just found this one leftist woman ArticleFrom 2009The authors personal facebook.By Amanda Kijera, civic journalist and activist in HaitiTwo weeks ago, on a Monday morning, I started to write what Ithought was a very clever editorial about violence against women inHaiti. The case, I believed, was being overstated by women’sorganizations in need of additional resources. Ever committedto preserving the dignity of Black men in a world which constantlystereotypes them as violent savages, I viewed this writing as yet onemore opportunity to fight “the man” on behalf of my brothers. Thatnight, before I could finish the piece, I was held on a rooftop inHaiti and raped repeatedly by one of the very men who I had spent thebulk of my life advocating for.It hurt. The experience was almost more than I could bear. I beggedhim to stop. Afraid he would kill me, I pleaded with him to honor mycommitment to Haiti, to him as a brother in the mutual struggle for anend to our common oppression, but to no avail. He didn’t carethat I was a Malcolm X scholar. He told me to shut up, and then slappedme in the face. Overpowered, I gave up fighting halfway throughthe night.Accepting the helplessness of my situation, I chucked aside the Haitibracelet I had worn so proudly for over a year, along with it, mydreams of human liberation. Someone, I told myself, would always bebigger and stronger than me. As a woman, my place in life had beenascribed from birth. A Chinese proverb says that “women are like thegrass, meant to be stepped on.” The thought comforted me at the sametime that it made me cringe.A dangerous thought. Others like it have derailed movements,discouraged consciousness and retarded progress for centuries. To acceptit as truth signals the beginning of the end of a person–orcommunity’s–life and ability to self-love. Resignation means inertia,and for the past two weeks I have inhabited its innards. My neighborshere include women from all over the world, but it’s the women ofAfrican descent, and particularly Haitian women, who move me to writenow.Truly, I have witnessed as a journalist and human rights advocate themany injustices inflicted upon Black men in this world. The pain,trauma and rage born of exploitation are terrors that I have grappledwith every day of my life. They make one want to strike back, to fightrabidly for what is left of their personal dignity in the wake of suchthings. Black men have every right to the anger they feel in response totheir position in the global hierarchy, but their anger ismisdirected.Women are not the source of their oppression; oppressive policies andthe as-yet unaddressed white patriarchy which still dominates theglobal stage are. Because women–and particularly women of color–areforced to bear the brunt of the Black male response to the Black maleplight, the international community and those nations who havebenefitted from the oppression of colonized peoples have aresponsibility to provide women with the protection that they need.The United Nations, western women’s organizations and the Haitiangovernment must immediately provide women in Haiti with the funding thatthey need to build domestic violence and rape crisis centers. Stopdividing Black families by distributing solely to women, which onlyexaggerates male resentment and frustration in Haiti. Provide both womenand men with job training programs that would allow forself-sufficiency as opposed to continued dependency on whites. Lastly,admit that the issue of racial integration might still need addressingon an international level, and then find a way to address it!I went to Haiti after the earthquake to empower Haitians toself-sufficiency. I went to remind them of the many great contributionsthat Afro-descendants have made to this world, and of their amazingresilience and strength as a people. Not once did I envisionmyself becoming a receptacle for a Black man’s rage at the white world,but that is what I became. While I take issue with my brother’sbehavior, I’m grateful for the experience. It woke me up, mademe understand on a deeper level the terror that my sisters deal withdaily. This in hand, I feel comfortable in speaking for Haitian women,and for myself, in saying that we will not be your pawns, racially,politically, economically or otherwise.We are women, not weapons of war. Thankfully, there are organizationshere in Haiti who continues to fight for women’s human rights like, www.madre.org/index.php?video=1 www.oxfamsol.be/fr/Solidarite-Fanm-Ayisyen-SOFA.html and www.dwafanm.org/international.htm Rather than allowing myself to be used in such a fashion, and asopposed to submitting to the frustration and bitterness that can be bornof such an experience, I choose to continue to love and educateinstead. My brothers can be sensitized to women’s realities inHaiti and the world over if these are presented to them by using theirown clashes with racism and oppression as a starting point.They must be made to understand the dangerous likelihood of theoppressed becoming the oppressor if no shift in consciousnesses takesplace and if no end to the cycle of trauma occurs. I intend to see thatit does…by continuing to live and work fearlessly with justice inmind, through the creation of a safe space for women in Haiti and bycreating programming for Haitian men that considers their needs, too.Weapons annihilate, dialogue bears fruit.It’s the fruit I’m interested in now, no matter how strange or bruised it might appear.