the funding structures that followed professionalization,  this wisdom has not been reflected in much of the programming found in Rape Crisis Centers. Many sexual assault response programs and spaces including WAVAW, ended up centering police engagement and the criminal legal system. 

Black feminists, activists, and movement builders have never stopped responding to, and showing up for community, thanks to their resilience, excellence, creativity, and commitment to liberation and justice. Conversations about divesting from carceral systems have become more mainstream, thanks to the brilliance of activists like Tarana Burke, Adrienne Marie Brown, bell hooks, Angela Davis, the women at the Combahee River Collective, the women at Incite!, Mariame Kaba, Shira Hassan, and locally Mebrat Beyene of WISH , Angela Marie MacDougall of BWSS, and Nneka MacGregor of WomenatthecentrE; who have all continued to push us to deepen our thinking around divestment. The #MeToo movement has significantly changed the cultural landscape and the conversation around sexual violence and the work that the #MeToo organization continues with Tarana’s work to support and centre Black and brown survivors is critical and inspiring.  

WAVAW is humbled to follow the lead of these incredible activists, and believe that having more options for survivors outside of the police and law is vital. As we have learned from Black feminists, our movement’s focus on the criminal justice system centers white, cis, and straight women as those most likely to benefit from policing. We have also learned that the criminal justice system is inherently white supremacist and anti-Black, and plays a pivot role in maintaining rape culture. We are taking direction from Black feminists as we implement transformative justice to dream of healing that is survivor-centered and community-based and  in 2020, we launched a Transformative Justice Pilot Program at WAVAW. 

The folks over at the National Black Women’s Justice Institute have given us some actionable ways we can continue to centre Black survivors in the #MeToo movement and globally in the conversation around sexual violence year round in their “Expanding our Frame” brief. 

• Challenge, uproot, and dispel deeply entrenched and continuously reproduced images of Black women, girls, trans, gender nonconforming and nonbinary people as sexually deviant and universally available, inherently promiscuous, disposable, and fundamentally inviolable. 
• Move beyond the workplace to focus attention on where, how, and why Black women, girls, trans, gender nonconforming and nonbinary people are experiencing sexual violence in additional locations. This includes our homes, communities, and institutions, in interactions with police, penal, and immigration officials, as well as in economic sectors, informal economies, educational settings, and social services where Black women, girls, trans, gender nonconforming and nonbinary people are disproportionately represented. 
• Attend to the ways in which sexual violence pervades public and private spaces, including institutions, environments, and residential spaces presented as ‘safe’ alternatives to violence and victimization. 
• Recognize that responses that rely exclusively on policing and the criminal legal system fall short of providing protection for Black women, girls, trans, gender nonconforming and nonbinary people – or, worse yet, may perpetuate further sexual violence. 
• Develop, implement, and evaluate alternative approaches to prevention, detection, and accountability for sexual violence that address and redress Black women’s, girls’, trans, gender nonconforming and nonbinary people’s experiences, and promote healing among survivors.

We strongly recommend reading the following books written by Black feminists:

• Tarana Burke – “Unbound: My Story of Liberation and the Birth of the Me Too”
• Adrienne Maree Brown – “Emergent Strategies”
• Mariame Kaba – “Fumbling Towards Repair”
• bell hooks – ”Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism”
• bell hooks – “Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center”
• Toni Morrison, Ta-Nehisi Coates (Foreword by) – “The Origin of Others”
• Sonya Renee Taylor and Ijeoma Oluo – “The Body Is Not an Apology, Second Edition: The Power of Radical Self-Love”