Charlottesville: Why it matters to us

Many of you know of the recent events that occurred in Charlottesville, VA. The one where white supremacists and Neo-Nazis and the KKK had a rally shouting things like “Jews will not replace us,” “White lives matter,” and “Blood and soil.” During this rally a terrorist used his car to plow into a crowd of people, killing one and injuring many others.

You can watch a 20-minute documentary from VICE on the events here:


This event was abhorrent.

Why am I addressing a racist event on a blog for a domestic violence, sexual assault, and other crimes? Because all forms of injustice intersect somewhere. People of color experience sexual assault, and other abuse at higher rates. When we allow racism to abound, we allow the continued oppression of people of color in many forms, including sexual violence, domestic violence, and other crimes.

Racism is about seeing one people group or race as superior to all other races. When we dehumanize people in any way, we more easily tolerate the abuse that happens to them because they are seen as “less than.” It’s similar to how sexist attitudes and the dehumanization of women leads to higher rates of violence against women. In much the same way, dehumanizing a group of people leads to higher rates of violence against that people. Women of color have it even worse because they are battling both sexism and racism. This also goes for the LGBTQIA community and people in religious minorities. A woman of color who also identifies in the LGBTQIA community has three areas working against her (or them, if that is their preferred pronoun).

Recognizing how these different identities affect a person is a concept called intersectionality. These identities intersect with each other and the oppression that follows each identity follows the person. When a person identifies with more than one oppressed people group (person of color, woman, LGBTQIA, differently-abled, etc.), the more oppression they are likely to face.

Part of that oppression is violence and abuse in their many forms: sexual, physical, emotional, financial, etc.

This is why issues of racism matter to the work we do at Transitions.  Our agency condemns all forms of white supremacy and racism. There is no place in our country for this behavior and it is important that we work as an organization and as individuals for the true equality of all people, no matter their religion, race, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc.

Will you stand with us and condemn this hatred, what happened in Charlottesville, and all forms of racism, sexism, and violence? Will you commit to not only help end sexual assault and domestic violence but all forms of injustice?

A good place to start is to listen and learn from these groups of oppressed people. As a white, straight woman I recognize that I only can scratch the surface of what it means to be completely intersectional when fighting for justice. I have learned much of what I know about this from listening to people of color. I encourage you to look up this concept and discover the many intricacies of this concept/theory and how people of privilege (white, able-bodied, men, straight) can leverage their privilege for the benefit of these different people groups who continually face oppression and violence.

I’ll give you one article to get started:
http://www.newstatesman.com/lifestyle/2014/04/kimberl-crenshaw-intersectionality-i-wanted-come-everyday-metaphor-anyone-could

Written by: Missy H., Union County Legal Advocate

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