Violence Against Black Women : A Conversation With Dr. Brittany Lewis

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and host Christian F. Nunes talks with Dr. Brittany Lewis about some disturbing statistics:  there are 60,000 missing Black women and girls in this country, and Black women are more than twice as likely as their peers to be victims of homicide. 

The Founder and CEO of Research in Action, Dr. Lewis is a leader in developing effective, community-based strategies to push for social and policy change.  Nunes and Lewis discuss the systemic racism behind the disproportionate rates of violence Black women and girls face in the US.

For Domestic Violence Awareness Month, NOW calls upon our communities and law enforcement to believe survivors when they bravely step forward to report. Too often, Black women are not believed. And if they do report, it is not investigated. Survivors must be believed and what they share must be taken as authentic and truthful. It is always better to save a life rather than overlook it and lose one.

NOW's Take Action Checklist 

Listen to new episodes of Feminism NOW released every other Wednesday. To find out more about the National Organization for Women, visit our website.

Creators and Guests

Host

Christian Nunes

CC

Producer

Caroline Cooper

IB

Editor

Ismael Balderas-Wong

SN

Writer

Stu Nolan

What is Feminism NOW?

Passionate about modern feminist issues? Want to learn more about how today's political, academic, and cultural leaders strive for a future of universal equality and justice?

Join NOW President Christian F. Nunes in a new podcast dedicated to intersectional feminist discussions in American society with leaders in entertainment, sports, politics, and science. From conversations on constitutional equality, to economic justice and reproductive rights, listeners will find new ways to learn, engage, and get empowered.

Listen for new episodes released every other Wednesday.

Christian F. Nunes.: Hello, hello. Welcome to Feminism NOW featuring leaders and activists who are on the front lines of fighting for constitutional equality, economic justice in reproductive rights. I'm Christian F Nunes, the national president of the National Organization for Women. October [00:00:30] is Domestic Violence Awareness month, and my guest today is working on innovative approaches to combating violence against women. Dr. Brittany Lewis is a CEO and founder of Research in Action, a consulting firm based in Minnesota that uses research to drive social change.
Dr. Lewis's work has been used by communities across the country working to combat the effects of gentrification, reform the criminal justice system, and examine ways to improve housing stability. I wanted to talk with her today about her [00:01:00] most recent work, examining, missing and murdered African-American women and girls. Dr. Lewis, thank you for joining us.

Dr. Brittany Lewis: Of course. Thank you so much for having me.

Christian F. Nunes.: You have released a major report, your team, Research in Action, and the statistics that come out were really devastating to think about. And as a Black woman, they're really maddening for me. Over 60,000 Black women and girls are missing in the United States, and Black women are more than twice as likely than their peers to be victims of homicide. Dr. Lewis, can you please educate the listeners [00:01:30] about why we have so many missing women?

Dr. Brittany Lewis: There's a host of issues that we explore both, in our report and talk about in our public advocacy work. I think what's really, really important, and as we drill in on the state of Minnesota in particular, when you think about Black women being only 7% of the state's population, 40% of the domestic violence victims in the state of Minnesota, that should be alarming and that should beckon us to ask a number [00:02:00] of questions about why are Black women nearly three times more likely to be murdered than White women? Why is it that typically this happens in a context where our perpetuators are someone that we know intimately? And what is the connection between racialized systemic violence, exploitation, and economic devastation that aligns with those alarming statistics?
It shouldn't be shocking. It shouldn't be shocking that there's a direct correlation between the fact that Black [00:02:30] women are experiencing evictions that rates higher than any of their peers, and also disproportionately impacted by domestic violence. These issues are interconnected, so when we think about health equity, you can't separate our living conditions, our access to resources, and also perhaps some of the environments that we are forced or contained to live in, that are actually perpetuating our continual interaction with violent circumstances.
[00:03:00] It is a cycle, and in many ways it is systemic and we really do try to push back on public narratives around this notion of choice. So choice is an illusion that means the choices are what's made available to you. And then in any given context, a Black woman is assessing what is the best choice based on what is being made available to me. So in Minnesota where we had the first missing and murdered African American Women Task [00:03:30] Force that was introduced by Representative Ruth Richardson and was passed in 2021 with the advocacy of Lakeisha Lee and her family, we were able to spend some time looking directly at why are Black women and girls disproportionately impacted? How can we both support, measure, and ensure the reduction of violence toward Black women and girls?
And some of what came out of our report shouldn't [00:04:00] actually be shocking. One, it shouldn't be shocking that when we look both, in Minnesota and across the country, that the folks that were actually tracking missing and murdered Black women and girls, and are providing healing support or resources to Black women and girls and families or victim supports or resources, were literally Black women themselves with very little resources. That shouldn't be shocking.
And one of the major recommendations in the report talk about creating a fund through the state that is [00:04:30] directly giving resources to those Black women led efforts, both, to track and support that work. It was also really common for Black women to be creating their own support groups within domestic violence shelters that had support groups that they didn't feel comfortable in.
So, in as much as Black women and girls are in spaces to seek support and refuge, they're having to then create their own support and refuge within the institution. Many of the Black women and girls talked a great deal about wanting these institutions [00:05:00] to literally hire Black women and girls, and not just any Black woman and girl, but Black women and girls that have lived experience. There are many, many things that came up in the report. There's a whole section about housing and access to housing.
Again, it should not be shocking to any of us that there's a direct correlation to violence against women and access to equitable and safe housing. So for instance, in the state of Minnesota, the average age for a young person to be trafficked [00:05:30] is 14. And when we did research about that particular reality, it was usually for food, clothing, and shelter.

Christian F. Nunes.: Right. I mean, you just said a couple things that I found really interesting. The first was when you're talking about choice and how choice is viewed, i.e. choice is really determined by what options that you truly have. And everyone does not have the same options. And that brings us to why we have inequities, right? This is exactly why we have inequities in this world because [00:06:00] everyone is not equipped with the same access, the same equality.
Systematic racism, institutional racism, White supremacy, patriarchy, all these things really have an indirect impact on a person's ability to have complete equity. And we do know that first, women alone have less equity, and then when you put a woman of color on top of that, it's going to create even more inequities. And this is where we're getting [00:06:30] to the intersectional of what's all existing and happening.
So thank you so much for bringing that to attention because I think it's really important for people to understand, choice is not the same for everyone. And we can't assume that a person makes a choice because it's always a choice that they want to make. Sometimes it's the only choice that they have to make or that they can make at that time, in that situation, in that condition or at that moment. So thank you first of all for that.
[00:07:00] And second, I think it was really interesting when you talk about just in general, the multiple things that are happening, social determinants of health, access to resource, so many other things are playing into fact that are also impacting why Black women and girls are more likely to be susceptible to violence and be susceptible to be in situations where they can easily be harmed. And how that also is interconnected and there's a nexus between those things.
[00:07:30] But like you said, it's really not shocking when we look at how society views Black women and girls sometimes and how when Black women and girls report things, how they're viewed and how they're seen. So can you give us a little bit more information about that? How does a criminal justice system, how does the school system, education system play into this pipeline?

Dr.Brittany Lewis: A number of things are coming up for me as you were asking your question. [00:08:00] One of the first things that came up for me that was rarely common in our interviews, the adultification of Black girls and this concept that Black girls are always already seen as whether it's sexually available, deviant or disruptive, and the way in which that starts at a really young age. Many Black women and girls talked a great deal about how their early experiences both, [00:08:30] influenced their current circumstance, but also how they see that taking place with their own young children. So I mentioned before that Black women are experiencing eviction higher than any of their peers, known female of any racial and ethnic group.
I did a study on evictions and it was unbelievably common for Black women and girls to be locked out of the traditional market as a result of the receiving unlawful detainer, typically from a slumlord in an [00:09:00] area or geography and of a city where folks have been forced to live because of income and access. And there's an actual market for slumlords, I would argue we, as a nation are creating a need for them. We've created a need for a landlord who knows that he can make a handshake and a smile deal with you and not write it in a leaf. Or for instance, a number of Black women that I interviewed were being sexually harassed by their landlords. And [00:09:30] what was choice for these Black women and girls? Choice was I can't afford the traditional market. It's the only landlord that will maybe allow me to pay week by week.
I'm never going to forget being in an interview, crying with a woman who had two young daughters, that were my age and talking about the men showing up unannounced, making advances while her children were there. But what choice did she have? What forms of violence was she susceptible to by these unannounced visits? What [00:10:00] form of violence were her girls susceptible to? In many ways, we turn a blind eye to these contacts and we blame the mother for choosing the property where she said, "My only other option was to take my children to shelter where I feel extremely unsafe." So it's either choose the shelter where I don't get my own room for bath and bed, and people are stealing things. Or choose the somewhere where I get my own roof and door, but he might throw up and make sexual advances. What is the actual [00:10:30] choice? 100%. 100%.
And in that particular context, a number of women in Minnesota filed a lawsuit against a particular landlord that was sexually harassing folks. And I honor those women. I keep them in my thoughts because that's a very courageous and risky act in a society that does not value when Black women and girls speak up about violence that are happening to their bodies and defend [00:11:00] them often, especially as some of our report names. When Black women and girls go missing, were not believed, right? Or when violence happening to us, were not believed.
So we recently introduced the Brittany Clardy Act in partnership with Representative Ilhan Oman and Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman. And Brittany Clardy was Lakeisha Lee's sister. And Lakeisha Lee was a member of the Minnesota Missing and Murdered African American Women Task Force council and [00:11:30] the co-chair. And it was her story that really catapulted the task force to be, and her sister went missing and the family, within 24 hours reached out to the police because they'd know their sister. And immediately they made an assumption about her being a runaway, and running away because of a boy with her family completely disrupted to That's not true.
And within two weeks, they were calling [00:12:00] back the Lee family to say they had found her sister dead in an impound lot in a trunk of a car. So we're not believed when we tell you we know our own family members. And then when we do tell you what we know, there are these cultural pathologies about Black women and girls adding the adultification of this Black girl and that she must be running away with a boy. There's no need to cause for alarm and send and utilize resources to find her. [00:12:30] And then we, again, in this context, Brittany Clardy was found two weeks later.

Christian F. Nunes: That's what's hard about this and so frustrating when things are shared, they're not believed. There's the duplication, there's this sexualization of it, there's the blame that takes place. They're gaslighted and something's not right, or what did she do to contribute to it? What did she do to cause it? It's always something where the Black woman or girl was always the one that's [00:13:00] blamed as contributing to her victimization.
Y'all are doing this Missing and Murdered African American Women Task Force. And this research is so crucial and important to help make a change, and the Brittany Clardy Act because these women and girls need a voice. They need their stories shared and told. People have to understand that is not for the victim or the survivor to have to be the one [00:13:30] to solve the problem or take on the blame or the behaviors of the perpetrator. And so often we do that and we do it more when it's a woman of color. So can you share a little bit about how media has played a role into the underreporting?

Dr. Brittany Lewis: Media plays such a significant role in what many people deem to be worthy conversation or priority. Unfortunately, the missing White girl syndrome as a [00:14:00] phenomenon is as an American as the origins of this country. So the missing White girl syndrome gestures toward the news media proclivity toward covering at intense and high rates and tracking missing and murdered White women and doing very little of any coverage and public calling of action to any Black women or girls or even indigenous women for that matter. And in many words, the missing White girls syndrome [00:14:30] indicates that we should as a nation galvanize around and pull resources together for White women as who the nation needs to protect.
There is a popular narrative around in this country that goes far beyond contemporary media coverage of White women and girls. It goes all the way back to the origins of this country, what they're talking about from slavery, Jim Crow and the current era where the protection [00:15:00] of certain bodies is deemed more valuable than others. I recall Lakeisha Lee and Brittany Clardy story particularly, a local newspaper after getting wind of the story, without talking to the family, posted prostitute in big, bold letters in a newspaper. The family was so livid, as I'm sure you can imagine, because Brittany Clardy wasn't a prostitute. And there were a lot of assumptions [00:15:30] being made about what took place.
And I think what we learned in that story that Brittany Clardy did have a boyfriend who was abusive toward her and placed her into context that were unsafe. We would argue that it was the beginnings of trafficking for this young girl, but the newspaper would have us believe that this young girl had a history of being a prostitute, and that just wasn't true.
I feel like the telling of Brittany's story, who she was, [00:16:00] was either non-existent or secondary to naming her the part of the problem. Whereas in other coverage focused on White women and girls that are missing, they typically spend the time to paint a picture of who the family is and why we should care about their lives. And that is typically initially done on behalf of Black women and girls. There's often this quick desire to name perhaps her own participation in her demise. Early Black feminist [00:16:30] organizing was in direct response to Black prostitutes in Boston going missing.
So we know as a Combahee River Collective by Barbara Smith, their first form of early public activism, where eight Black prostitutes went missing in Boston. No one cared. No one organized around it. And they put on a few pamphlets about why are these eight Black women missing? Why should we care? And in this context, [00:17:00] the nation had determined that just because they were prostitutes, meaning because their life circumstances placed them in the sex work economy, that they were no longer somehow valuable, their lives were no longer worth investigating. And the Combahee River Collective really pushed back on it.

Christian F. Nunes.: Yeah. And made them human, I mean, personalize them again. Because what we also see is the media is good at depersonalizing groups and what community did and what we also continue [00:17:30] to see happening and what we have to continue to do is show that Black women and girls have value, have to uplift their voice, uplift the narratives. I want to ask you this, can you tell the listeners why this topic is important for one? Because some people, I think would hear this and say, well, this doesn't apply to me, but to me it does. So can you tell the listeners why one, understanding what's happening to missing and murdered Black women and girls, African-American women and girls is [00:18:00] important to them and why they also need to be invested in legislation, advocacy?

Dr. Brittany Lewis: I really, really do believe that when we support, advocate or lean into hearing or really listening to what Black women and girls tell us about our nation, its gap, its limitations, its violences. That once we address those things, all folks will benefit. [00:18:30] Whether you're talking about wage gaps, eviction to subprime loan exploitation, Black women and girls and some of our indigenous brothers and sisters are often impacted the most. And if we're paying attention to the folks in our community who are perhaps most impacted by systemic racism and violence, I think we changed the system for the better for everyone. I believe that wholeheartedly.
[00:19:00] And I think something else that you mentioned prior is the Research in Action process. And it's not enough to just hold good value. It is the process that you take to get there that matters just as much as what your goal is. So at Research in Action, we believe that, from government policies to nonprofit programs, research is used to shape daily life in countless ways. But for many generations, researchers have entered communities with their own agendas, [00:19:30] extracted data and cause harm, and then release findings that are utterly removed from the people most impacted. Research is being collected on folks without those folks at the table all the time. It defines the agenda, it defines the investment agenda, it defines the policy agenda.
And Research in Action uses an equity and action model where we co-produce our research and partnership with community and we really want to help community take back research. We use racial justice because [00:20:00] racial justice calls for some form of reparative strategy and partnership with the people who are impacted. That is a value of ours. And I think what that means is we can say that we're committed to co-design with community. We can say that we're committed to actionable research products, but the process you take to get there and the relationships you build along the way are just as important as the product you produce.
I'll be honest, half of my work is people work. And the [00:20:30] other half of my work is the technical side of what we do at Research in Action. We're actually trying to reteach folks how to build intentional coalitions and move actionable policy work. And half of that has to do with us often coming back to a table where have the folks left before, where former leaders made promises they never kept or former messages fell flat. And we have to find a way to bring folks back to that table. And what it means is that we also have to find a way for us to [00:21:00] develop shared language, shared understanding and shared values.
In the beginning of all of our work that we do, we have to establish those things before we start collecting any data because if we're not sharing the same language, if we can't actually establish that we have some shared values and that's what's going to guide the process, this is going to fall apart and any report will do nothing.

Christian F. Nunes.: Right. Yeah, because there's no trust.

Dr. Brittany Lewis: Right. There's none. So I feel like that's the process we brought to the Minnesota [00:21:30] State Task Force, and it was the first task force of its kind to have an advisory council in task force because the reality is most states are required to have a task force where, in this context, the Department of Corrections appoints folks. And let's just be real, the people that they appointed, they all weren't Black women and girls. There's very few representation of Black women and girls in that task force if we're going to be honest.
And we let them know when they reached out to us, they knew we were the best [00:22:00] engaged research team to lead the work. We said, we will not move forward with this project if Black women and girls don't lead it, but we had to build a council that would guide the task force. So let's also be clear, we need to disrupt this notion of who is the expert and who is not. So, in all of our research, we talk about community expertise and I have a technical skill and my job is to elevate you, and we had to also teach that to folks who are often used [00:22:30] to being the ones pushed forward because of perhaps their representational power, or maybe some of their positional power expertise. Your expertise is valuable. You have knowledge that we need. But the lived experience and their expertise should guide what we are doing.
And I don't know if this shocks folks listening or not, but that's not how most folks function. That's not how most governments function. That's not how most boards function. They don't function with these values. They have to often [00:23:00] be taught these things and also they have to be willing because we're not going to force anyone to do anything. They have to be willing to see the value in that model and see the value in the change that they'll be able to create when you work with someone versus doing something to someone.

Christian F. Nunes.: Absolutely. You hit the needle on the head when you said you have to disrupt the notion of what we identify as expertise, because right now we continue to silence women and girls in so much of what we do, [00:23:30] and it's time that we stop that because they have the power and the voice to tell us. We have that power and voice to tell us exactly what we need. We just have to listen.

Dr. Brittany Lewis: I agree. I think too, to solidify this last point, not just listen, trust stuff, because I think there's this performative-ness sometimes to listening, but you also have to receive and believe. It's a concept that we teach at Research in Action, [00:24:00] was that you have listen and also believe what you're hearing. Okay? You have to be willing to check what you've learned, where those values came from and where those biases come from. Because when a person is sitting in front of you with lived experience and tells you this is their truth, you must receive and believe it.

Christian F. Nunes.: Yes. Say it one more time for the listeners.

Dr. Brittany Lewis: You must receive and believe and be willing to disrupt or question how [00:24:30] you have learned a concept idea or about a community. When someone standing in front of you is sharing a lived experience that isn't yours, you must receive what they are sharing with you as true. And it's your work, it is your work not theirs to assess how you learn something different and why.

Christian F. Nunes.: Absolutely. Wow. Well, it's so much to talk about in this conversation, but we are only a half an hour show. Dr. Lewis, [00:25:00] I thank you so much for just coming and dropping these nuggets of knowledge for us today.

Dr. Brittany Lewis: This is a fantastic conversation. I hope it's just the beginning.

Christian F Nunes.: If you like what you hear, please go to now.org, read up on our core issues and our approach to advancing women's equality and get involved. Thank you for listening, and we'll be back in two weeks.