Written by: Ajeé Buggam

The Narratives Society Painted

Hypersexual. Unrapable. Promiscuous. These are only a handful of tropes that have been placed on Black women since slavery. Slave owners painted the image of Black women being more lust-driven and willingly open for their sexual pleasure. In 1944, Recy Taylor was kidnapped and raped at gunpoint by six white men while walking home from church. Her case was thrown out within five minutes on trial despite physical evidence and witnesses seeing her being kidnapped. Unfortunately, Taylor’s story is one of thousands of Black women’s stories regarding sexual assault or harassment. There’s Desiree Washington, Anita Hill, and countless others. For every 15 Black women who are sexually assaulted, only one reports her rape. Studies show that Black women who report sexual assault or violent crimes are less likely to be believed than white women. But what about the ones who choose to share their story despite these harrowing facts?

Writing Our Way to Healing

British screenwriter, director, actress, producer, and poet Michaela Coel created the HBO series, I May Destroy You, a fictional version of Coel’s own experience of being sexually assaulted while writing her Netflix show, Chewing Gum. Coel took a break from writing the show to meet her friend at a bar and the next thing she recalls is having a drink, blacking out, going back to work, and not realizing why her phone was damaged. Michaela wasn’t able to connect the dots exactly, and the main character, Arabella “Bella,” in I May Destroy You, tried to retrace her steps that night — Uber rides, bank statements, calling friends for information, and going to the police to have her DNA swabbed. Coel wanted to create a series about her own experience, but as she began to hear similar stories from other people, she began thinking of a broader narrative.

“I realized that many people had some sort of experience that was connected to mine,” she says. “There were so many different ways to explore consent and how it affects us today. What better place for a story than one that I felt many people could find an identification in?”

Michaela Coel in I May Destroy You (HBO)

I May Destroy You was raw, taking the audience through a roller coaster of emotions. Michaela will make you laugh, cry, and critically think about the emotional and psychological pain survivors of sexual assault and rape experience. As a writer, Bella is robbed of her integrity in one night. The story amplifies the journey of a survivor of rape — post-traumatic stress disorder, guilt and self-blame, one-on-one talk therapy, group therapy, self-medicating with drugs and alcohol, and struggling to concentrate on other life areas like relationships with friends and family. Bella is struggling to write her second book and loses her contract with the publishing company, but ultimately self-publishes a book based on her rape. One of the most interesting parts of the series is the end after Bella has done so much work to try to find the man who drugged and raped her. In the last episode, we’re taken through several scenarios where Bella imagines how she’d get justice, but in the end, Bella publishes her novel and Coel leaves the audience to make up their own justification of accountability. It’s unnerving, but it seems like Bella is most proud of helping other women who had similar experiences and focusing on healing. In the end, Bella gets to take full control and ownership of her narrative and her healing moving forward — a reflection of Michaela Coel’s experience.

After the second season of Chewing Gum, Coel was unable to gain production credentials for her show, asking for 5% ownership, and Netflix denied her. Furthermore, she asked for .05% of the copyright and a Netflix executive told her she would “run it up the chain.” However, the tables turned in 2017 when Michaela denied a $1 million offer from Netflix for I May Destroy You. Instead, she pitched the idea to BBC, requesting she wanted full control and ownership of her show, and HBO ultimately co-produced it.

Going On the Record About Black Women Survivors

Similarly, the HBO documentary,On The Record,highlights sexual harassment and rape allegations against Russell Simmons by former music executive, Drew Dixon and dozens of women — Sil Lai Abrams, Sheri Hines, and Alexia Norton Jones, to name a few. Despite sixteen other women coming forth about being raped by Simmons, he denies all allegations.

Sheri Hines, Sil Lai Abrams, and Drew Dixon (Shutterstock)

The documentary explores the intense pressure Black women feel to protect Black men by not reporting sexual assault, reminiscent of a 2006 documentary by filmmaker Aishah Shahidah Simmons. This fear to report Black men comes from an understanding of how harsh judicial systems already are on Black men. There’s a pressure on Black women to not add to the systemic criminalizing of Black men. Fame and misogyny in a male-dominated industry only compounds the ability to go on the record. As a prominent gatekeeper in the music industry and the face of Def Jam, going on record about Russell Simmons adds more pressure. Many women didn’t think anyone would believe them or that their careers would be permanently jeopardized if they spoke out.

Dixon never shared her story with anyone in the industry at the time because she thought no one would ever choose to believe her over rap mogul Russell Simmons. Several years later, one rape victim decided to come out about being raped, and Dixon decided to follow the #Metoo movement. The movement was founded by activist and survivor, Tarana Burke, to provide support and resources to sexually violated victims.

As Dixon stated, “If you are a rape survivor your life is the crime scene, the crime doesn’t end, and this one night shattered me. I wouldn’t even be able to go through this healing process if it wasn’t for the #metoo movement, it saved my life.”

The Narratives We Reclaim

As of recent, none of the women have received justice through traditional systems to have the men who sexual assaulted and raped them held accountable. However, they are seeking a form of justice by reclaiming narratives about Black women and sexual violence.

Michaela Coel turned her experience into a phenomenal show on HBO giving examples of treatment, going to talk therapy, exploring group therapy with women that had similar experiences, and writing a book about her story to help heal others. Drew Dixon got back into the music industry and listened to tracks she made years ago because she didn’t want to relive the traumatic event. Sheri Sher wrote a book about Mercedes Ladies and is still writing and recording music. Sil Lai Abrams is an award-winning writer, journalist, and activist for gender-based violence awareness and prevention in the Black community.

Telling the truth of our stories and experiences is a type of justice for Black survivors of sexual violence. Owning our narratives is a form of taking back power and having the freedom to heal.