From my years passing through that intersection, I came to believe \u2014 wrongly \u2014 that a person can be a victim only if those committing the offenses against her had great power. By any definition, the corner guys had very little power \u2014 and they themselves were victims of those who did. They were victims of a type of power that drove through that same intersection, snatched people away from their families and out of the community for decades. This type of power could stop and frisk them, and return to its patrol cars and proceed with its day. On a good day, if these guys were alone and remained silent without resisting, the consequences wouldn\u2019t be as severe. A few cops would pull up, pat them down, curse at them, beat them up and scream for them to get off the corner. On other days, especially if the corner guys were in a large group, things could escalate quickly. Sometimes a corner dude wouldn\u2019t make it home that night.<\/p>\n
This state-sanctioned abuse at the hands of police evoked, and continues to evoke, a community response that literally and figuratively calls for the protection of these young men, and rightfully so. A community is right to fight against over-policing and brutality. It should<\/em>encourage victims of police violence to speak up and put pressure on local politicians to take a stand.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But when your community fights for those same people who terrorize you, it sends a very complicated and mixed message. Even worse, sometimes the community members fighting back consist of young women who were once the little girls walking home from school doing their best to be invisible in hopes of avoiding what nobody ever called sexual assault. This sends the message that your pain is not a priority. It tells you that perhaps you are not a victim, because those who are harming you are also being harmed and we need to focus our energy on protecting them. After all, their lives are at stake.<\/p>\n #MeToo is triggering memories of that corner that I\u2019ve tucked away for 20 years because I\u2019ve been taught there are greater needs in the community. Perhaps this is part of the reason studies indicate only one in 15 African-American<\/a> women report being raped. We\u2019ve seen the unchecked power of white men ravish our communities, and we carry the message of \u201cnot right now\u201d when it comes to addressing our pain if the offender is black.<\/p>\n Maybe this is why more victims of sexual assault within the hip-hop community have not come forward. Is it possible that black women who work in hip-hop are silent victims, with pain they have been conditioned not to prioritize? I suspect this is true \u2014 but I can\u2019t say with certainty.<\/p>\n How can these women who live at the proverbial intersection of race and sexism, who grew up crossing that corner, ever be a part of the national #MeToo conversation when they can\u2019t be heard in their own community? The intersection of race, class, sexism and power is dangerous, and the most vulnerable women among us must navigate it alone. They are terrorized, then expected to fight for those who terrorized them because a seemingly greater predator is at large. Their faces will never grace the cover of Time magazine, and in some cases their silence will never be broken, if they hold the same false notions of power and victimhood that I once clung to when the cognitive dissonance became too strong.<\/p>\n