The Color of Victimhood: Believing Survivors is Only the First Step
GETTY IMAGES
Written by Brikitta Hairston
When I studied victimology, they didn’t tell us how victimization changes for Black victims – namely, for Black women. They also did not tell us just how difficult it was to not only be believed as a Black woman, but also that there was a higher likelihood of victimization as a Black woman. It is almost as if there are not enough statistics, not enough research, not enough attention paid to Black women. I suppose it is not almost, in this case, it is exactly as if hardly any resources have been diverted to understanding our place in the world of victimhood.
As a victimologist, by trade a sex crimes investigator, I have interviewed both victims and perpetrators. If I were doing my own field study, I would say something like this: Black victims often feel that by reporting and being interviewed, they are taking resources from other people. They feel like they take up too much space, and too much time, and that it is all in vain.
When I interview respondents, who have the same rights under Title VI, VII, and IX Law, they have varying types of rationalizations for their behaviors. What I have seen most often, are respondents and victimizers engaging in behavior because they felt not only that it was okay, but that it was all that they knew. If we take many steps back, in Victimology, there is always a clear progression from the victimized to the victimizer. Without intervention, those behaviors become learned, to the point where it is indecipherable whether or not the behavior is inherent. This is why it’s dangerous to not believe victims, especially in the Black community, where we already have a lack of resources.
The argument should not be misconceived as stereotyping and judging Black people. I see how slippery that slope is and I dig my heels in every time I have this conversation. Our Black victims come from a place of a deeper intersectionality than any other race. They are judged by those they report to, their friends and family, and their abuser; and are judged by other races. Society’s preconceived notions of Black people seep into every part of our daily lives. When Black victims speak up, they are cross-examined instead of supported.
The Dream Team needs your help to continue amplifying the voices and stories of young and emerging Black storytellers through our contributing writer program. Can you contribute to support?
This understanding hit me harder when Cassie filed her lawsuit against P. Diddy in November 2023 under New York’s now-expired Adult Survivors Act – which offered a one-year window for survivors to file civil suits against their abusers past the statute of limitations. The evidence was akin to a mountain, her statements chilling, and the treatment of her telling. I took a mental note of the tweets I saw, and the stance many bloggers and self-certified journalists took.
Cassie was heralded as a victim who wanted “too much and whose time to report had passed.” I’ve seen this rhetoric as I’ve studied the treatment of sexual assault and abuse victims, that if they do not cry out and report immediately after their alleged abuse then their claims are invalid.
As a victimologist and someone trained on sexual assault victims, trauma, and the neurobiology of sexual assault, I know this is untrue. But, I learned this in my second year of my master’s program, in a course taught in only one higher education institution in the continental United States. So I will give grace, there, but not for the blind dissolution that victims are inherently liars. That Black victims reporting against their Black abuser are traitors to their entire race. Why are Black women individualized in what is a community problem? I do not aim to say that the Black race is the only one experiencing this but it is the only race I live and have lived as. I can say confidently, though, that if it is not your aim to at least do some good, then do not do any further harm.
What I do know about Black victims is that they have unfair standards put on them. Before the public learns of their victimization, simply because they are Black, they are also assigned a role wholly separate and apart from them. It is not only unfair, but unduly burdensome.
Comparatively, after an Instagram Live in August 2020 – in which Megan Thee Stallion identified Tory Lanez as her shooter – as her abuser – at a party the month prior. Whether it was an isolated incident or not, he was her abuser. This prompted think pieces on her ascent from viral freestyle rap videos on Twitter to features with Beyoncé and getting a footing in the music industry.
From the time Lanez was officially charged by the Los Angeles District Attorney, throughout the trial, until he was found guilty in December 2022 and sentenced in August 2023; Meg was not given grace, not even a centimeter of the benefit of the doubt. Bloggers, Lanez’s supporters and even their peers in the music industry made claims that her songs sounded the same and were all about the same thing, that all she did was twerk and talk down on men.
I could ask myself why this is, how this is – but then I saw the onslaught of women speaking against her. Those she never knew and those who called themselves her friends, boldly stated she was not being truthful. It puzzled me. But then, I went back to my training, my studies, my personal experience as an investigator and someone in proximity of victimhood. It is always going to be easier to assimilate than to challenge.
Standing up for and with a victim of abuse means challenging the status quo and maybe even coming to terms with the victimization they’ve experienced themselves. It’s too much too soon, so they revert to what they know and what they have seen work: Be indifferent to the victim, or stand with the masses against them.
Meg Thee Stallion and Cassie had very different reports with a far different set of facts but the response to their report was the same. It fell short. It was disappointing. They are not the only ones this year, who have gone up against their own industry – including those who look like them – but they are the best example to press this point here.
Black victimhood has been left behind. There is not enough light on it, there are not enough people talking about the response. Far too many are picking apart the set of facts that they don’t have the training to decipher. That is not to say it should be left to the investigators and adjudicators to talk about reports of abuse and sexual violence, but I am saying that focusing on the set of facts to the exclusion of the impact is what keeps us falling short. Belief will always go further than an uninformed investigation into the facts at hand. I challenge us not to ask for more–more of the story, more of what happened, the who, what, where, when, and why – but to instead ask “How can we help?”
Brikitta Hairston (she/her), is an investigative victimologist, and graduate of the University of Iowa with a B.A. in English and an M.S. in Criminal Justice. Her words are in OffColour Magazine, Radish Media, Carefree Mag, Better to Speak, and Giddy Magazine.