From the early evening of the 16th of October until the early afternoon of the 18th of October, I was very fortunate to be able to participate and attend the historic Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church’s her/historic (founded in 1867), groundbreaking, transformational, uplifting Holistic Hurt, Wholistic Healing: The Church’s Call to Silence Sexual Violence conference in Richmond, VA.

I was raised Sufi Muslim and I practice Vipassana Meditation as taught by S.N. Goenka in the tradition of Sayagi U Ba Khin. My most recent ancestral maternal and paternal roots, however, are grounded in the Baptist and African Methodist Episcopalian (AME) Churches. Through my journey called life, I have witnessed and experienced the universality of the Ultimate Truth. As a result, I embrace all spiritual and religious traditions that teach and practice the Ultimate Truth.

I have been fortunate with countless opportunities to attend and present at numerous amazing and life changing conferences throughout the United States and internationally in Europe, Africa, and Asia. For the first time, however, I was invited by a Church to share the literal and metaphorical sacred space with Rev. Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon, who as the first African American woman ordained by the Presbyterian Church, is a ground breaker, mapmaker, trailblazer who has paved the way for so many womanist/feminist Religious Scholars, Ethicists and Theologians globally; and my Sister Survivor Rev. Dr. Monica A. Coleman whose visionary text The Dinah Project: A Handbook for Congregational Response to Sexual Violence, is being used at churches, colleges, seminaries, universities, throughout the United States.

This conference was the embodiment of Rev. Dwylene Butler’s Master’s Thesis “Holistic Hurt, Wholistic Healing: The Dance of Redemption for Survivors of Sexual Violence,” which she developed and wrote under the guidance of Rev. Dr. Cannon, who was her advisor at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond. In 2008, when Rev. Butler shared her Thesis with Pastor Tyrone Nelson, he asked Rev. Butler to host a conference so that their church could break its silence about rape and other violations of women.

In less than 14-months, an entire weekend, which included a performance of “The Heart of the Matter: A Journey Toward Healing” Monologues,” followed by a discussion facilitated by Rev. Patricia Jones-Turner; a screening and discussion of NO! The Rape Documentary, an interactive healing talk/presentation, led by Rev. Dr. Monica Coleman, on The Dinah Project, eight workshops facilitated by clergy, rape crisis counselors, cultural workers, scholars, and activists from which participants were able to attend three, The Dance of Redemption- Mimes, Liturgical and Praise Dancers from Richmond and surrounding areas gathered to minister in movement to songs of healing, strength, deliverance, and redemption; the entire conference concluded with the morning worship, where Dr. Katie Cannon as the guest preacher gave a powerful sermon titled “Project For A New Day.”

Women and Men were active participants with the organization of this conference, which, from my point of view, ran seamlessly… There wasn’t a division of labor based on the traditional gendered norms. That is to say, that Men played an active role in providing childcare and helping with the preparation of the food. Women played an active and visible leadership role throughout the weekend.

During Sunday morning’s worship service, the liturgy was taken from Sister Rev. Dr. Monica Coleman’s powerful “Dinah Project.” Statistics about rape, domestic violence, and other forms of violence against women and children we talked about from the pulpit during worship service on Sunday morning. Pastor Nelson invited both Sister Rev. Dr. Monica and I to offer some additional words about our work from the Pulpit during Sunday morning’s worship service. We both spoke to the entire congregation about our healing work from the perspective of survivors of sexual violence.

Equally if not more important Pastor Nelson declared a commitment, from the pulpit, on the part of Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church to be an active participant of the movement, in Richmond, VA, to addressing all forms of violence perpetuated against women and children. He stressed that the work had just begun at Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church with the conference while being explicitly clear that this work would be an ongoing effort. This would not be something that only happened once a year at an annual conference but a consistent effort because violence against women doesn’t only happen in October during Domestic Violence Awareness Month and April during Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

The Holistic Hurt, Wholistic Healing: The Church’s Call to Silence Sexual Violence was truly an inter-generational conference where people who participated and attended ranged in age from teenagers to over 70-years of age. What was especially powerful for me is that the visionaries for this conference Rev. Butler and Pastor Nelson are both several years under 40-years old. This is very important to note because the ongoing lack of respect for the visions of leaders/visionaries who happen to be young adults is still very pervasive in this country in all communities regardless of race/culture/ethnicity. And yet, I would argue that it is precisely because of Rev. Butler’s and Pastor Nelson’s ages, in this moment and at this time, that they had the vision for this conference. I want to be clear that the conference was made possible through a collaborative effort of many who are very diverse in age. In fact, it was Sister Rev. Dr. Katie Cannon who strongly encouraged Rev. Butler and Pastor Nelson to invite Monica and I to present at their conference. So, this is not about not honoring/paying homage to those who are our elders. It is solely about recognizing that vision/knowledge/wisdom isn’t solely based on one’s age.

It’s very important to underscore that this entire conference was FREE. This included free day care and free food for everyone. Everyone was welcomed and no one was turned away.

The main plenary sessions were videotaped. The workshops/small group sessions were not recorded out of respect for people’s privacy/confidentiality. If/when those sessions that were recorded are made available to the public, I will most definitely spread the word.

To say that I was moved the entire weekend by what I witnessed and experienced is a major understatement. The reality that most victim-survivors never go to a rape crisis center or seek therapy own their own. If they are religious, they tend to turn to their places of worship to try to find solace. Based on this, I believe it’s critical and should be non-negotiable that all leaders of religious institutions (Churches, Mosques, Synagogues, Temples) should take a very vocal and visible stance against all forms of sexual violence perpetuated against women, men and children. Then perhaps from there victim/survivors will not view going to a rape crisis center or seeking therapy as an “either/or” with regards to their spiritual/religious practice. It is a fact that victims take much longer to heal if they do not receive the proper support and tools that they need.

Through their demonstrated actions this past weekend and expressed commitment from October 18 forward, The Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church in Richmond, VA took a bold, courageous and necessary step in playing a direct role in ensuring that victims of sexual and domestic violence receive all of the help and support that they will need on their journey to becoming survivors.

I am grateful, honored, and humbled to have been both a witness and a participant.

While it took a village to make the conference a reality, I want to personally express my heartfelt gratitude to Rev. Dwylene Butler, Pastor Tyrone Nelson, Sister Regina Pettaway, Sister Lynne Lancaster for their direct, metaphorical hands on support of my and NO!’s presence at the conference.

From October?16 – 18, 2009, the historic Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church in Richmond, VA, will host the her/historic, groundbreaking “Holistic Hurt, Wholistic Healing: The Church’s Call to Silence Sexual Violence” conference. The featured keynote presenters are Rev. Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon, who is a leading Christian ethicist in United States, and the first African American woman ordained in the United Presbyterian Church (USA); Rev. Dr. Monica A. Coleman, is an ordained elder of the African Methodist Episcopal Chruch and the author of The Dinah Project: a Handbook for Congregational Response to Sexual Violence; and Sister Aishah Shahidah Simmons who is the producer/writer/director of NO! The Rape Documentary.

THIS CONFERENCE IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

While NO! The Rape Documentary has definitely been purchased by and used as an educational healing tool in Churches and Mosques across the United States and internationally, this conference is the FIRST time that Aishah Shahidah Simmons has ever been invited by a church or mosque to both present NO! and engage in dialogue about the critical role that religious institutions must play in addressing and ultimately ending sexual violence. She is both honored and humbled that Rev. Tyrone Nelson, Pastor, and Rev. Dwylene Butler, Church Business Administrator, invited her to present with Drs. Cannon and Coleman; and to participate in what she believes will be powerful, soul stirring, and healing weekend.

“October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. October 16-18, we invite you to Sixth Mount Zion Baptist Church for a life changing conference. Join pastors, ministers, Women’s Ministry leaders, Youth leaders, college students and others in this conference exposing the prevalence of sexual violence in our communities and what we can do to silence sexual violence.”

For detailed information about this FREE conference,?please click here?(http://holistichealing.weebly.com).

Aishah Shahidah Simmons was the featured guest on the September 26, 2009 edition of Saturday Mornings with Joy Keys, which is featured on Blog Talk Radio. In 30 commercial free minutes, Keys and Simmons covered the waterfront on the sobering reality of rape, other forms of sexual violence in African-American communities. Keys and Simmons engaged in a very lively and passionate conversation about these often difficult and taboo issues while offering solutions on how to heal from the trauma and equally as important on how to stop it. Click here to listen to the program in its entirety.

NO! The Rape Documentary was among the invited 50 documentary and short feature films from 22 countries, which were featured in the Open Frame Film Festival, which is organized by the Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PBST) in New Delhi India. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend the festival but was there in spirit through NO!. This is the second international film festival in India where NO! was featured. In 2008, NO! received the Best Documentary Award at the India International Women’s Film Festival.

Click here to view the Film Festival line up.

Click here to read an article on the film festival.

“NO! deserve a resounding YES for it’s bold approach to confronting the taboos, controversy and horrors of the sexual assault of Black women/girls. NO! is a potent healing balm and a fierce weapon. NO! is a vital tool for soul revival and spirit restoration amongst sexual assault survivors, advocates and educators alike. Accept love-preview NO!”

Skye Ward, Freelance Writer and Blogger
Skyeview: A Sistahs’ View of the World
www.kuma2.net/skyview/

NO! is a critical tool for all public health educators and practitioners concerned with women’s health. The medical and public health consequences of trauma related to sexual violence are profound and alarming. Moreover, there is a connection between trauma and HIV which makes this film particularly important for HIV prevention work. I highly recommend it to medical professional and public health professionals examining this intersection.

Mehret Mandefro, M.D., MSc
TruthAIDS, Founding Director

Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholar
University of Pennsylvania

“Did I ever tell you how utterly superb I found NO! The Rape Documentary? My god, it’s not only a doco, it’s a work of art. Truly devastating. Yet hopeful. Even beautiful. And deadly. Thank you for having the guts and vision to have seen it through. It really is one helluva remarkable work.”

Robin Morgan, is an award-winning poet, novelist, political theorist, feminist activist, journalist, editor, and best-selling author. A former editor-in chief of Ms. magazine, she is founder of The Sisterhood is Global Institute and, most recently, a co-founder and Board Member of the Women’s Media Center.

Harriet Hirshorn, Producer/Director, Our Lives Our In Our Hands

Estoy tan agradecida que una mujer afrodescendiente lo hizo una prioridad decir la verdad, clamorosa y clara, sobre la violencia sexual que sufrimos. Aishah Shahidah Simmons debe ser reconocida como héroe por todos los y las afrodescendientes, porque su documental fue un labor de amor que puede ser el catalizador que necesitamos para empezar a sanar nuestra comunidad entera-mujeres y hombres, niñas y niños. ¡No más vergüenza ni miedo! ¡Gracias, Aishah!

Lori Robinson, Editor
VidaAfroLatina.com
editor “at” vidaafrolatina “dot” com

NO! is one of the most powerful documentaries of our time. Finally an uncompromising film that speaks the truths of African-American women’s lives. Aishah is a pioneer and visionary and I was proud to be a part of this documentary that is affecting and will continue to affect women around the world. The physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual significance on the consciousness of African-American women and anyone who dares to look at this film is undeniable. I am delighted that Aishah birhted this documentary out of her womb spirit despite the labor pains it took to give birth to it. I applaud you for your perserverence and hard work to produce a torch for the next generation of girls and women. Aishah as a revolutionary I salute you and as my sister I bless you. Thanks for allowing me to be a part of this groundbreaking work and giving me a platform to share my story with others. If you are interested in human rights and the advancement of humanity you must see this film!

Rev. Reanae McNeal, International Performing Artist, Motivational Speaker, & Trainer
Imani Revelations

NO! challenges the viewer to reflect about a reality that, although obscure for some, continues to affect several women in our communities.

Besides, NO! is a healing tool that helps all of us in the Americas and beyond become whole by integrating feelings of guilt or shame that may have been buried for a while. It is a jewel that must be watched, discussed and appreciated by all.

Maristela Duarte Smith, MSW, Portuguese Translator of NO!

Je suis fière d’avoir pu participer à ce grand projet en effectuant la traduction française de NO!. Ce documentaire, puissant par ses témoignages, donne la force aux femmes et lesbiennes de tous les pays de lutter contre les violences intracommunautaires souvent cachées, souvent tues par peur d’affaiblir la famille, le clan, la communauté. NO! est un outil pour ouvrir les consciences. NO! est une arme pour les militantes et les militants. NO! est une source d’information importante non seulement pour les femmes mais aussi pour les hommes qui veulent combattre la violence sexuelle et toutes les formes de violence contre les femmes.

Carole Crawford
Militante, travailleuse sociale et traductrice française de NO!

I am so grateful that a Black woman made it a priority to tell the truth, loud and clear, about the sexual violence we experience. Aishah Shahidah Simmons should be recognized as a hero by all Black people, because her film was a labor of love that can be the catalyst we need to start healing our entire community–women and men, girls and boys. No more shame or fear! Thank you, Aishah!
Lori Robinson
Author, “I Will Survive: The African-American Guide To Healing from Sexual Assault”

NO! é um documentário imperdível! Ele trata da temática do estupro intra-racial com profundidade e elegância. A discussäo é enriquecida pelos depoimentos de vários intelectuais e ativistas do movimento negro, que corajosamente, nos expõe a aterroziante realidade do trauma e às possibilidades de transformacão do sofrimento em uma arma de luta contra a opressão.

NO! desafia o expectador a refletir sobre uma realidade que, talvez obscura para muitos, continua a afetar milhares de mulheres em nossas comunidades. Além disso, com-paixão NO! nos leva a integrar sentimentos talvez reprimidos por medo, culpa ou vergonha; nos ajudando a restaurar um pouco do que foi perdido e assim nos tornar mais inteiras.

NO!, pra ser visto, discutido e apreciado pela jóia que é.

Maristela Duarte Smith, Assistente Social, Tradutora de NO! para o Portugues

The 17th Internation AIDS Conference is taking place in Mexico City on August 3rd to August 8th.  Bringing together scholars, activists, organizers, and policy makers from around the world, the conference’s aim and focus is the following according to it’s publicity on the site:

“AIDS 2008 will provide many opportunities for the presentation of important new scientific research and for productive, structured dialogue on the major challenges facing the global response to AIDS. Conference organizers are developing a wide variety of session types that meet the needs of various participants and support collective efforts to expand delivery of HIV prevention and treatment to communities worldwide. Central to many of these sessions will be the transfer of knowledge and sharing of best practices.

In addition to the conference sessions there are a number of activities, including satellite meetings, exhibitions, the Global Village and the Cultural Programme, that are integral to delegates’ experience at the conference.

NO! will be screened on Wednesday, August 6th at 4pm. Although we will not be present, we will certainly be there in spirit and look forward to hearing about the conference from our friends and allies who will be present.  The links between violence against women and the AIDS epidemic are clear.  We hope that the conference continues the work of bringing these links to the forefront of everyone’s attention.

I’m proud to announce NO! will be screened on

*Statement of Black Men Against the Exploitation of Black Women*

Six years have gone by since we first heard the allegations that R. Kelly had filmed himself having sex with an underage girl. During that time we have seen the videotape being hawked on street corners in Black communities, as if the dehumanization of one of our own was not at stake. We have seen entertainers rally around him and watched his career reach new heights despite the grave possibility that he had molested and urinated on a 13-year old girl. We saw African Americans purchase millions of his records despite the long history of such charges swirling around the singer. Worst of all, we have witnessed the sad vision of Black people cheering his acquittal with a fervor usually reserved for community heroes and shaken our heads at the stunning lack of outrage over the verdict in the broader Black community.

Over these years, justice has been delayed and it has been denied. Perhaps a jury can accept R. Kelly’s absurd defense and find “reasonable doubt” despite the fact that the film was shot in his home and featured a man who was identical to him. Perhaps they doubted that the young woman in the courtroom was, in fact, the same person featured in the ten year old video. But there is no doubt about this: some young Black woman was filmed being degraded and exploited by a much older Black man, some daughter of our community was left unprotected, and somewhere another Black woman is being molested, abused or raped and our callous handling of this case will make it that much more difficult for her to come forward and be believed. And each of us is responsible for it.

We have proudly seen the community take to the streets in defense of Black men who have been the victims of police violence or racist attacks, but that righteous outrage only highlights the silence surrounding this verdict.

We believe that our judgment has been clouded by celebrity-worship; we believe that we are a community in crisis and that our addiction to sexism has reached such an extreme that many of us cannot even recognize child molestation when we see it.

We recognize the absolute necessity for Black men to speak in a single, unified voice and state something that should be absolutely obvious: that the women of our community are full human beings, that we cannot and will not tolerate the poisonous hatred of women that has already damaged our families, relationships and culture.

We believe that our daughters are precious and they deserve our protection. We believe that Black men must take responsibility for our contributions to this terrible state of affairs and make an effort to change our lives and our communities.

This is about more than R. Kelly’s claims to innocence. *It is about our survival as a community*. Until we believe that our daughters, sisters, mothers, wives and friends are worthy of justice, until we believe that rape, domestic violence and the casual sexism that permeates our culture are absolutely unacceptable, until we recognize that the first priority of any community is the protection of its young, we will remain in this tragic dead-end.

We ask that you:

o Sign your name if you are a Black male who supports this statement:

http://www.petitiononline.com/rkelly/petition.html

o Forward this statement to your entire network and ask other Black males to sign as well

o Make a personal pledge to never support R. Kelly again in any form or fashion, unless he publicly apologizes for his behavior and gets help for his long-standing sexual conduct, in his private life and in his music

o Make a commitment in your own life to never to hit, beat, molest, rape, or exploit Black females in any way and, if you have, to take ownership for your behavior, seek emotional and spiritual help, and, over time, become a voice against all forms of Black female exploitation

o Challenge other Black males, no matter their age, class or educational background, or status in life, if they engage in behavior and language that is exploitative and or disrespectful to Black females in any way. If you say nothing, you become just as guilty.

o Learn to listen to the voices, concerns, needs, criticisms, and challenges of Black females, because they are our equals, and because in listening we will learn a new and different kind of Black manhood.

We support the work of scholars, activists and organizations that are helping to redefine Black manhood in healthy ways. Additional resources are listed below.

Books:
Who’s Gonna Take the Weight, Kevin Powell
New Black Man, Mark Anthony Neal
Deals with the Devil and Other Reasons to Riot, Pearl Cleage
Traps: African American Men on Gender and Sexuality, Rudolph Byrd and Beverly Guy-Sheftall

Films:
I Am A Man: Black Masculinity in America, by Byron Hurt
Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, by Byron Hurt
NO! The Rape Documentary, by Aishah Shahidah Simmons

Organizations
The 2025 Campaign: www.2025bmb.org
Men Stopping Violence: www.menstoppingviolence.org

NO! The Rape Documentary unveils the reality of rape, other forms of sexual violence, and healing in Black communities. Through the testimonies of the featured women survivors, Violence prevention advocates, theologians, sociologists, historians, anthropologists, and other leading scholars and human rights activists NO! is a rape prevention tool.

“NO! is a MUST SEE for any of us who are concerned about raising happy, healthy Black families and ultimately fucntional Black communities.” — Dr. Denese Shervington

Denese Shervington, M.D., MPH, a Professor of Clinical Psychiatry of Columbia University Medial Center, who divides her time between Columbia’s HIV Center in New York and The Institute for Women and Ethnic Studies, the New Orleans based-non profit organization, which she co-founded in 1990, where she is presently developing a post-Katrina mental health recovery division. Dr. Shervington had the opportunity to view NO! and participate in the dialogue following the screening, at a New Orleans community-based screening, sponsored by the Ashe Cultural Arts Center, during Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

Click here to hear Dr. Denese Shervington’s NO! testimonial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu8NIbhRr2M

Order your organizational or institutional copy of NO! and Breaking Silences today. Click here for more information.

If your insitution or organization is interested in bringing Aishah Shahidah Simmons to present NO! and facilitate dialogue or a workshop around the issues addressed in NO! please click here for more information.

Together we can raise awareness and works towards ending rape, sexual assault and other forms of violence against women and children.

College campus rape survivors share their stories in NO! The Rape Documentary and Breaking Silences: The Supplemental Video to NO!. Both of these works, which compliment each other, feature riveting testimonies of women who experienced rape, other forms of sexual violence, and/or battering in college and university settings both in the United States and on a Study Abroad program. Their testimonies are supported by men and women activists, scholars, theologians, and cultural workers who work towards ending all forms of violence against women.

“This is such a taboo issue to talk about it. Not only for the African-American community, but for White communities, Asian Communities…all communities.” — Tonya Schmidt

Following a screening and discussion, facilitated by Aishah Shahidah Simmons and Monica Dillon, with college administrators and students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Tonya Schmidt from the Office of Dean of Students, said “‘NO!’ was entirely empowering” and she encouraged all college students and any administrators or staff that work with college students to view NO! The Rape Documentary.

Click here to hear Tonya Schmidt’s testimonial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uyk20FpjHDI

Order your institutional copy of NO! and Breaking Silences today. Click here for more information.

If you’re intersted in bringing producer, writer, and director Aishah Shahidah Simmons to present NO! or Breaking Silences and facilitate dialogue or a workshop with the students at your campus or university, please click here.

Together we can raise awareness and works towards ending rape, sexual assault and other forms of violence against women and children.

“Aishah Shahidah Simmons and I met over ten years ago in Washington, DC when she was dating an old friend. We spent a Saturday night with friends dancing at the Hung Jury and talking about our future goals. I remember thinking that she was intensely passionate and I followed her career. I had not seen Aishah since that fun night until I ran into her this past fall when she attended the event to celebrate Katherine Acey’s 20th Anniversary with the Astraea Foundation. I knew that I wanted to talk with Aishah about her work and journey to becoming an award-winning independent documentary filmmaker, television and radio producer, published writer, international lecturer, and activist living in Philadelphia…

What is your passion?

My passion is centralizing the margins of society. Making the invisible, visible. Documenting the lives of women of color globally. I am an activist. The camera lens is my medium to make social change irresistible.

What motivates you to do your work? What do you hope to accomplish by doing this work?

Injustice in the world motivates me. Injustice fuels my passion to make change. Anytime when I feel that I can’t do it, there is an issue that I feel needs to be addressed. An issue very dear to my heart is violence against WOMEN.

I am survivor of violence. It is personal. I know more women here in the United States and abroad who have been impacted by violence than those who have not. Whether it was being the victim of violence or witnessing domestic violence and other forms of violence. It has impacted so many women…

Click here to read the interview in its entirety. http://www.passionlife.net/artmay08.html

Nancy Schwartzman, Independent Filmmaker, 5th Floor Walk Up Films www.nancyschwartzman.com

While NO! predominantly focuese on rape and sexual assault, half of the featured rape survivor stories talk about being physically battered by their perpetrators who were their intimate partners and friends. NO! makes the link between domestic violence and sexual violence.

“I really loved this film!” — Jennifer Young

In her video testimonial, Jennifer Young of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, talks about how “incredibly powerful” NO! was and that (Aishah Shahidah Simmons and Monica Dillon) were “phenomenal” in talking about the intersections of classism, racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of oppression on any college campus or organization in the world. Ms. Young was also deeply impacted by the discussions, in NO!, about the direct ole of religion in violence against women in communities of color and hopes that NO! will provide a space for all women and men to tackle the issues of ending domestic violence, rape and other forms of sexual violence against women.

Click here to hear Jennifer Young’s testimonial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfJkxwinhe0

Order your institutional copy of NO! and Breaking Silences today. Click here for more information.

If you’re intersted in bringing producer, writer, and director Aishah Shahidah Simmons to present NO! and Breaking Silences; and facilitate dialogue or a workshop with the students at your campus or university, please click here.

Together we can raise awareness and works towards ending rape, sexual assault and other forms of violence against women and children.

NO! examines rape and other forms of sexual assault through testimonies, cultural work, activism and scholarship of African-Americans. It is an educational and organizing documentary that is also a very valuable training tool on college and university campuses.

“I thought NO! was a really phenomenal film.” — Laura Klunder

Laura Klunder is Residence Life Coordinator at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She works with 1100 first year students and a core group of 16 third year students/juniors. In her video testimonial, she talks about how NO! will speak to the students with whom she works. She also talks about the importance of students, on a predominantly White university campus, having the opportunity to hear the rape and sexual assault survivor stores of women of Color because it’s both a learning and training tool on how to centralize the margins especially for the anti-sexual violence activists on campus.

Click here to hear Laura Klunder’s testimonial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2poF_Ak_lU

Order your institutional copy of NO! and Breaking Silences today. Click here for more information.

If you’re intersted in bringing producer, writer, and director Aishah Shahidah Simmons to present NO! and facilitate dialogue or a workshop with the students at your campus or university, please click here.

Together we can raise awareness and works towards ending rape, sexual assault and other forms of violence against women and children.

The power of rape survivor testimonials as featured in NO! the Rape Documentary, play a very critical role in both educating and organizing communities around ending violence against women and children. Through nine different rape survivor testimonials ranging from intimate partner to complete stranger, viewers of NO! The Rape Documentary are given the rare opportunity to hear the un-interrogated voices of women rape survivors who broke their silence with the hope that by breaking their silence, more rape survivors will publicly disclose what happened to them.

“EVERY organization that works with young women, works with women’s health, works with community healing, should see NO! [and] use it as a teaching tool and to spark discussion… NO! is the path to healing that we all need.” — Lisa Richardson, Ph.D.,

Lisa Richardson, Ph.D., is the Chief Development Officer of The Institute for Women and Ethnic Studies, a community-based national organization in New Orleans that has been a pioneer in developing innovative information, education, and communication projects and training opportunities to promote sexual and reproductive health awareness and activism for and by women and youth of color.

Click here to hear Lisa Richardson’s testimonial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjRW5wzk0Zc

Order your institutional or organizational copy of NO! and Breaking Silences today. Click here for more information.

If you’re insitution or organization is interested in bringing Aishah Shahidah Simmons to present NO! and facilitate dialogue or a workshop around the issues addressed in NO! please click here for more information.

Together we can end violence against women and children.

Aishah Shahidah Simmons’ NO! forces us to deal with the lasting trauma Black women survivors have to endure, but also forces us to confront our own ambivalence about the rape of Black women as men, and an entire Black community.

This film gives us the language and the context by which we can examine the racism, sexism and homophobia within the Black community, but also helps us see the way Black women have struggled to heal, and what we as allies to Black women can do to end sexual violence in our communities.

NO! is a gift to those of us who who know that there can be no Black liberation where women cannot be self-determining.”

Kenyon Farrow, essayist, organizer, media and communications specialist, and board co-chair for Queers for Economic Justice.

Will us boys ever learn that power
can’t be pulled from the meat of our third leg
like the last taste of malt liquor sucked from the
bottom of a bottle? Will we ever cease to find
our torsos slow-dragging with death, our dance
a series of grenades aimed at the bellies of our
mothers’ daughters? Will us boys ever break ranks
with the devil, his bible telling us it is mad cool
to rape women because the master does it, and
don’t we, too, yearn to be masters? Will we ever
be able to glue back the hair, unswell the eye,
dab away the blood, and stitch up the holes of the women
we have knifed, repeatedly, with our hatred and
fear? Will us boys ever be able to admit that
some of us have become predators, our prey the
neighbor, the girlfriend, the wife, the sister,
the niece, the granddaughter whose life is an
unguarded prison cell loaded with screams,
paranoia, and a body unsure why it now eats itself?

Friday, December 31, 1999

*Kevin Powell is a political activist, poet, journalist, essayist, hiphop historian, public speaker, and entrepreneur. He is running, as a Democrat, for a seat in the United States Congress in the 10th Congressional District here in Brooklyn, New York.

Osizwe Eyi di yiye, M.S. Ed
Educator/ Consultant
African American & Women’s Studies, Temple University

I want to say thank you so much for creating NO!. My life has changed after seeing it along with my commitment to ending violence. I don’t feel like I have the proper tools to really thank you but, I just need you to know that your film was amazing. Having the heart and passion for what you created is inspirational. I will take your message and spread it as far and as much as I can. Thank you. Your Sister, Iris“

Nermin, Albania

Shout Out: Women of Color Respond To Violence
Maria Ochoa & Barbara K. Ige
Seal Press ©2008

“How do so many women survive the violence of their daily lives? Where do they find hope? How can this violence be allowed to continue? Shout Out address these troubling questions and more. This powerful collection provides a range of responses to the injustices that women sustain in their dialy lives through critical examiniations, creative non fiction, visual art, and poetry. Shout Out provides living testimony for the need to put an end to Oppression and violence.”

In January 2008, Seal Press released the powerful anthology Shout Out: Women of Color Respond To Violence. Shout Out doesn’t allow readers to be passive spectators. No, this compelling anthology will take you on a transformational journey that challenges you to be involved in the multi racial, anti colonialist, transnational movements to end all forms of violence perpetuated against women.

Aishah Shahidah Simmons’ choreopoem, “A State of Rage” which was conceived in 1994, in a Toni Cade Bambara scriptwriting workshop at Scribe Video Center, is featured in Shout Out. This choreopoem served as the literal roadmap on my eleven year journey to make my documentary NO!.

As with Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology, Shout Out: Women of Color Respond to Violence, is another ground breaking, riveting, anthology, which creates the critically needed space for women of color activists, cultural workers, scholars, and practitioners, to document the violence we face everyday, while celebrating our resistance, expressed in a myriad of ways, against all of the odds.

Buy your copy today!!!

Beverly McPhail, Ph.D., LMSW, Director, Women’s Resource Center
University of Houston

Savoring the Salt: The Legacy of Toni Cade Bambara
Linda Janet Holmes & Cheryl A. Wall, editors
Temple University Press ©2008

“I was fortunate…blessed to have Toni’s presence in my life at such a critical time in my life. In February 1990, at the very ripe age of 20, I shared my feelings of alienation, and inadequacy at Swarthmore College combined with my frustration with the racist and sexist Eurocentric film department at Temple University– things like watching and critiquing camera techniques, without any social commentary, of films like “Birth of A Nation” and “Imitation of Life with Toni.” After hearing my frustration and disappointment with my undergraduate studies at Temple University, Toni told me to come to a place called Scribe Video Center to take her scriptwriting workshop. I told Toni I didn’t have any additional money to take a scriptwriting workshop. Her response was “I didn’t ask you if you had any money, I told you to come to Scribe Video Center and take my scriptwriting workshop.” Toni’s response forever changed my life…” -Aishah Shahidah Simmons-

From 1990, when I was 21 years old, through 1995, I had the absolute privilege to know and learn from Toni Cade Bambara who was an award-winning author, screenwriter, organizer, activist, teacher. Her “hands on” influence on some of the most prominent writers and filmmakers spans two generations. Personally, were it not for Toni’s profound presence in my life at a critical period in my life, I don’t know if I would be a documentary filmmaker today. I wrote about my herstory with Toni and her pivotal role in my becoming a documentary filmmaker, in my featured essay “Asserting My In(ter)dependence: The Evolution of NO!”

As the editors the timeless and celebratory Savoring the Salt: The Legacy of Toni Cade Bambara, Linda Janet Holmes and Cheryl Wall have done a magnificent job of gathering a chorus of well known and lesser known diverse voices who sing a praise song for Toni Cade Bambara, one of the preeminent cultural workers.

BUY YOUR COPY OF “SAVORING THE SALT” TODAY!!!!

“Brilliance, courage and joy are what I knew of Toni Cade Bambara. Savoring the Salt mirrors her exhilarating intellect and the reach of her incomparable talents. Clearly, in these pages, the impact of her life and work—on family, friends, artists, students, colleagues—is as profound as it is forever”
—Toni Morrison

The extraordinary spirit of Toni Cade Bambara lives on in Savoring the Salt, a vibrant and appreciative recollection of the work and legacy of the multi-talented, African American writer, teacher, filmmaker, and activist. Among the contributors who remember Bambara, reflect on her work, and examine its meaning today are Toni Morrison, Amiri Baraka, Pearl Cleage, Ruby Dee, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Nikki Giovanni, Avery Gordon, Audre Lorde, and Sonia Sanchez.

Admiring readers have kept Bambara’s fiction in print since her first collection of stories, Gorilla, My Love, was published in 1972. She continued to write-and her audience and reputation continued to grow-until her untimely death in 1995. Savoring the Salt includes excerpts from her published and unpublished writings, along with interviews and photos of Bambara. The mix of poets and scholars, novelists and critics, political activists, and filmmakers represented here testifies to the ongoing importance and enduring appeal of her work.

“This is a moving tribute to a seminal figure of American literature whose work continues to resonate.”
—Booklist

“Toni Cade Bambara is one of the great literary figures of the late 20th century. She deserves more serious attention and sustained scrutiny. This magnificent volume is a first step toward this necessary effort!”— Cornel West
“Toni Cade Bambara was a genius of language, an artist of connectedness, a lucid, inspired artisan of human freedom. This collection in many voices, hers threaded throughout, is a gift to her memory, a continuing rediscovery of her visionary work, and an important historical document.”
— Adrienne Rich

“Nikki Giovanni, Amiri Baraka, Pearl Cleage and other African American luminaries remember the late writer and activist [Toni Cade Bambara]. What emerges is a portrait of a brilliant wordsmith and tireless revolutionary who 10 years after her death, is missed, says Cleage, ‘each and every day.’”
— “Ms.” Magazine

“The breadth of outstanding contributors to this collection is evidence of Toni Cade Bambara’s enormous influence on writers, filmmakers, scholars, and community activists. Bambara’s artistry, insight, and lived example create a directive for 21st century artists: Tap into the genius within, stay rooted in local communities, and use culture as a tool for progressive social change.”
— Louis Massiah

BUY YOUR COPY OF “SAVORING THE SALT” TODAY!!!!

About the Author(s)

Linda Janet Holmes is a writer, independent scholar, and activist. She is also co-author of Listen To Me Good: The Story of An Alabama Midwife.

Cheryl A. Wall is Professor of English at Rutgers University, and the author of Worrying the Line: Black Women Writers, Lineage, and Literary Tradition, and Women of the Harlem Renaissance. She is the editor of Zora Neale Hurston: Folklore, Memoirs, and Other Writings and Changing Our Own Words: Essays on Criticism, Theory, and Writing by Black Women.

Panelists:
Naomi Klein – Author, Shock Doctrine
Ursula Price – Organizer, Safe Streets Strong Communities (New Orleans)
Monique Harden – Director, Advocates for Environmental Human Rights (New Orleans)
Suha Dabousseh – Organizer, US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation
Aishah Shahidah Simmons – Filmmaker: NO! The Rape Documentary
Moderator: Aletha Strong – American Friends Service Committee

BIOS:
Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist, syndicated columnist and author of the international and New York Times bestseller The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Published worldwide in September 2007, The Shock Doctrine is slated to be translated into seventeen languages to date. The six-minute companion film, created by Alfonso Cuaron, director of Children of Men, was an Official Selection of the 2007 Venice and Toronto International Film Festivals and a viral phenomenon as well, downloaded over one million times. Klein’s previous book No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies was also an international bestseller, translated into more than twenty-eight languages, with over a million copies in print. A collection of her work, Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate, was published in 2002. Klein’s regular column for The Nation and The Guardian is distributed internationally by The New York Times Syndicate. In 2004 her reporting from Iraq for Harper’s Magazine won the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism. The same year, she released a feature documentary about Argentina’s occupied factories, The Take, co-produced with director Avi Lewis. The film was an official selection of the Venice Biennale and won the best documentary jury prize at the American Film Institute’s Film Festival in Los Angeles. Klein is a former Miliband Fellow at the London School of Economics and holds an honorary Doctor of Civil Laws from the University of King’s College, Nova Scotia.

Monique Harden has provided legal counsel and advocacy support that have helped community organizations win important environmental justice victories. In 2003, Ms. Harden, along with Nathalie Walker, co-founded Advocates for Environmental Human Rights. Ms. Harden is a graduate of The University of Texas School of Law (1995), and received a B.A. from St. John’s College (1990). Ms. Harden has authored and co-authored numerous reports and papers on environmental justice and human rights issues. Her advocacy work has been featured in television, radio and print news, as well as books, magazines, and documentaries.

Ursula Price is Outreach & Investigations Coordinator for Safe Streets/Strong Communities, a community-based organization that campaigns for a new criminal justice system in New Orleans, one that creates safe streets and strong communities for everyone, regardless of race or economic status.

Suha Dabbouseh is a Palestinian American social justice activist for the last 10 years in human rights, including six with Amnesty International USA’s Southern Region as a Field Organizer and Acting Deputy Director for two regional field offices. Suha served at the lead organizer in developing events and campaigns on human rights issues such as racial/ethnic profiling, violence against women, police brutality and “war on terror”, and is currently the National Organizer for the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.

Aishah Shahidah Simmons is an award-winning African-American feminist lesbian independent documentary filmmaker, television and radio producer, published writer, international lecturer, and activist based in Philadelphia, PA. An incest and rape survivor, she spent eleven years, seven of which were full time, to produce write, and direct NO! The Rape Documentary. This groundbreaking documentary explores the international reality of rape and other forms of sexual assault through the first person testimonies, scholarship, spirituality, activism and cultural work of African-Americans.

The New Orleans International Human Rights Film Festival: Twelve days, more than fifty films, more than thirty filmmakers, performers, organizers, and other guests. For more information, see www.nolahumanrights.org.

By Salamishah Tillet | TheRoot.com

http://www.theroot.com/id/45742 

April 10, 2008 — Given the staggeringly high incidence of sexual violence in black communities it is fair to ask why this problem has not risen to the level of a crisis in the public consciousness

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Perhaps one of the truest and most tragic lines in American film is spoken by the character Yellow Mary in Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust(1991) when she sadly declares that “the rape of the colored woman is as common as fish in the sea.” As a rape survivor, I speak on behalf of the 1 in 4 women who will experience sexual assault in her lifetime.

Moreover, since April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, I hope to bring awareness to the fact that even though African-American women make up about 7% of the U.S. population, we currently constitute 18.8% to 28% of the reported sexual assault victims. These women are ,and have always been, our grandmothers,our daughters, our partners. And our friends.

Given the staggering statistics, I cannot help but wonder why this pandemic does not constitute a crisis within both African-American communities and the larger American body politic. African-American women have consistently spoken out against social ills such as the War in Iraq and racial injustices experienced by black men — from lynching to police brutality to racial profiling.

And yet, they have had to confront their own experiences with race and gender-related sexual violence without the support of many African-American leaders. Today, most rapes are intra-racial. The vast majority of rape victims, almost ninety-percent, report that a member of their same racial or ethnic group sexually assaulted them.

Unfortunately, because many African-American female rape victims do not want to perpetuate racial stereotypes about the black male rapist (created and used by white mobs to justify the lynching of economically and politically mobile black men) and the black male criminal (now used to maintain racial disparities in the criminal justice system), they often do not press charges against their assailants because they fear further criminalizing African-American men.

Like most rape victims, many African-American women understand that public disbelief, sexual double standards, and sexist stereotypes such as the “gold-digger” will greet their accusations of rape. But even more egregiously, African-American women know that they risk being labeled a race traitor by some who view their actions as airing “dirty laundry.”

And yet, there is a long tradition of African-American women speaking out about sexual violence, and mixing their anti-rape discourse with anti-racist activism. In 1866, a group of African-American women testified before Congress about white mobs who sexually assaulted them during the infamous Memphis race riots. Following suit, African-American activist and journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnett continually linked her anti-lynching crusade with her clarion call to end sexual violence.

Today, we can turn to African-American women novelists such as Alice Walker and Toni Morrison, entertainers such as Oprah Winfrey and Gabrielle Union, writers such as Charlotte Pierce-Baker’s Surviving the Silence(2000) and Lori Robinson’s I Will Survive (2003) to locate models of anti-rape activism.

We should look at filmmaker Aishah Shahidah Simmons’s groundbreaking film NO! The Rape Documentary which details the history of African-American women and sexual violence and watch photographer Scheherazade Tillet’s [Full disclosure: She's my sister] multimedia performance SOARS (Story of A Rape Survivor) which brilliantly uses the visual and performing arts to document the journey of recovering from and healing after rape.

In order to end the sexual violence experienced by African-American women, we need to recognize sexual abuse as one of the most important issues facing black America today. We need to encourage and include the voices of African-American women in mainstream activism against rape. And we need ensure that our demands for political and racial justice include calls for an end to sexism, sexual violence and homophobia. Until we begin supporting and believing African-American rape victims, we will always be engaged in a half-hearted fight for racial equality.

Salamishah Tillet is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania and co-founder of the non-profit organization, A Long Walk Home, Inc., which uses art therapy and the visual and performing arts to document and to end violence against underserved women and children.

By Melissa Harris-Lacewell | TheRoot.com

http://www.theroot.com/id/45744

April 10, 2008 — Remixing the racial rule of silence.

I witnessed something truly astonishing on Monday night: a public discussion of black women’s experiences of sexual violence at the hands of black men. It was an intergenerational group of black men and women, gay and straight, survivors and perpetrators, all grappling with the legacy of rape and race.

The experience was unusual because black people rarely talk about sisters being raped. We talk about all kinds of things: trivial, critical, humorous, serious, political, painful and frivolous. But as we observe Sexual Assault Awareness Month in April, I am reminded that there are things we don’t talk about.

We are silent about black women as victims and survivors of sexual assault by black men.

In African American communities rape narratives are not women’s stories. They are men’s stories. Rape is tied to the historical legacy of white terror. Strange fruit hanging from Southern trees has led to a legacy of disbelieving women who report sexual violence and intimidation.

Black women raped by black male perpetrators often remain silent because they are alone. They don’t want to confirm white racial stereotypes; their own families and communities tell them to shut up; they have little reason to think that authorities will take their cases seriously; they fear the devastating ramifications of a manhunt in black communities if they are believed; and in the history of lynching white women have been adversaries, not allies, on the question of rape.

Recovering from rape is burden enough without having to shoulder this vicious legacy.

I do not want to diminish or deny the pain, agony, recovery and triumph of survivors who are not black women. I do not want to claim that all black women survivors have parallel experiences or that all black women experience the same traumas in the aftermath of rape. I only want to claim there is often a different dynamic that operates for black women who have been violated by black men.

As a sexual assault survivor and advocate I know the debilitating effects of silence. That is why I was so moved by Monday night’s gathering in Brown Memorial Baptist Church in Brooklyn, NY. Together we watched Aishah Shahidah Simmons’ NO! The Rape Documentary. Then Simmons, who is herself a rape and incest survivor, talked with us and answered questions to help us process the grief, anger and confusion that her exquisite film provoked.

But here was the most surprising part of all: the gathering was organized by a community group called Black and Male in America. Under the leadership of writer, activist and Congressional candidate Kevin Powell, this group of men arranged a screening of Simmons’ powerful film. Let me say this again. A group of black men arranged for an honest, difficult, intense, public discussion of intra-racial rape.

Filmmaker Aishah Shahidah Simmons revealed that it has been difficult to find wide distribution for her film because so few people want to grapple with black women’s sexual victimization. Simmons was joined on the panel by Kevin Powell and Quentin Walcott from ConnectNYC. Sitting next to these men, Simmons acknowledged that brothers from the hip-hop generation, a generation that has been critiqued as universally commercial and misogynist, have been among her strongest supporters.

Simmons said, “It’s also very important for me to note that this and many other community-based screenings that have been organized by Black men are men from the hip-hop generation. I share this because there are many justifiable critiques of hip-hop. However, hands down, the overwhelming majority of the men who have supported NO! and spread the word about NO! are from the hip-hop generation.”

Organizer Kevin Powell is certainly a central figure of the hip-hop generation. As a first season Real World cast member, Powell helped usher in the age of reality TV. As a writer and poet he has reflected on and critiqued hip-hop. Powell also has his own difficult past as a perpetrator of domestic violence. But rather than being silent and demanding silence from others, Powell has written movingly about his own awakening from violence. On Monday night he and other men of this Brooklyn organization helped provide space for sexual assault survivors to speak and be heard.

We are right to focus on and criticize the elements of hip-hop that are complicit in the violence, abuse and degradation of black women. But we are also compelled to acknowledge the possibility that some men of the hip-hop generation just might have something to teach their elders about passing the mic and being quiet while sisters share their stories. Maybe, just maybe, this generation of men will create a different path.

Reflecting on what this new path might look like Powell said, “What we’ve found in our work with black males is that many of us brothers are completely clueless about what manhood should be. So we swallow whole what society, our communities, our families, our fathers, and, yes, our mothers, tell us it is, even if that definition leads us to hurt or destroy black females or other black males. Or ourselves. There is a growing recognition, now, among many hip-hop generation black women thinkers, leaders, and artists, and a growing number of us black male counterparts, that if we do not deal with the multiple insanities we as a community have internalized, then we are doomed as a community. It is really that serious.”

Monday night’s event helped us to remember that rape is complicated by race. For many black women there is a sense of betrayal that exists alongside the personal humiliation, pain and fear. Intra-racial rape can feel like a rift between a woman and her people. The survivor is cast into silence not so much a by a desire to protect those men who perpetrated, but to protect the black men in her life who she loves, respects and trusts. As Simmons’ NO! reminds us, survivors often feel that by fingering the attacker we might somehow accuse our own fathers, husbands, friends and sons of possessing this same capacity for violence.

So it makes a huge difference for black men to stand with us and encourage us to tell. The Brooklyn gathering was a model of how black men can help create safe spaces for us. It was a reminder that men can exert power and reclaim manhood by standing with black women, bearing witness to our stories and holding one another accountable. It was a testament to the reality that men can stop rape by saying NO!

Melissa Harris-Lacewell is associate professor of politics and African American studies at Princeton University.

Violence Against Women Documentary Featured on Joy of Resistance Program on WBAI Pacifica Radio Network | Women’s History Month

On Thursday, March 27, 2008, NO! The Rape Documentary and Aishah Shahidah Simmons were featured guests on Joy of Resistance Multi-Cultural Feminist Radio, WBAI Pacifica Radio Network in New York, with co-hosts Fran Luck and NOW-NJ President, Maretta Short, to raise awareness about rape, other forms of sexual violence, healing and feminist activism during Women’s History Month. Monica Dillon’s powerful song “No,” which is a call to action to end violence against women is featured throughout the program. Please download the audio or listen to it, here on the blog.

length – 61 min

right click to download here

On Thrusday, April 10, 2008 at 7pm, The Women’s Resource Center at the University of Houston will host a screening and discussion of the award-winning, feature length documentary NO!, which is about rape, other forms of violence against women, and healing. Producer, writer, and director Aishah Shahidah Simmons will introduce the documentary and facilitate a question and answer session immediately following the screening.

Free Admission and Parking in Lots 20A and 20C.

Directions: From I-45 take Spur 5 and take a right at the first light, which is University Drive. Free parking is on the right in Parking Lots 20A and 20C. You must then walk across Calhoun Street and straight down University Drive, which dead ends into the Cullen Performance Hall. If you wish to park closer, paid parking is available at either the Welcome Center at the corner of University and Calhoun or in the underground parking under the Hilton hotel. For futher directions, click here.

Click here for a campus map.

This event is generously underwritten by the Tenneco Lecture Series.

For more information, please visit http://www.uh.edu/wrc/Nodocumentary.html. Alternatively, you may call the University of Houston’s Women’s Resource Center at 713.743.5888; or the Sanfoka Pan Afrikan Student Organization at 832.894.5015.

Sexual Assault Documentary Featured On WBAI, New York

On Monday, April 7, 2008 Aishah Shahidah Simmons and Kevin Powell were featured guests Wake Up Call with host Esther Armah on WBAI, 99.5 in New York to promote the screening of NO! at Browne Memorial Baptist Church. It was a wonderful turn-out and an amazingly intense evening. There will be additional posts about that powerful event soon. Please download the audio or listen to it, here on the blog.

length – 37 min

right click to download here

Sometime last fall Michael Simmons, my father and comrade in the international struggles to end violence against women, called me to share his passionate rage about all of the positive hype around Diablo Cody’s, (the very talented Academy Award® Winning screenwriter of the film Juno, directed by Jason Reitman) herstory as a stripper to support herself while writing screenplays. Media outlets, from National Public Radio to Entertainment Tonight, raved about “the stripper turned Hollywood screenwriter.”

Before my feminist sisters get upset, I want to be clear that Michael’s (and my) passionate rage isn’t about Sister Diablo Cody. This is not an anti-sex worker piece/peace. While I, as a Black feminist lesbian, critique a patriarchal, sexist, and misogynist world where sex work is, for countless women in the world, the only viable option to make a living, I do not and will not ever critique women for “choosing” sex work to financially support themselves.

I do, however, critique, the media, including many progressive and even some White feminist outlets, who celebrate Sister Diablo’s decision to work as a stripper to support herself while writing screenplays but castigated, maligned, and marginalized my Black Sister Survivor who was hired by members of the Duke University Lacrosse Team to perform for them. Yes, I know that had she not accused those innocent White men of sexually assaulting her, we probably wouldn’t even know she existed. However, since she did accuse them of sexually assaulting her, the media presented her as another Black woman stripper/whore who was a liar. In fact, in her very specific instance, stripping was frowned upon and demonized as a viable option for her to earn a living to support herself and her two children while she was an undergraduate student at North Carolina Central University.

When it comes to rape, sexual assault and other forms of violence against women, sex workers are some of the most vulnerable employees. This sobering reality transcends the race, class, and national origin of all sex workers.

I know that Sister Diablo hasn’t publicly accused anyone of sexually assaulting her and very hopefully she isn’t one of the three women in the world who has experienced some form of sexual assault on her journey called life. So, I’m definitely not implying that her situation is the same situation as with my Black Sister Survivor in North Carolina.

I do, however, question and challenge the media’s sexist (and I would argue racist and classist) grotesque duplicity when it comes to their deciding which women should be celebrated for making “a smart decision” to strip to support themselves; and which women should be punished for making “a dumb decision” to strip to support themselves.

It’s also very important to note, that the media’s celebratory attitude towards Sister Diablo stripping is not unlike their celebratory attitude towards White middle and upper class single women who decide to have children without getting married or having a male partner, which is often viewed and presented as a chic/hip feminist statement. While on the other hand, poor African-American single women who decide to have children without being married or having a male partner are viewed and presented, by the media, as pathological…

But, that’s another piece/peace for another day.

Aishah Shahidah Simmons is the producer, writer, and director of the internationally acclaimed feature-length documentary NO!, which explores the international reality of rape and sexual assault through the first person testimonies, scholarship, spirituality, and activism of African-Americans. This award-winning documentary also explores how rape is used as a weapon of homophobia. During April, which is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, she is traveling with NO! to continue to raise awareness about all forms of violence against women. Please visit www.NOtheRapeDocumentary.org and www.AfroLezProductions.com for detailed information about her schedule.

From April 15, 2008 through April 17, 2008, Aishah Shahidah Simmons and Monica Dillon will be featured guest lecturers, workshop facilitators, and performers at University of Wisconsin – Madison as a part of their Sexual Assault Awareness Month programming. In addition to screening NO! The Rape Documentary and meeting with studens and faculty, they will perform “For Women and Men of Rage & Reason, a cinematic, poetic and musical journey from victim to survivor and activist in the international movements to end violence against women.

An extra highlight to this experience is that Tiona M., the fierce producer, director, photographer, and editor of the ground breaking documentary black./womyn.:conversations… will document Monica and Aishah’s performances and presentations. Tiona will also screen the black./womyn.:conversations trailer, which features the voices of over 50 lesbians of African descent, including Monica and Aishah, and talk about the process of making this important film.

Aishah and Monica are so very excited to be performing and presenting with other again. Each time they present and share together with students and faculty they learn more and more about each other as cultural workers, eradicating violence against women, and of course, what’s on the mind of students right now.

For detailed information about the two major events that are open to the public on Wednesday, April 16, 2008 and Thursday, April 17, 2008, please visit http://www.today.wisc.edu/events/view/3933 and http://www.today.wisc.edu/events/view/3183

“As a survivor of rape myself I found [NO!] to be very powerful and thought provoking. I am truly blessed to have been able to see a screening of this film and meet the wonderful woman that made this film possible.”
Rebecca Spellmeyer, Ms. Heartland US

Aishah Shahidah Simmons, an incest and rape survivor who is the producer, writer, and director of NO!, along with New Orleans-based mental health care professionals, will be present to facilitate the creation of a safe environment for the discussion immediately following the screening.

Copies of NO! and her supplemental materials (Breaking Silences, and Unveiling the Silence) will be on sale at the screening and discussion.

and Discussion about

NO!

a documentary about rape, sexual assault,
and violence against women and girls

www.NOtheRapeDocumentary.org

featuring

AISHAH SHAHIDAH SIMMONS
Writer, Director, and Producer of the award-winning film NO!

QUENTIN WALCOTT
Anti-violence activist; Director, CONNECT Training Institute (CTI)
and the Community Empowerment Program

KEVIN POWELL
Writer, Activist, and Author of the essay
“Ending Violence Against Women and Girls”
(visit www.huffingtonpost.com to read the essay)

plus a special creative piece by
TOYIA TAYLOR
Poet and Community Activist

MONDAY, APRIL 7, 2008

Doors open at 6:30 pm

program begins at 7:00 pm

at BROWN MEMORIAL BAPTIST CHURCH
(Pastor: Rev. Clinton Miller)

484 Washington Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11238
(at the corner of Gates Ave. | Fort Greene, Brooklyn, NY)
A or C to Clinton/Washington stop

Admission is FREE, no RSVP needed.
Seating will be on a first-come basis.

This program is open to females AND males of all ages.
Counselors will be on site to field questions from rape,
sexual assault, and domestic violence survivors.

Copies of the NO! DVD will be ON SALE.

PLEASE BRING a PEN and NOTEPAD
and PLEASE COME PREPARED
TO WORK, LEARN, AND SHARE…

For more information call 718.390.3520 OR
email us contact@blackandmaleinamerica.org

Visit us on the web at www.blackandmaleinamerica.org

PLEASE NOTE THAT BAMIA’s regular monthly empowerment workshops are for MALES ONLY. We will return to that format
on Monday, May 5, 2008 at 7pm (same locatoin).

The workshop leader will be KENDRICK B. NATHANIEL.
Topic: “Taking Care of Your Physical Health”

Vanessa L. Malcarne, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Psychology,
San Diego State University
Organizer of the Association for Women in Psychology’s Film Festival for 2008

©2004, Susan J. Ross, photographer

“I start with the recognition that we are at war, and that war is not simply a hot debate between the capitalist camp and the socialist camp over which economic/political /social arrangement will have hegemony in the world. It’s not just the battle over turf and who has the right to utilize resources for whomsoever’s benefit. The war is also being fought over the truth: What is the truth about human nature, about the human potential? My responsibility to myself, my neighbors, my family and the human family is to try to tell the truth. That ain’t easy…We have rarely been encouraged and equipped to appreciate the fact that the truth works and it releases the Spirit and that it is a joyous thing. We live in a part of the world, for example, that equates criticism with assault, that equates social responsibility with naive idealism, that defines the unrelenting pursuit of knowledge and wisdom as fanaticism…“-Toni Cade Bambara-

During the week of March 24, 2008, there will be two major celebrations of the life and legacy of Toni Cade Bambara, internationally acclaimed, award-winning Black feminist mother, author, teacher, organizer, activist, filmmaker, cultural worker.

The first event will be held at the Brecht Forum, in New York City, on Tuesday, March 25, 2008, which is the 69th anniversary of her birth. Linda Janet Holmes and Cheryl A. Wall, editors of Savoring the Salt: The Legacy of Toni Cade Bambara, along with sister contributors Salamishah Tillet, Aishah Shahidah Simmons, and others who have had the opportunity to know Toni personally and/or through her work will read from and sign Savoring the Salt, which is a praisesong to one of the ultimate cultural workers who walked the talk of using one’s work to make (radically progressive, left of center) revolution irresistible.

This celebratory event will be held at 7:30pm. The Brecht Forum is located at 451 West Street (between Bank & Bethune Streets), New York, NY 10014. Their phone number is (212) 242-4201. For more information, please visit http://www.brechtforum.org/node/1514?bc=

“I was fortunate…blessed to have Toni’s presence in my life at such a critical time in my life. In February 1990, at the very ripe age of 20, I shared my feelings of alienation, and inadequacy at Swarthmore College combined with my frustration with the racist and sexist Eurocentric film department at Temple University– things like watching and critiquing camera techniques, without any social commentary, of films like “Birth of A Nation” and “Imitation of Life with Toni.” After hearing my frustration and disappointment with my undergraduate studies at Temple University, Toni told me to come to a place called Scribe Video Center to take her scriptwriting workshop. I told Toni I didn’t have any additional money to take a scriptwriting workshop. Her response was “I didn’t ask you if you had any money, I told you to come to Scribe Video Center and take my scriptwriting workshop.” Toni’s response forever changed my life…” -Aishah Shahidah Simmons-

Toni Cade Bambara Scholar-Activism Conference, Spelman College, 3.28- 3.29.08

©2004, Susan J. Ross, Photographer

“The second opportunity to celebrate Toni Cade Bambara’s life and legacy will be at Spelman College in Atlanta, GA where they will host the 8th annual Toni Cade Bambara Scholar-Activism Conference. The theme of this year’s conference is “Black Feminisms on Fire!!!” Pre conference activities begin on Thursday, March 28th at 11am. On Friday, March 29, 2008 at 6pm, there will be a Savoring the Salt reception, book reading and signing with editors Linda Janet Holmes, Cheryl A. Wall and contributors Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Rudolph Byrd, Sue Ross, Valerie Boyd, and Aishah Shahidah Simmons. On Saturday, March 30, 2008 there will be a morning plenary on Toni Cade Bambara followed by workshops on a myriad of topics including: reproductive rights and women’s health; images of women in the media and popular culture; black feminisms; women’s art and creativity; women’s global & transnational activism; gendered economics and other topics that inform our internal and external world

Co-founded by Dr. Bahati M. Kuumba, associate director of the Spelman College’s Womens Resource and Research Center, this conference is the culminating activity of the Toni Cade Bambara Writer/Scholar/Activist Program and Collective which sponsors an annual lecture and workshop series; a student collective; and an annual newsletter, Sisters of the Word.

For detailed information on this conference, please visit http://www.museum.spelman.edu/about_us/distinction/womenscenter/tonicadebambara.shtml

The two photographs of Toni Cade Bambara

NO! The Rape Documentary will have her Turkish premiere at the 6th International Filmmor Women’s Film Festival on Wheels. Featuring 46 films from 13 countries, The festival’s theme this year is “Women’s History: Obedience, Rebellion, Feminism.”

The festival will be held in Istanbul from the 14th through the 22nd of March. Afterwards, the festival will travel to 28th-29th of March at Eski?ehir, 4th-5th of April at Tunceli and 11th-12th of April at Van, after Istanbul, making the festival more accessible to audiences in Turkey.

Read a March 15, 2008, article, in the Turkish newspaper “Today’s Zaman” about the festival, which features a photograph of Aishah Shahidah Simmons and mentions NO! along with several other featured feminist films and documentaries from around the world.
Click here to read the article online.
Click here to download a pdf of the article.

In their ongoing commitment to bring atention to the unique needs of children and youth who have experienced domestic violence, the Florda Caolition Against Domestic Violence (FCADV) will host their “2008 Children and Youth Institute” from March 27-28, 2008, at the Regal Sun Resort in Orlando, Florida. The theme for this year’s Institute is “Imagine, Impact, Involve, Teaching Our Children Well.”

On Thursday, March 27, Aishah Shahidah Simmons will deliver the morning keynote titled “From Victim to Survivor to International Activist.” She will host the discussion following an evening screening of NO! on that same day.

On Friday, March 28, The Youth and Adult Researchers of the Youth Researchers Program, Caminar Latino Inc. will present the results of the research study they have conducted using participatory action research strategies, during their morning keynote titled “Por qué?: Latino Youth as Researchers of Domestic Violence”

Immediately following the morning keynote on March 28, Aishah will facilitate one of the morning workshops titled “Breaking Silences: Using Film/Video to Initiate Dialogues about Sexual and Domestic Violence With Youth.”

For detailed information, including a full listing of all of the workshops, please download this pdf.

Almost since the conception of the idea for the documentary that has evolved into NO!, I’ve been on the international road raising awareness about rape and sexual assault; and the critical non-negotiable need to end it.

In June 1995, my sister-survivor-comrade Janelle White, who was a graduate student at the time, brought me to University of Michigan for my very first paid NO! speaking engagement. At that time, I hardly had any footage. What I had was a vision and a commitment, as a survivor of incest and rape, to use the moving image to address a global atrocity, through the herstories, testimonies, scholarship, activism, poetry, music, and dance of predominantly African-American women.

Little did I know that my vision and commitment would be tested over and over and over again on multiple seen and unseen levels. Nor did I know that it would take a full 11-years before my vision would wo/manifest.

The funds received from that first paid engagement enabled me to film Essex Hemphill perform his very powerful and (unfortunately) timeless poem “To Some Supposed Brothers,”which is featured in his book ground breaking book of poetry and prose Ceremonies. Five months later, Brother Essex made his physical transition into the metaphysical world due to complications resulting from AIDS. Brother Essex transitioned eleven years before NO! was officially released. And yet through the power of film/video, Essex lives on, not only in NO! but through cinematic masterpieces produced and directed by (the late) Marlon Riggs, Isaac Julien, and Shari Frilot.

Almost 13-years later, I came full circle when I returned to the University of Michigan in January 2008 to screen my completed, award-winning, internationally acclaimed documentary NO!. My return to the University of Michigan began in June 2007 with my meeting Erika McCollum and Puneet Sohdi two fierce feminist activists in the anti-sexual violence movement, who are undergraduate students at the University of Michigan, at the very radical and not to be missed Allied Media Conference. When I met them, they were in organizing and strategizing mode about bringing me and NO! to the University of Michigan. Through Erika and Puneet, I met Alexis M. Watts who, on behalf of Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center, worked tirelessly in collaboration with many of her anti-sexual violence activists/comrades to bring me to University of Michigan.

The travesty about coming full circle with NO! is that it is as relevant and critically needed as a completed feature length documentary in 2008, as it was when it was when it was barely a work-in-progress in 2005. The flip side of this sobering reality is that there are more and more survivors, activists, and/or advocates of all ages, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations who are working tirelessly to end all forms of sexual violence.

On February 7, 2008, there was an almost standing room only screening NO! The Rape Documentary at the Brecht Forum. Immediately following the screening there was a very lively panel discussion with Ejeris Dixon, the Program Coordinator of the Safe OUTside the System Collective, Ebony Noelle Golden, poet and organizer, who is a founding member of UBUNTU and other groups in the Durham area after the Duke lacrosse case, and Michael Simmons, who is an international human rights activist and a featured interviewee in NO!. Unfortunately, due to illness, Salamishah Tillet, who was scheduled to moderate the discussion, wasn’t able to participate in the conversation.

One of the people who attended is a member of an organization called “SAFER (Students Active for Ending Rape)“, an advocacy group in the US which works to improve universities’ response to sexual assaults in the campus environment. After attending the event, she wrote two reaction pieces on the SAFER organization’s blog, which you can read by clicking the following two links.
NO! A Documentary about Rape
NO! Part 2

After a long hiatus of screenings, book signings, and lectures, the Raday Salon kicks off its 2008 season with a screening of NO! The Rape Documentary to commemorate Women’s History Month. This is not the first time that Raday Salon has hosted screenings and discussions of NO! The Rape Documentary both as a rough cut and now as a completed documentary to standing room only audiences. However given the horrific and unfortuante global manifestation of sexual violence, combined with requests from people who have not had the opportunity to view the documentary, Linda Carranza and Michael Simmons, the Salon’s co-founders, are hosting an encore screening.

“...We have developed many new ties with folks who are new to Budapest or just new to our Salon, who have expressed an interest in seeing the film. We would be happy to see both old and new Salon friends at this showing, especially as the discussion is always different and brings up new observations every time we show the film…” will be an encore screening and discussion of NO! The Rape Documentary.” — Linda Carranza & Michael Simmons

Aishah Shahidah Simmons will not be present at the screening. However, Michael Simmons, who has definitely screened NO!, more than Aishah, throughout Europe and the Middle East, will both host the screening and facilitate the dialogue following the screening.

For more information about the screening and equally as important for upcoming events at Raday Salon, please visit their site (http://raday.blogs.com).

“Our Salon is dedicated to the proposition that all people are fascinating individuals, and everybody has a story to tell.” — Linda Carranza & Michael Simmons, Co-Founders, Raday Salon

If you ever find yourself in Budapest, Hungary, definitely get in touch with both Linda and Michael. They definitely walk their talk.

“[Aishah Shahidah Simmons'] political and artistic approach which questions at the same time the oppression of race, sex, gender, and class seems relevant to make visible, at all levels and mainly in the African American community, the violence against [Black] women, lesbians, and girls.”
Amnesty International, French Section

“I’m moved by the healing messages NO! provides African American women who have been affected; the information it provides African American men about the impact of such experiences for our sisters, mothers, partners and friends; and the consciousness raising it offers the entire African American community around this issue.”
Oliver J. Williams, Ph.D., Founding Director,
Institute on Domestic Violence in the African American Community

“In the spring of 2006 the National Sexual Violence Resource Center selected Aishah Shahidah Simmons, documentary producer, as the 2006 National Sexual Assault Awareness Month award-winner in the category of media & communications. Shortly thereafter I had the privilege of seeing her and her documentary NO! in Philadelphia. As part of that viewing, the audience participated in an enthusiastic community discussion about the impact of rape and ways we can all work together to prevent it. This well-done documentary had a powerful impact on all who were present, and the post-viewing community discussion was so inspiring that the NSVRC designated showings of NO! in community settings as the Featured Event for its 2007 national Sexual Assault Awareness Month campaign.”
Karen Baker, LMSW, Director, National Sexual Violence Resource Center

*** The National Sexual Violence Center is the comprehensive collection and distribution center for information, research and emerging policy on sexual violence intervention and prevention in the United States.