‘Break shame and silence’: Online survey needs more voices

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Award-winning West Seattleite Bettie Williams-Watson is putting out the call tonight for more participation in an online survey with a very specific target group:

Greater Seattle area Black/African American girls and women, ages 14-25, about their impact experiences with domestic and sexual violence in predominantly African American faith communities (churches, mosques, temples or synagogues) in South, Central, or West Seattle.

It’s a project of her Multi-Communities (MIC) organization, with funding from a city grant. They’ve been seeking respondents since spring of last year and have extended the survey to February 10th in hopes of finding more. The official announcement cites federal statistics saying, “Black females experienced intimate partner violence at a rate 35% higher than that of white females, and about 22 times the rate of women of other races,” adding, “The aim of this survey is to not only shed more light on these issues, but to break shame and silence, and increase individual and community awareness. What happens here impacts all of us. No one is immune from abuse.” Be forewarned, that the some of the questions in the survey are explicit; if you, or someone you know, qualifies to take it, Williams-Watson hopes you/they will. Here’s the link.

J.Winger January 20, 2011 (1:36 am)

I doubt it is even remotely possible that any synagogue in Seattle (or America for that matter) could possibly be a predominantly African American faith community. But beyond that point, I’m troubled by the practice of pitting races/ethnicities against one another in addressing a problem as horrible and widespread as sexual and domestic violence against women. Even if you accept that African-American women might encounter abuse at a higher percentage than White women, the fact that Black women comprise such a small percentage of the population means that a much higher aggregate number of White women are abused and yet this program articulates that its priority is to focus on one race/ethnicity. I would hope MIC would be in the business of helping ALL women who need their services, especially if they are receiving a City grant.