July 4, 2025 • 40 mins
This episode of The Unwanted Sorority unpacks the legacy of Betty Jean Owens and the first campus demonstration against sexual violence—an act of defiance too often erased from history. Dr. Leatra Tate shares her own story and how a class project, a dissertation, and the voices of Black women survivors helped shape this podcast. We explore the chilling realities of The Red Zone on college campuses and the healing wisdom of bell hooks’ Sisters of the Yam.
This is where truth-telling meets collective care.
Resources & Mentions
RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) – 24/7 support at 800-656-HOPE
National Sexual Violence Resource Center
Ujima- The National Center on Violence Against Women in the Black Community
Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery by bell hooks
Know My Name by Chanel Miller
AJC Article on the 1959 Betty Jean Owens Case
More information about The Red Zone
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Unwanted Sorority. I'm your host's doctor, Leatritete,
and as a reminder, this is a space created for
and by black women, fems, and gender expansive folks who've
experienced sexual violence. So whether you've lived it, you love
someone who has, or you just want to hold space,
you're welcome here. In today's episode, we're honoring Betty Jane Owens,
(00:24):
the black woman who's assault in eighteen fifty nine sparks
what should be known as the first campus demonstration against
sexual violence in the United States. However, her story is
often buried beneath another one that came almost two decades later.
But today we're giving her the flowers that she's long deserved,
(00:44):
and I'll also be sharing part of my own healing
journey and breaking down what is known as the red zone.
Before we go any further, I want to offer this disclaimer.
The Unwanted Sorority is a space for community connection and care,
but it's not a substitute for professional mental health, medical
or legal support. If anything you hear today resonates in
(01:07):
that way or it feels heavy, I encourage you to
reach out to someone you trust or a license clinician,
you deserve to feel whole, and you deserve to feel supported.
Let me start by being real with you. During the
first year of undergrad I was raped. It took me
(01:28):
many years to say these words out loud, and even
longer to be honest to call it what it is
using the big R word. In fact, it wasn't until
I talked to my mom about it several years later
that I realized that I had been carrying around guilt
and shame that wasn't mine to carry. My healing didn't
start in a therapist's office or in a courtroom. It
(01:51):
started in the moments, in those quiet moments, when I
told my story and somebody just listened. And that's why
I created the Wanted Sorority. Because some of us tell
our truth only to be met with disbelief, dismissal, or worse, silence.
Some of us try to report and get caught in
(02:12):
some of the legal red tape or retraumatizing systems that
just perpetuate more harm, and many of us, actually most
of us, never say anything at all. But this show
is for all of us. It's not about reliving our trauma,
It's about reclaiming our power. It's about building something sacred
(02:32):
from what tried to break us, a sisterhood, a space
where healing can happen in community, where we listen and
hold each other up. So you might hear a story
that mirrors your own, or you might hear something entirely different.
But either way, you're invited to explore what healing could
look like for you. And if the time ever feels right,
(02:54):
maybe you even share your story as a guest on
this podcast. But here, no matter what you are seen,
you are believed, and you are not alone. Now, I
want to take a moment to explain how we talk
about sexual violence on the show, So right out the gate,
it's important to contextualize what I mean when I use
the term sexual violence. According to RAIN, which stands for
(03:17):
the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, sexual violence refers
to crimes that include sexual assault, rape, and sexual abuse.
It's not a legal term, it's a lived one, and
the laws vary depending on where you live and where
the crime occurred. But this term allows us to name
the harm for this show, even if the systems don't. So. RAIN,
(03:43):
just so you're all aware, offers a twenty four to
seven hotline if you are someone you know needs support,
you can call them at eight hundred sixty five six Hope,
so that's eight zero zero six five six four six
seven three, Or you can visit rain dot org for
online support, including a message system where you can chat
(04:05):
directly with someone. So that's our AI n N dot
o archie. Now, I want to tell you a little
about what you could expect from the Unwanted Sorority. So
let me break it down for you. Every episode begins
with what I call flowers for the founders, and it's
our way of just honoring the black women, feminine gender
(04:26):
expansive survivors, organizers, and movement makers who have helped make
the fight against sexual violence what it is today. So
if you know someone who deserves their flowers, hit me
up at the Unwanted Sorority at gmail dot com or
on all social platforms. I'd love to hear who has
been meaningful and significant for you and be able to
(04:47):
give them a shout out on the show. Next up
is role Call. This is kind of the heart of
the show where a member of the Unwanted Sorority shares
their story in their words, in their own voice, and
so we really hold these testimonies as sacred, we honor
them in that way, and I just want to make
(05:08):
sure we're all on the same page and recognizing that
there is no such thing as a quote unquote perfect survivor.
So you may hear parts of someone's story or journey
that doesn't necessarily match what you would do, or that
you're side eyeing a little bit, But I want to
be clear that we are not here to judge anyone's journey.
(05:29):
Healing looks and shows up so differently for each of us.
We're here to create space and honor what someone has
had to go through to survive. And finally, we'll end
each episode with something called unpacking the ritual. So these
are those moments that kind of stick out to me.
So they can be phrases, practices, or patterns that feel
(05:51):
uniquely familiar for black women and fems. So these are
things we don't necessarily have to explain to each other.
This is probably where you'll hear some of the most
commonalities between your story and someone else's. This just gives
us a space to name what we've experienced and what
we've had to go through out loud. So we'll pause
(06:12):
during this segment we'll reflect and we'll make meaning together
because the rituals that we carry are part of how
we survive. And you may have already picked up on this,
but the show structure really draws inspiration from Black Greek
letter organizations. And I'll share a little bit more about
what that's already framework means to me later on, but
(06:33):
just know every part of this show has intention behind it,
and so with that, let's get into it. As the
first episode this season, I really thought it was so
appropriate she give flowers and honor Miss Betty Gene Owens.
(06:53):
She's a black woman with a powerful story that I'll
tell you in a moment, but it's a story that's
often left out of the narrative. And his three of
campus sexual assault movements. On May second, nineteen fifty nine,
Betty Jane Owens and a few of her fellow family
classmates were spending the evening at a park in Tallahassee, Florida.
(07:15):
The two young women, Betty Jean and Edna Richardson, were
dressed in their best ball gowns, and the two young
men they were with, Richard Brown and Thomas Butterfield, were
in their best formal ware tuxes. You know, so they
could flex in the other students at the Orange and
Green ball at their school, and after about fifteen minutes,
a car pulls up with four white men inside. This
(07:35):
rightfully made the couples nervous because as the men exited
the car, they pulled a gun on the couples and
ordered them out of their car. At that time, they
separated the men from the women, and Edna was able
to escape into a wooded area near the park that
they were in. But these men placed a knife to
Betty Jean's throat, kidnapped her from the area, and drove
(07:55):
her to a remote part of the county where they
repeatedly raped her. It was only able to escape after
her friends notified the police, and the officers tracked down
the car that the rapists were driving in based on
that friend's description. Betty Jane was found inside alive, but
cha can up and dazed. Betty decided to pursue this
(08:16):
case to the full extent of the law. Black newspapers
across the country covered the story, and after family students
learned of Betty Jeane's attack, a small group of students
planned an armed march to city Hall. The march was
to symbolize their protection of black womanhood, including guns, as
white women had protected white womanhood evidence historically by the
(08:38):
unjust death of Immet Tilt at the hands of hate
filled vigilante justice seekers a the legal protection of white
women in the wrongful convictions of the Scottsboro Boys and
the exonerated five Other students at MU, however, decided to
organize a unity demonstration, which brought fifteen hundred students to
(08:58):
the Lee Auditorium to demand justice for Betty Jean. The
following day, over a thousand students gathered with signs and
prayers that were broadcast all over news media stations. This
even reached cities like Little Rock, Arkansas, where students held
up posters with scenes from the Little Rock desegregation demonstrations
with sayings that read, my God, how much more of
(09:21):
this can we take? Betty Geene Owens testified on her
own behalf in the trial against her rapists, which resulted
in her telling her story in front of over four
hundred witnesses. She shared details of her attack, putting what
was likely one of the most traumatizing moments of her
life on full display for all to see. But in
(09:43):
the end, Betty Jean's bravery resulted in the full conviction
of all four men, demonstrating a step in the right direction,
giving the intergenerational history of sexual violence against black women
perpetuated by white supremacists. So Betty Jean, we a lot
to you and what you refuse to stand for. It
(10:04):
would be a tragedy though for me to not state
how impactful the media coverage of the student protests were
and threats to boycott classes at FAMU in support of
Betty Gene, and how all of that laid the groundwork
for an unprecedented level of recognition of student voices and
campus sexual assault movements at the time. But when we
(10:24):
look at the way prominent historical accounts of campus sexual
assault movements often cover the stories we often see media
outlets such as Miss magazine, for example, give this credit
regarding campus anti rape efforts to movements that are built
by and I quote other women of color and white
(10:48):
feminists in the nineteen seventies, not the black students at
an HBCU who stood in solidarity with Betty Jean and
demanded justice for her. But the unwanted alreaty gives you
back that credit. Betty Gene Owens and thanks and embraces
you as a founder of this movement for us. So
thank you for that. So next I'll introduce you to
(11:11):
my first role call guest me picture Pittsburgh, twenty fifteen.
I'm in a classroom for my Public Policy Advocacy and
Social change course is a little baby doctoral student early
(11:34):
in year one of my PhD program. The room smells
like fresh notebooks and nervous energy, and our instructor says
to us at the beginning of class, for this project,
choose a policy that you want to advocate for research it,
develop recommendations, and present your pitch. So in my head,
(11:54):
imagine this in my best soldier boy talking about drake voice.
I'm thinking me a public policy advocate because at the
time that label felt completely alien to me. I did
not see myself in those terms, and I didn't really
know what it meant, but I guess. Let me back
up a second. At the time, I worked at an
(12:15):
HIV and SCI clinic in Pittsburgh, so I managed a
program for black girls and teens. We created safe spaces
where we talked about sexual health, self esteem, and mental
well being. And a few months into me starting the position.
I was able to successfully move forward some critical curricular
updates based on just listening to the girls struggles and
(12:37):
showing what the data indicated, which were significant gaps in knowledge,
significant access barriers to this information as a whole, and
risky health behaviors due to this being the first time
they were ever having these conversations around sex with me
in an event that we affectionately referred to as a
party and so on paper, I knew that was men
(13:00):
any work right in my mind, that was just real life,
though it was late night curriculum, brainstorming over pizza, texting
with a worried parent about behavior that they were witnessing
from their child. And it also included moments like celebrating
a teen's breakthrough when she pulled me aside at the
(13:20):
end of our party and said, I know I'm bisexual,
but can you help me tell my mom. I knew
intellectually that policy shaped funding, it shaped laws, it shaped
educational content and information, and it also shaped resource allocation
that was tied to budgets. But public policy advocate I
(13:43):
just did not have that on my bango card when
I was thinking about my own identity at the time.
Policy spaces felt distant. They were populated by people with
titles and fancy degrees and networks that I just did
not have at the time, people who looked like the
ones who were supposed to be in chargee Rarely did
that include black women, and rarely did that include fems
(14:05):
or gender expansive folks. So I think I kind of
unconsciously believed that community labor was less valuable, that policy
change was someone else's shaw. And over time, through conversations
with peers who identified as community organizers or cultural workers,
(14:27):
I saw how systemic oppression seeps into that mentality and
helps warp our self perceptions. So we're taught to devalue
or undervalue our own work. We internalize that the real
power lies in institutions that are far away, not in
the grassroots wisdom. And yet I began to feel the
(14:47):
hug of that rally cry, the personal as political shout
out to Audrey Lord. It sounded familiar, but only now
did it start to resonate. I realized my own experience
's wounds that I had kept hidden weren't just personal burdens.
They connected me to a more broad pattern of harm
(15:08):
and injustice in our communities, and if I stayed silent
in that moment, I remained complicit to systems that thrive
on our invisibility or our sense of hopelessness. And I
recognize it that my asilunce wasn't neutral. It was political.
It protected the status quo, and I didn't want that
for me. I didn't want that for the girls that
(15:31):
I was working with in the program, and I didn't
want that for anyone else. So back to that classroom,
twenty five year old me, highly anxious, also highly introverted,
and fully stuck on how I was going to approach
this assignment. I could have taken the easy route, which
was just to focus on the sexual health education for
(15:52):
black girls. Since I was already doing that work professionally,
I was comfortable. I knew the community, I knew the challenges,
I knew the joys that came with It was a
safe choice, and professors often say, when you're in doctoral programs,
choose a topic you'll want to spend years working on.
No pressure, right, But cut to my heart, racing safe
(16:15):
didn't feel honest for me. I sensed that there was
something deeper than I needed to confront and unpack. And
then It happened while scrolling through social media. I learned
about the rape of Emily Do at Stanford University, and
the name brock Turner was everywhere news headline, social feeds,
(16:37):
group chats with friends. I had a visceral reaction. I
was angry, I was sad, I was confused. But most
of all, it was shockingly intimate. I didn't know Emily
Do personally, but I knew her pain. I'd felt that before,
(16:57):
and in that instant I knew campus sexual violence had
to be my focus. It was both urgent and personal.
That's how I chose that as the topic for my project,
and so I set out to research campus policies and
prevention programs. I built a presentation. I have no idea
what that presentation was about anymore, but I do have
(17:19):
one very vivid memory from that time. At the end
of my pitch, I stood before my cohort and I
said these words out loud. For the first time, I
was raped in college. I decided that if I was
going to be advocating for policy change around campus sexual assault,
(17:41):
it would be disingenuous to not acknowledge my stake in that.
I remember the heat kind of rising in my cheeks,
the rush in my voices, I came near to saying
the words. It was terrifying, but it was also liberating.
And I didn't know at the time, but that moment
(18:03):
was going to align with broader currents happening in our community.
So soon after Rock Turner's outragiously short sentence ignited public outrage,
the hashtag me too went viral, and Trona Burke, who's
the founder of the me too movement, her work started
(18:24):
to gain its long overdue spotlight, and Emily do even
reclaimed her identity as Chanelle Miller. So conversations were exploding
all over the place, Survivors were speaking out, and society
was being forced to listen. The timing was just timing right.
I wasn't alone. My disclosure syncd with a broader wave
(18:46):
of demands from our society to do better, to be better,
and that confluence affirmed my decision. This was the right
path for me, This was my path, And so my
dissertation became more than just an academic project. It turned
into a labor of love and healing, and it was
(19:08):
guided by black womenist theories and campus community connectedness frameworks.
And I asked essentially, how do Black women and fem
survivors navigate healing after assault? What cultural protections are we
tapping into? And why do so many of us initially
ch silence? And I titled my dissertation Stories from the Yam,
(19:29):
a narrative inquiry centering Black women sexual assault survivors in
higher education. So the Yam in that context is kind
of a nod to the nourishment, root, strength, and resilience
that we find in Black culture, and it's homage to
Sisters of the Yam, a book by Belle Hooks reminding
(19:49):
us of what self recovery in community looks like. So,
through interviews, I connected with participants, other Black women survivors
who shared the nuance of their journeys, what their family
responses were like, the academic pressures that came with their
experiences and their disclosures, the care structures that they used
(20:11):
or didn't use, and what their strategies of resilience look like.
Their stories and ways echoed my own, and it revealed
these patterns silence that was driven by fear of disbelief
or harm, healing that was fostered by community chosen confidants
and networks appeers that they could confide in creative outlets
(20:33):
where they were able to share their stories and activism
that was sparked by them reclaiming their voice. And at
the time my family didn't even know. My parents only
learned about my sexual assault experience as I got closer
to completing my dissertation. That journey was really a path
(20:56):
of self exploration for me, and I couldn't have protected
how it was going to play out. I had to
confront trauma, I had to bear witness to collective wisdom,
and I had to find meaning in all of that.
And so it came to me in a dream. Okay,
(21:17):
it didn't really. It actually came to me during a
really unexpected conversation though. So there was one pivotal moment
where I was sitting on a zoom with a participant
for my dissertation, and it was a gloomy summer evening
in twenty eighteen. I had my little routine down. I
(21:38):
was settling in, I had a candlelight, I had a
huge gigantic cup of water, I had my laptop ready,
and I had my notebooks so I could take some
notes throughout the interview. I let her into the zoom room,
I let her choose her pseudonym, which was just the
name that she was going to go by during the research,
and we started talking. We started with a question about
(22:01):
her experience, but we got a little deeper after some time.
We talked about her family's reactions and how it kind
of shifted her relationships with them after her disclosure about
her assault. She told me more information about kind of
her identity and the transformation that she went through after
(22:22):
making her disclosure. And about three hours later, even though
we only had like one and a half set aside
for this recording, neither one of us wanted to stop
the conversation. There was a bonding that was happening, this
shared understanding that these were connection points for us and
that it was very profound. And so she said to
(22:43):
me during that interview something that has stuck with me
and really became kind of the seed of this podcast.
She said, you don't get it until you get it.
It's like an unwanted sorority initiation. Once it happens, you
see others differently. And so that phrase really echoed in
(23:05):
my mind over the years. Unwanted sorority a sisterhood that
no one signs up for, but that bond survivors in
ways that are both painful and powerful. So the fast
(23:27):
forward a few years and I am now a finer
woman of the illustrious ze to Phi Beta Sorority Incorporated.
And yes, we have to do all that when we're
rep in our organization and the history of Black Greek
letter organizations that are known as the Divide Nine resonates
so deeply in this space. In the early nineteen hundreds,
(23:51):
there was a lot of racial exclusion from white fraternities
and sororities, so black students decided to fore reach their
own organizations that were rooted in service, scholarship, cultural pride,
and social justice topics that were really relevant and prevalent
at the time. So these spaces nurtured leadership, collective action,
(24:17):
and deep familial bonds. They showed how collaboration and even
a little friendly competition can preserve and uplift Black communities.
And so I realized in the creation of this platform,
I wanted to kind of replicate that. I wanted to
replicate the community that formed in those dissertation interviews, and
(24:38):
I knew that I could kind of draw on the
Black Greek letter organizations as a model for that so
rituals of welcome, mutual support, shared purpose, a sorority we
didn't choose, but that unites us. That's become the unwanted authority.
And I think back to that anxious, introverted twenty five
(24:59):
year old who was stuck on the assignment, and I
now imagine the journey that has gone into becoming more confident,
more outspoken, still introverted, but who refuses to let silence
define her. And that transformation came from deciding to use
my voice, first in academia, then in advocacy roles and
(25:24):
supporting marginalized students as faculty, diving deep into titlemind policy research,
and even serving as a sexual assault response coordinator in
the military. Throughout it all, though I learned that systems
meant to protect us can still hurt us. I witnessed
victim blaming attitudes in some of the training that I
(25:47):
had with colleagues, questions like how much did that person
have to drink? Could that have affected their consent? And
hearing that triggered my own pain. I'm not going to lie,
but it fueled my resolved to change those narratives, and
so in that I often reflect on Chanelle Miller's words
(26:07):
in her video I Am with You, which is in
reference to her book titled No My Name. In the video,
she declares that survivors will not be limited, labeled, boxed in,
or oppressed. We will not be isolated. We've had enough
of shame, diminishment, disbelief and loneliness. Look at this togetherness,
(26:29):
Look out for one another. Speak up when they try
to silence you, Stand up when they shut you down.
No one gets to define you. You do. In those words,
as I listen to them, they feel like permission, permission
for us to define ourselves in our own terms, to
release the weight of silence, and to embrace our roles.
(26:55):
And for me that's a scholar, advocate, survivor, and just
to be truthful, this journey has not been easy. Advocacy
can be very unsafe. In fact, as I was building
this show as part of Ihart Media's Next Up Fellowship,
where I was learning the ins and the outs of podcasting,
I was also transitioning professionally into a new role, as
(27:18):
I mentioned earlier, the one of being a military sexual
assault response coordinator, and so I was grappling with colleagues
who sometimes perpetuated really harmful myths. I've had moments of
breakdown when hearing victim blaming language in professional spaces were
people who were supposed to be there to support survivors,
(27:40):
And so it underscores how deeply ingrained, harmful scripts remain
and why we have to keep challenging them. These challenges
also reinforce why community matters, to process, to strategize, and
to find solidarity. So when I sat with my participants,
whether it was in a zoom room, in a gazubo,
(28:01):
in a public park, or in a coffee shop, we
formed community out of necessity and that shared space birth clarity.
You're not alone, and together we can push these systems
to evolve in very necessary ways. In this final segment,
(28:26):
unpacking the ritual, I wanna pause and, like I said,
reflect on themes that came out of either the roll
call or the flowers for the founder. And so we're
gonna deep dive into how black women uniquely navigate healing
from sexual violence. So we'll draw on personal stories and
I'll share more about mine. We're gonna draw on ancestral
(28:48):
wisdom and give shout outs to the folks who have
contributed to this movement and specifically, we're gonna dive more
into community insights and what we're learning together. So first,
the idea of this abrity itself, like I said, it's
the ritual of sisterhood and collective healing and how it
(29:10):
shows up. So this concept is deeply tied to me
to Belle Hook's work. I mentioned her book earlier, but
Sisters of the Yam Black Women and Self Recovery is
the title of her book from nineteen ninety three, and
in that book she urges black women to talk with friends, family, allies,
to name our pain, to shape our narrative, and to
(29:31):
find paths of healing together. So in it she specifically
recounts a student's insights, saying, quote, healing occurs through testimony,
through gathering together everything available to you and reconciling end quote.
So she describes the book as kind of a map
(29:51):
guiding us back to the dark place within where we
were first known, first loved, and where the arms at
once held us still hold us in memory. So that
imagery of like returning home to the self cradled by
ancestral love captures to me why this sorority exists. We
heal not in isolation, but in collective embrace and so
(30:14):
in the book, Hooks reminds us that race, class, and
gender produces and perpetuates systems of oppression and domination. So
she says, no level of individual self actualization alone can
sustain the marginalized and oppressed. We must be linked to
collective struggle, to communities of resistance, then move us outward
(30:36):
into the world. That declaration reinforces the need for this space. Again.
We name what sexual violence looks like for black women,
we explore its impact, and most importantly, we share how
to get through it together. Some people may be thinking
about how do we change the system. While that is
an important and critical part, this show isn't only about
(30:59):
naming our system of harm, even though we do that.
It's equally about testimony and celebration, the power of speaking
our truth, the relief of being heard, and the joy
of witnessing our resilience. So when we share our stories,
we may discover words that we never had. You as
a listener, maybe hearing things that kind of mirror your
(31:23):
experience that you just hadn't been able to articulate before,
and think about how important that could be for someone
who's never heard it. It can make someone feel so
much less alone in their navigation of their healing, and
we may even glimpse new possibilities ways of moving the
collective forward that we hadn't heard articulated before. And so
(31:44):
in giving flowers to the founders in this show, also
we're lifting up black women's experiences who have created healing spaces,
who have held systems accountable. And those include grass foods
advocates and writers scholars like Bell Hooks. It includes community healers,
it includes policy advocates, and all of that helps pave
(32:07):
the way for our survival and our liberation. And I
just want to emphasize that Belle Hook's lens is intersectional.
She focuses on Black women and men in a lot
of her writing, but she never excludes anyone. She teaches
that black women and men must learn how racism, sexism,
class exploitation, and homophobia and other domination structures operate daily
(32:31):
that erode our self determination, that erode our joy, and
that erode our capacity for collective action. And when we
recognize these interconnected forces, it helps us to be able
to name the personal and systemic layers of harm and
build strategies to resist in heal So this all ties
(32:52):
to me to another element that I want to pull
from my own role call, which is the red zone.
Like I said earlier, my assault happened during my first
year of college, but it was actually during the first
semester of college for me, during a period that research
calls the red zone, and that's just the time period
between orientation as a freshman and the first break in
(33:16):
the academic semester. That's when students are most vulnerable. So
naming this period, I just want to be clear, does
not blame survivors, but it names the specific conditions that
may be exploited for harm to take place. So those
include things like unfamiliar settings, students kind of entering this
(33:39):
space with a lowered guard, trying to be more social
in this new environment, and it could also include uncertainty
about resources that are available in this new environment. So
imagine arriving on campus. There's so much excitement that's mixed
with the sense of potentially loneliness in this new context.
(34:01):
It's driven by a desire to belong, but you're probably
not yet anchored in what your new routine is going
to be like in this environment. So maybe to counteract that,
you try going to different parties, or you know, you
stay up a little later than you would trying to
talk to the new folks in this environment, you're trying
to build new friendships, and you may not yet to
(34:23):
know where to turn if harm occurs. So it creates
this perfect little storm for an individual to feel even
more marginalized in an environment that's new to them. But
I want to highlight in this vein of focusing on
black women that it's important that the resources that students
have at a particular college, or in a particular community,
(34:46):
or in a particular environment be knowledgeable on the statistics
and trends associated with varying demographics. So, for example, sexual
assault perpetrators are not always straight hiding in the bushes
or people that we don't know. The truth is that
around eighty percent of rape and sexual assault survivors knew
(35:08):
their attacker, according to Raine's report from twenty twenty. Coincidentally,
the National Sexual Violence Resource Center reports that around ninety
percent of college sexual assaults go unreported altogether. Reporting can
mean risking harm from police or social fallout from your peers. However,
(35:29):
choosing to not report can mean ongoing proximity to your
perpetrator or self isolation from peers as you're coping with
the feelings. And in my work, I wrote about the
stories of black women who felt ostracized or silenced on
their college campuses when they chose to name their abuser,
(35:52):
especially if that abuser was someone who is very well
known or very well liked. So this double bind of
both personal trauma and systemic risk makes the red zone
more than a timeframe on the academic calendar, but it's
kind of a metaphor for the vulnerability that's layered by
our identities. So again, naming the red zone helps us
(36:16):
to recognize patterns and advocate for cultural responsive supports on campus,
And according to the research, some of that can include
having trained advocates who understand black women's experiences, having survivor
centered policies that don't retraumatize individuals who are seeking out
supports from that environment, and having peer networks that say
(36:39):
we believe you. And so across context, whether it's campus
or community, the same principle remains true. Resources must be
informed by demographics. If black women's survivors often know their abusers,
we need survivor advocates who are knowledgeable and trained on
navigating reporting without causing additional harm, and we need alternative
(37:03):
support outside of police departments and Title nine offices, and
you know, let's keep it one hundred. The Title nine,
which is currently a function under the Department of Education,
is kind of going through a little bit of an
ugly phase right now. So those alternatives can look like
restorative justice circles on our campus, communities, community based advocates,
(37:24):
and mental health professionals who get racial trauma and who
we don't have to have the burden of educating while
they try to help us. So we're going to be
talking about the tools that we use to navigate our
healing a lot on the pod, and I'm really looking
forward to hearing what's worked for you. So hit us
up on social media. We're at the unwanted authority on
(37:45):
all social platforms, and let me know what have been
some of the most effective tools for you. I want
to hear from you. Well, at the end of the
day is going to end or whatever Gloriala said. Basically,
what I'm saying is when policies or resources ignore demographic nuance,
(38:10):
survivors slip through the cracks, point blank period. Our stories
highlight these gaps and policies and resources, which is why
it's so important for us to keep sharing them loudly, boldly,
and without shame. And if you're listening right now, you're
already part of this movement, so thanks for being here.
Every story is sacred, every voice is valued, and every
(38:34):
listener is a contributor to our collective healing. I want
to lift up more founders and organizations doing the good
work right now, So reach out and let me know
who's inspired you, who should be spotlight on a future episode,
And like I said, if you want to join a
future role call segment, reach out on social media at
the Unwanted Sorority on all platforms, or via email at
(38:58):
the Unwanted Sorority gmail dot com. Thank you for sharing
these minutes with me, listening to my journey from the
classroom in Pittsburgh to this moment right here, right now,
creating and releasing the first full episode Yeah yeah, yeah,
of the Unwanted Sorority. I can't wait to hear and
(39:19):
hold space for you and your stories. And this is
a little mantra that you'll hear me close all of
the episodes with take care of yourself, Take care of
one another and release whatever shame or guilt you may
be feeling about the harm that's been done to you.
You're not alone. And make sure you subscribe to our
(39:41):
show on whatever platform you get your podcasts so you
don't miss any new episodes. And while you're there, go
ahead and rate and review the episode so far, because
I want to hear what you like, what's working for you.
Stay safe, stay connected, and remember this is a safe space,
not a quiet space. Welcome to the word Sorority. Take care.
(40:11):
The Unwanted Sorority is hosted in executive producer by me
Leander Tate, Our executive producer is Joel Money, our producer
is Carmen Loren and original cover art is created by
Savannah Yuler. I would also like to have special thanks
to the iHeart Podcast Next Up program for helping bring
the show to life. Also all of the guests who
have taken the step in sharing their story with you
all on these episodes. And finally, to all the members
(40:33):
of this sorority who will never tell their story, we
see you and your story matters.
Welcome to the Unwanted Sorority. I'm your host's doctor, Leatritete,
and as a reminder, this is a space created for
and by black women, fems, and gender expansive folks who've
experienced sexual violence. So whether you've lived it, you love
someone who has, or you just want to hold space,
you're welcome here. In today's episode, we're honoring Betty Jane Owens,
(00:24):
the black woman who's assault in eighteen fifty nine sparks
what should be known as the first campus demonstration against
sexual violence in the United States. However, her story is
often buried beneath another one that came almost two decades later.
But today we're giving her the flowers that she's long deserved,
(00:44):
and I'll also be sharing part of my own healing
journey and breaking down what is known as the red zone.
Before we go any further, I want to offer this disclaimer.
The Unwanted Sorority is a space for community connection and care,
but it's not a substitute for professional mental health, medical
or legal support. If anything you hear today resonates in
(01:07):
that way or it feels heavy, I encourage you to
reach out to someone you trust or a license clinician,
you deserve to feel whole, and you deserve to feel supported.
Let me start by being real with you. During the
first year of undergrad I was raped. It took me
(01:28):
many years to say these words out loud, and even
longer to be honest to call it what it is
using the big R word. In fact, it wasn't until
I talked to my mom about it several years later
that I realized that I had been carrying around guilt
and shame that wasn't mine to carry. My healing didn't
start in a therapist's office or in a courtroom. It
(01:51):
started in the moments, in those quiet moments, when I
told my story and somebody just listened. And that's why
I created the Wanted Sorority. Because some of us tell
our truth only to be met with disbelief, dismissal, or worse, silence.
Some of us try to report and get caught in
(02:12):
some of the legal red tape or retraumatizing systems that
just perpetuate more harm, and many of us, actually most
of us, never say anything at all. But this show
is for all of us. It's not about reliving our trauma,
It's about reclaiming our power. It's about building something sacred
(02:32):
from what tried to break us, a sisterhood, a space
where healing can happen in community, where we listen and
hold each other up. So you might hear a story
that mirrors your own, or you might hear something entirely different.
But either way, you're invited to explore what healing could
look like for you. And if the time ever feels right,
(02:54):
maybe you even share your story as a guest on
this podcast. But here, no matter what you are seen,
you are believed, and you are not alone. Now, I
want to take a moment to explain how we talk
about sexual violence on the show, So right out the gate,
it's important to contextualize what I mean when I use
the term sexual violence. According to RAIN, which stands for
(03:17):
the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, sexual violence refers
to crimes that include sexual assault, rape, and sexual abuse.
It's not a legal term, it's a lived one, and
the laws vary depending on where you live and where
the crime occurred. But this term allows us to name
the harm for this show, even if the systems don't. So. RAIN,
(03:43):
just so you're all aware, offers a twenty four to
seven hotline if you are someone you know needs support,
you can call them at eight hundred sixty five six Hope,
so that's eight zero zero six five six four six
seven three, Or you can visit rain dot org for
online support, including a message system where you can chat
(04:05):
directly with someone. So that's our AI n N dot
o archie. Now, I want to tell you a little
about what you could expect from the Unwanted Sorority. So
let me break it down for you. Every episode begins
with what I call flowers for the founders, and it's
our way of just honoring the black women, feminine gender
(04:26):
expansive survivors, organizers, and movement makers who have helped make
the fight against sexual violence what it is today. So
if you know someone who deserves their flowers, hit me
up at the Unwanted Sorority at gmail dot com or
on all social platforms. I'd love to hear who has
been meaningful and significant for you and be able to
(04:47):
give them a shout out on the show. Next up
is role Call. This is kind of the heart of
the show where a member of the Unwanted Sorority shares
their story in their words, in their own voice, and
so we really hold these testimonies as sacred, we honor
them in that way, and I just want to make
(05:08):
sure we're all on the same page and recognizing that
there is no such thing as a quote unquote perfect survivor.
So you may hear parts of someone's story or journey
that doesn't necessarily match what you would do, or that
you're side eyeing a little bit, But I want to
be clear that we are not here to judge anyone's journey.
(05:29):
Healing looks and shows up so differently for each of us.
We're here to create space and honor what someone has
had to go through to survive. And finally, we'll end
each episode with something called unpacking the ritual. So these
are those moments that kind of stick out to me.
So they can be phrases, practices, or patterns that feel
(05:51):
uniquely familiar for black women and fems. So these are
things we don't necessarily have to explain to each other.
This is probably where you'll hear some of the most
commonalities between your story and someone else's. This just gives
us a space to name what we've experienced and what
we've had to go through out loud. So we'll pause
(06:12):
during this segment we'll reflect and we'll make meaning together
because the rituals that we carry are part of how
we survive. And you may have already picked up on this,
but the show structure really draws inspiration from Black Greek
letter organizations. And I'll share a little bit more about
what that's already framework means to me later on, but
(06:33):
just know every part of this show has intention behind it,
and so with that, let's get into it. As the
first episode this season, I really thought it was so
appropriate she give flowers and honor Miss Betty Gene Owens.
(06:53):
She's a black woman with a powerful story that I'll
tell you in a moment, but it's a story that's
often left out of the narrative. And his three of
campus sexual assault movements. On May second, nineteen fifty nine,
Betty Jane Owens and a few of her fellow family
classmates were spending the evening at a park in Tallahassee, Florida.
(07:15):
The two young women, Betty Jean and Edna Richardson, were
dressed in their best ball gowns, and the two young
men they were with, Richard Brown and Thomas Butterfield, were
in their best formal ware tuxes. You know, so they
could flex in the other students at the Orange and
Green ball at their school, and after about fifteen minutes,
a car pulls up with four white men inside. This
(07:35):
rightfully made the couples nervous because as the men exited
the car, they pulled a gun on the couples and
ordered them out of their car. At that time, they
separated the men from the women, and Edna was able
to escape into a wooded area near the park that
they were in. But these men placed a knife to
Betty Jean's throat, kidnapped her from the area, and drove
(07:55):
her to a remote part of the county where they
repeatedly raped her. It was only able to escape after
her friends notified the police, and the officers tracked down
the car that the rapists were driving in based on
that friend's description. Betty Jane was found inside alive, but
cha can up and dazed. Betty decided to pursue this
(08:16):
case to the full extent of the law. Black newspapers
across the country covered the story, and after family students
learned of Betty Jeane's attack, a small group of students
planned an armed march to city Hall. The march was
to symbolize their protection of black womanhood, including guns, as
white women had protected white womanhood evidence historically by the
(08:38):
unjust death of Immet Tilt at the hands of hate
filled vigilante justice seekers a the legal protection of white
women in the wrongful convictions of the Scottsboro Boys and
the exonerated five Other students at MU, however, decided to
organize a unity demonstration, which brought fifteen hundred students to
(08:58):
the Lee Auditorium to demand justice for Betty Jean. The
following day, over a thousand students gathered with signs and
prayers that were broadcast all over news media stations. This
even reached cities like Little Rock, Arkansas, where students held
up posters with scenes from the Little Rock desegregation demonstrations
with sayings that read, my God, how much more of
(09:21):
this can we take? Betty Geene Owens testified on her
own behalf in the trial against her rapists, which resulted
in her telling her story in front of over four
hundred witnesses. She shared details of her attack, putting what
was likely one of the most traumatizing moments of her
life on full display for all to see. But in
(09:43):
the end, Betty Jean's bravery resulted in the full conviction
of all four men, demonstrating a step in the right direction,
giving the intergenerational history of sexual violence against black women
perpetuated by white supremacists. So Betty Jean, we a lot
to you and what you refuse to stand for. It
(10:04):
would be a tragedy though for me to not state
how impactful the media coverage of the student protests were
and threats to boycott classes at FAMU in support of
Betty Gene, and how all of that laid the groundwork
for an unprecedented level of recognition of student voices and
campus sexual assault movements at the time. But when we
(10:24):
look at the way prominent historical accounts of campus sexual
assault movements often cover the stories we often see media
outlets such as Miss magazine, for example, give this credit
regarding campus anti rape efforts to movements that are built
by and I quote other women of color and white
(10:48):
feminists in the nineteen seventies, not the black students at
an HBCU who stood in solidarity with Betty Jean and
demanded justice for her. But the unwanted alreaty gives you
back that credit. Betty Gene Owens and thanks and embraces
you as a founder of this movement for us. So
thank you for that. So next I'll introduce you to
(11:11):
my first role call guest me picture Pittsburgh, twenty fifteen.
I'm in a classroom for my Public Policy Advocacy and
Social change course is a little baby doctoral student early
(11:34):
in year one of my PhD program. The room smells
like fresh notebooks and nervous energy, and our instructor says
to us at the beginning of class, for this project,
choose a policy that you want to advocate for research it,
develop recommendations, and present your pitch. So in my head,
(11:54):
imagine this in my best soldier boy talking about drake voice.
I'm thinking me a public policy advocate because at the
time that label felt completely alien to me. I did
not see myself in those terms, and I didn't really
know what it meant, but I guess. Let me back
up a second. At the time, I worked at an
(12:15):
HIV and SCI clinic in Pittsburgh, so I managed a
program for black girls and teens. We created safe spaces
where we talked about sexual health, self esteem, and mental
well being. And a few months into me starting the position.
I was able to successfully move forward some critical curricular
updates based on just listening to the girls struggles and
(12:37):
showing what the data indicated, which were significant gaps in knowledge,
significant access barriers to this information as a whole, and
risky health behaviors due to this being the first time
they were ever having these conversations around sex with me
in an event that we affectionately referred to as a
party and so on paper, I knew that was men
(13:00):
any work right in my mind, that was just real life,
though it was late night curriculum, brainstorming over pizza, texting
with a worried parent about behavior that they were witnessing
from their child. And it also included moments like celebrating
a teen's breakthrough when she pulled me aside at the
(13:20):
end of our party and said, I know I'm bisexual,
but can you help me tell my mom. I knew
intellectually that policy shaped funding, it shaped laws, it shaped
educational content and information, and it also shaped resource allocation
that was tied to budgets. But public policy advocate I
(13:43):
just did not have that on my bango card when
I was thinking about my own identity at the time.
Policy spaces felt distant. They were populated by people with
titles and fancy degrees and networks that I just did
not have at the time, people who looked like the
ones who were supposed to be in chargee Rarely did
that include black women, and rarely did that include fems
(14:05):
or gender expansive folks. So I think I kind of
unconsciously believed that community labor was less valuable, that policy
change was someone else's shaw. And over time, through conversations
with peers who identified as community organizers or cultural workers,
(14:27):
I saw how systemic oppression seeps into that mentality and
helps warp our self perceptions. So we're taught to devalue
or undervalue our own work. We internalize that the real
power lies in institutions that are far away, not in
the grassroots wisdom. And yet I began to feel the
(14:47):
hug of that rally cry, the personal as political shout
out to Audrey Lord. It sounded familiar, but only now
did it start to resonate. I realized my own experience
's wounds that I had kept hidden weren't just personal burdens.
They connected me to a more broad pattern of harm
(15:08):
and injustice in our communities, and if I stayed silent
in that moment, I remained complicit to systems that thrive
on our invisibility or our sense of hopelessness. And I
recognize it that my asilunce wasn't neutral. It was political.
It protected the status quo, and I didn't want that
for me. I didn't want that for the girls that
(15:31):
I was working with in the program, and I didn't
want that for anyone else. So back to that classroom,
twenty five year old me, highly anxious, also highly introverted,
and fully stuck on how I was going to approach
this assignment. I could have taken the easy route, which
was just to focus on the sexual health education for
(15:52):
black girls. Since I was already doing that work professionally,
I was comfortable. I knew the community, I knew the challenges,
I knew the joys that came with It was a
safe choice, and professors often say, when you're in doctoral programs,
choose a topic you'll want to spend years working on.
No pressure, right, But cut to my heart, racing safe
(16:15):
didn't feel honest for me. I sensed that there was
something deeper than I needed to confront and unpack. And
then It happened while scrolling through social media. I learned
about the rape of Emily Do at Stanford University, and
the name brock Turner was everywhere news headline, social feeds,
(16:37):
group chats with friends. I had a visceral reaction. I
was angry, I was sad, I was confused. But most
of all, it was shockingly intimate. I didn't know Emily
Do personally, but I knew her pain. I'd felt that before,
(16:57):
and in that instant I knew campus sexual violence had
to be my focus. It was both urgent and personal.
That's how I chose that as the topic for my project,
and so I set out to research campus policies and
prevention programs. I built a presentation. I have no idea
what that presentation was about anymore, but I do have
(17:19):
one very vivid memory from that time. At the end
of my pitch, I stood before my cohort and I
said these words out loud. For the first time, I
was raped in college. I decided that if I was
going to be advocating for policy change around campus sexual assault,
(17:41):
it would be disingenuous to not acknowledge my stake in that.
I remember the heat kind of rising in my cheeks,
the rush in my voices, I came near to saying
the words. It was terrifying, but it was also liberating.
And I didn't know at the time, but that moment
(18:03):
was going to align with broader currents happening in our community.
So soon after Rock Turner's outragiously short sentence ignited public outrage,
the hashtag me too went viral, and Trona Burke, who's
the founder of the me too movement, her work started
(18:24):
to gain its long overdue spotlight, and Emily do even
reclaimed her identity as Chanelle Miller. So conversations were exploding
all over the place, Survivors were speaking out, and society
was being forced to listen. The timing was just timing right.
I wasn't alone. My disclosure syncd with a broader wave
(18:46):
of demands from our society to do better, to be better,
and that confluence affirmed my decision. This was the right
path for me, This was my path, And so my
dissertation became more than just an academic project. It turned
into a labor of love and healing, and it was
(19:08):
guided by black womenist theories and campus community connectedness frameworks.
And I asked essentially, how do Black women and fem
survivors navigate healing after assault? What cultural protections are we
tapping into? And why do so many of us initially
ch silence? And I titled my dissertation Stories from the Yam,
(19:29):
a narrative inquiry centering Black women sexual assault survivors in
higher education. So the Yam in that context is kind
of a nod to the nourishment, root, strength, and resilience
that we find in Black culture, and it's homage to
Sisters of the Yam, a book by Belle Hooks reminding
(19:49):
us of what self recovery in community looks like. So,
through interviews, I connected with participants, other Black women survivors
who shared the nuance of their journeys, what their family
responses were like, the academic pressures that came with their
experiences and their disclosures, the care structures that they used
(20:11):
or didn't use, and what their strategies of resilience look like.
Their stories and ways echoed my own, and it revealed
these patterns silence that was driven by fear of disbelief
or harm, healing that was fostered by community chosen confidants
and networks appeers that they could confide in creative outlets
(20:33):
where they were able to share their stories and activism
that was sparked by them reclaiming their voice. And at
the time my family didn't even know. My parents only
learned about my sexual assault experience as I got closer
to completing my dissertation. That journey was really a path
(20:56):
of self exploration for me, and I couldn't have protected
how it was going to play out. I had to
confront trauma, I had to bear witness to collective wisdom,
and I had to find meaning in all of that.
And so it came to me in a dream. Okay,
(21:17):
it didn't really. It actually came to me during a
really unexpected conversation though. So there was one pivotal moment
where I was sitting on a zoom with a participant
for my dissertation, and it was a gloomy summer evening
in twenty eighteen. I had my little routine down. I
(21:38):
was settling in, I had a candlelight, I had a
huge gigantic cup of water, I had my laptop ready,
and I had my notebooks so I could take some
notes throughout the interview. I let her into the zoom room,
I let her choose her pseudonym, which was just the
name that she was going to go by during the research,
and we started talking. We started with a question about
(22:01):
her experience, but we got a little deeper after some time.
We talked about her family's reactions and how it kind
of shifted her relationships with them after her disclosure about
her assault. She told me more information about kind of
her identity and the transformation that she went through after
(22:22):
making her disclosure. And about three hours later, even though
we only had like one and a half set aside
for this recording, neither one of us wanted to stop
the conversation. There was a bonding that was happening, this
shared understanding that these were connection points for us and
that it was very profound. And so she said to
(22:43):
me during that interview something that has stuck with me
and really became kind of the seed of this podcast.
She said, you don't get it until you get it.
It's like an unwanted sorority initiation. Once it happens, you
see others differently. And so that phrase really echoed in
(23:05):
my mind over the years. Unwanted sorority a sisterhood that
no one signs up for, but that bond survivors in
ways that are both painful and powerful. So the fast
(23:27):
forward a few years and I am now a finer
woman of the illustrious ze to Phi Beta Sorority Incorporated.
And yes, we have to do all that when we're
rep in our organization and the history of Black Greek
letter organizations that are known as the Divide Nine resonates
so deeply in this space. In the early nineteen hundreds,
(23:51):
there was a lot of racial exclusion from white fraternities
and sororities, so black students decided to fore reach their
own organizations that were rooted in service, scholarship, cultural pride,
and social justice topics that were really relevant and prevalent
at the time. So these spaces nurtured leadership, collective action,
(24:17):
and deep familial bonds. They showed how collaboration and even
a little friendly competition can preserve and uplift Black communities.
And so I realized in the creation of this platform,
I wanted to kind of replicate that. I wanted to
replicate the community that formed in those dissertation interviews, and
(24:38):
I knew that I could kind of draw on the
Black Greek letter organizations as a model for that so
rituals of welcome, mutual support, shared purpose, a sorority we
didn't choose, but that unites us. That's become the unwanted authority.
And I think back to that anxious, introverted twenty five
(24:59):
year old who was stuck on the assignment, and I
now imagine the journey that has gone into becoming more confident,
more outspoken, still introverted, but who refuses to let silence
define her. And that transformation came from deciding to use
my voice, first in academia, then in advocacy roles and
(25:24):
supporting marginalized students as faculty, diving deep into titlemind policy research,
and even serving as a sexual assault response coordinator in
the military. Throughout it all, though I learned that systems
meant to protect us can still hurt us. I witnessed
victim blaming attitudes in some of the training that I
(25:47):
had with colleagues, questions like how much did that person
have to drink? Could that have affected their consent? And
hearing that triggered my own pain. I'm not going to lie,
but it fueled my resolved to change those narratives, and
so in that I often reflect on Chanelle Miller's words
(26:07):
in her video I Am with You, which is in
reference to her book titled No My Name. In the video,
she declares that survivors will not be limited, labeled, boxed in,
or oppressed. We will not be isolated. We've had enough
of shame, diminishment, disbelief and loneliness. Look at this togetherness,
(26:29):
Look out for one another. Speak up when they try
to silence you, Stand up when they shut you down.
No one gets to define you. You do. In those words,
as I listen to them, they feel like permission, permission
for us to define ourselves in our own terms, to
release the weight of silence, and to embrace our roles.
(26:55):
And for me that's a scholar, advocate, survivor, and just
to be truthful, this journey has not been easy. Advocacy
can be very unsafe. In fact, as I was building
this show as part of Ihart Media's Next Up Fellowship,
where I was learning the ins and the outs of podcasting,
I was also transitioning professionally into a new role, as
(27:18):
I mentioned earlier, the one of being a military sexual
assault response coordinator, and so I was grappling with colleagues
who sometimes perpetuated really harmful myths. I've had moments of
breakdown when hearing victim blaming language in professional spaces were
people who were supposed to be there to support survivors,
(27:40):
And so it underscores how deeply ingrained, harmful scripts remain
and why we have to keep challenging them. These challenges
also reinforce why community matters, to process, to strategize, and
to find solidarity. So when I sat with my participants,
whether it was in a zoom room, in a gazubo,
(28:01):
in a public park, or in a coffee shop, we
formed community out of necessity and that shared space birth clarity.
You're not alone, and together we can push these systems
to evolve in very necessary ways. In this final segment,
(28:26):
unpacking the ritual, I wanna pause and, like I said,
reflect on themes that came out of either the roll
call or the flowers for the founder. And so we're
gonna deep dive into how black women uniquely navigate healing
from sexual violence. So we'll draw on personal stories and
I'll share more about mine. We're gonna draw on ancestral
(28:48):
wisdom and give shout outs to the folks who have
contributed to this movement and specifically, we're gonna dive more
into community insights and what we're learning together. So first,
the idea of this abrity itself, like I said, it's
the ritual of sisterhood and collective healing and how it
(29:10):
shows up. So this concept is deeply tied to me
to Belle Hook's work. I mentioned her book earlier, but
Sisters of the Yam Black Women and Self Recovery is
the title of her book from nineteen ninety three, and
in that book she urges black women to talk with friends, family, allies,
to name our pain, to shape our narrative, and to
(29:31):
find paths of healing together. So in it she specifically
recounts a student's insights, saying, quote, healing occurs through testimony,
through gathering together everything available to you and reconciling end quote.
So she describes the book as kind of a map
(29:51):
guiding us back to the dark place within where we
were first known, first loved, and where the arms at
once held us still hold us in memory. So that
imagery of like returning home to the self cradled by
ancestral love captures to me why this sorority exists. We
heal not in isolation, but in collective embrace and so
(30:14):
in the book, Hooks reminds us that race, class, and
gender produces and perpetuates systems of oppression and domination. So
she says, no level of individual self actualization alone can
sustain the marginalized and oppressed. We must be linked to
collective struggle, to communities of resistance, then move us outward
(30:36):
into the world. That declaration reinforces the need for this space. Again.
We name what sexual violence looks like for black women,
we explore its impact, and most importantly, we share how
to get through it together. Some people may be thinking
about how do we change the system. While that is
an important and critical part, this show isn't only about
(30:59):
naming our system of harm, even though we do that.
It's equally about testimony and celebration, the power of speaking
our truth, the relief of being heard, and the joy
of witnessing our resilience. So when we share our stories,
we may discover words that we never had. You as
a listener, maybe hearing things that kind of mirror your
(31:23):
experience that you just hadn't been able to articulate before,
and think about how important that could be for someone
who's never heard it. It can make someone feel so
much less alone in their navigation of their healing, and
we may even glimpse new possibilities ways of moving the
collective forward that we hadn't heard articulated before. And so
(31:44):
in giving flowers to the founders in this show, also
we're lifting up black women's experiences who have created healing spaces,
who have held systems accountable. And those include grass foods
advocates and writers scholars like Bell Hooks. It includes community healers,
it includes policy advocates, and all of that helps pave
(32:07):
the way for our survival and our liberation. And I
just want to emphasize that Belle Hook's lens is intersectional.
She focuses on Black women and men in a lot
of her writing, but she never excludes anyone. She teaches
that black women and men must learn how racism, sexism,
class exploitation, and homophobia and other domination structures operate daily
(32:31):
that erode our self determination, that erode our joy, and
that erode our capacity for collective action. And when we
recognize these interconnected forces, it helps us to be able
to name the personal and systemic layers of harm and
build strategies to resist in heal So this all ties
(32:52):
to me to another element that I want to pull
from my own role call, which is the red zone.
Like I said earlier, my assault happened during my first
year of college, but it was actually during the first
semester of college for me, during a period that research
calls the red zone, and that's just the time period
between orientation as a freshman and the first break in
(33:16):
the academic semester. That's when students are most vulnerable. So
naming this period, I just want to be clear, does
not blame survivors, but it names the specific conditions that
may be exploited for harm to take place. So those
include things like unfamiliar settings, students kind of entering this
(33:39):
space with a lowered guard, trying to be more social
in this new environment, and it could also include uncertainty
about resources that are available in this new environment. So
imagine arriving on campus. There's so much excitement that's mixed
with the sense of potentially loneliness in this new context.
(34:01):
It's driven by a desire to belong, but you're probably
not yet anchored in what your new routine is going
to be like in this environment. So maybe to counteract that,
you try going to different parties, or you know, you
stay up a little later than you would trying to
talk to the new folks in this environment, you're trying
to build new friendships, and you may not yet to
(34:23):
know where to turn if harm occurs. So it creates
this perfect little storm for an individual to feel even
more marginalized in an environment that's new to them. But
I want to highlight in this vein of focusing on
black women that it's important that the resources that students
have at a particular college, or in a particular community,
(34:46):
or in a particular environment be knowledgeable on the statistics
and trends associated with varying demographics. So, for example, sexual
assault perpetrators are not always straight hiding in the bushes
or people that we don't know. The truth is that
around eighty percent of rape and sexual assault survivors knew
(35:08):
their attacker, according to Raine's report from twenty twenty. Coincidentally,
the National Sexual Violence Resource Center reports that around ninety
percent of college sexual assaults go unreported altogether. Reporting can
mean risking harm from police or social fallout from your peers. However,
(35:29):
choosing to not report can mean ongoing proximity to your
perpetrator or self isolation from peers as you're coping with
the feelings. And in my work, I wrote about the
stories of black women who felt ostracized or silenced on
their college campuses when they chose to name their abuser,
(35:52):
especially if that abuser was someone who is very well
known or very well liked. So this double bind of
both personal trauma and systemic risk makes the red zone
more than a timeframe on the academic calendar, but it's
kind of a metaphor for the vulnerability that's layered by
our identities. So again, naming the red zone helps us
(36:16):
to recognize patterns and advocate for cultural responsive supports on campus,
And according to the research, some of that can include
having trained advocates who understand black women's experiences, having survivor
centered policies that don't retraumatize individuals who are seeking out
supports from that environment, and having peer networks that say
(36:39):
we believe you. And so across context, whether it's campus
or community, the same principle remains true. Resources must be
informed by demographics. If black women's survivors often know their abusers,
we need survivor advocates who are knowledgeable and trained on
navigating reporting without causing additional harm, and we need alternative
(37:03):
support outside of police departments and Title nine offices, and
you know, let's keep it one hundred. The Title nine,
which is currently a function under the Department of Education,
is kind of going through a little bit of an
ugly phase right now. So those alternatives can look like
restorative justice circles on our campus, communities, community based advocates,
(37:24):
and mental health professionals who get racial trauma and who
we don't have to have the burden of educating while
they try to help us. So we're going to be
talking about the tools that we use to navigate our
healing a lot on the pod, and I'm really looking
forward to hearing what's worked for you. So hit us
up on social media. We're at the unwanted authority on
(37:45):
all social platforms, and let me know what have been
some of the most effective tools for you. I want
to hear from you. Well, at the end of the
day is going to end or whatever Gloriala said. Basically,
what I'm saying is when policies or resources ignore demographic nuance,
(38:10):
survivors slip through the cracks, point blank period. Our stories
highlight these gaps and policies and resources, which is why
it's so important for us to keep sharing them loudly, boldly,
and without shame. And if you're listening right now, you're
already part of this movement, so thanks for being here.
Every story is sacred, every voice is valued, and every
(38:34):
listener is a contributor to our collective healing. I want
to lift up more founders and organizations doing the good
work right now, So reach out and let me know
who's inspired you, who should be spotlight on a future episode,
And like I said, if you want to join a
future role call segment, reach out on social media at
the Unwanted Sorority on all platforms, or via email at
(38:58):
the Unwanted Sorority gmail dot com. Thank you for sharing
these minutes with me, listening to my journey from the
classroom in Pittsburgh to this moment right here, right now,
creating and releasing the first full episode Yeah yeah, yeah,
of the Unwanted Sorority. I can't wait to hear and
(39:19):
hold space for you and your stories. And this is
a little mantra that you'll hear me close all of
the episodes with take care of yourself, Take care of
one another and release whatever shame or guilt you may
be feeling about the harm that's been done to you.
You're not alone. And make sure you subscribe to our
(39:41):
show on whatever platform you get your podcasts so you
don't miss any new episodes. And while you're there, go
ahead and rate and review the episode so far, because
I want to hear what you like, what's working for you.
Stay safe, stay connected, and remember this is a safe space,
not a quiet space. Welcome to the word Sorority. Take care.
(40:11):
The Unwanted Sorority is hosted in executive producer by me
Leander Tate, Our executive producer is Joel Money, our producer
is Carmen Loren and original cover art is created by
Savannah Yuler. I would also like to have special thanks
to the iHeart Podcast Next Up program for helping bring
the show to life. Also all of the guests who
have taken the step in sharing their story with you
all on these episodes. And finally, to all the members
(40:33):
of this sorority who will never tell their story, we
see you and your story matters.
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