EPISODE 02
[INTRO]
[00:00:00] RW: The content of this episode contains discussion and language about domestic violence, sexual assault, abuse of a child, mental health issues, and police brutality that may trigger strong emotions for some of our listeners. If you need support at any time, please call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline 1-800-273-TALK. 1-800-273-TALK or the Domestic Violence Hotline 1-800-799-7233.
Welcome to this episode of We Hear You from Harambe Social Services in South Jersey. We Hear You is designed to give a voice to victims and survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. This forum is for survivors and their allies to discuss issues that impact them and their families, as well to educate communities. In the comment segment, we will hear from survivors. They will tell us their stories and what they would like for us to know. As allies, we want to hear how we can support them.
[INTERVIEW]
[00:01:25] RW: Hi and welcome to We Hear You, our new podcast designed to give voice to victims and survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. We want this podcast to be a forum where survivors and their allies can come to discuss these issues together, especially how they impact black community. In the upcoming segments, we will invite survivors to tell us what they would like us to know about being victimized in this way. As allies, we also want to hear how we can support them.
Tonight, we have a very special guest and a warrior in the community, Rev. Dr. Selina Carter. She is the Founder and Executive Director of Spirit of Excellence, which is nonprofit organization for teen girls and women. She is also a renowned trainer who has facilitated many workshops including SOE Did You Know, which was actually a conference a couple of years ago on domestic violence. With that, we’d like to welcome Rev. Carter. How are you?
[00:02:45] SC: Good evening. I’m doing well, Rose, and thank you for having me on this platform. This is a great opportunity to share my experience and information on domestic violence.
[00:02:59] RW: Fantastic. We are so excited to have you tonight because, again, it’s been a little while since we’ve seen each other. But I know each time I see you, you always come with a wealth of information. We just want to open up tonight's discussion just to tell me a little bit about how you got started doing the work related to domestic violence.
[00:03:22] SC: Okay, sure. My experience and what started me in the area of domestic violence, first, I like to say I am a survivor of domestic violence back in the ‘80s when I was in high school and dating. I met my then ex-husband, and we had a high school relationship, and our relationship turned into subtle verbal abuse.
Then it led to physical, emotional abuse. Being a victim, young African-American woman with children, it led me to want to help other women who were in my situation and especially women in the church because I did have – I was part of a church. Back then, the resources are not as available as they are today, and the church just did not have the resources to help me in that situation.
[00:04:31] RW: Again, you started from your own experiences wanting to help others, and so that sort of got you on the road thinking about how can you get that done. Your work with the Spirit of Excellence is more of a mentoring program. How does that program encompass the work of domestic violence to address that issue?
[00:04:55] SC: Sure. Spirit of Excellence, when we started, my goal was always to provide women with empowerment tools to help them have healthy relationships and healthy self-esteem. One of our programs, SOE Did You Know, started out that wanting to have healthy relationships, helping women to have healthy relationships. Through SOE Did You Know, I did my first domestic violence conference in the church in 2012 and later did smaller workshops in smaller settings. But that's one of our Spirit of Excellence key workshops, this SOE Do You Know, and we help educate on how to prevent domestic violence, specifically in the church in the African-American community.
[00:05:55] RW: Tell me some more about that because I know we’ve had these discussions about working with the church and working with clergy. I guess I'm going to come from two sides of that. But what are the challenges for victims when they are needing to get help from clergy?
[00:06:20] SC: Well, the challenge can be twofold. First, a lot of the women, the guilt and shame in the church of coming forward to let their religious leader know that they’re a victim of domestic violence. Then the second challenge is being victimized a second time. One of the things I’ve learnt or from experience and research is a lot of our leaders are not educated on how to deal with domestic violence and often time into spiritualizing it or revictimizing the victim because they don't have the tools to adequately support a victim.
[00:07:09] RW: In your experience, that lack of education from the clergy, how can that be harmful I guess for victims?
[00:07:19] SC: Well, the lack of education can be harmful in a number of ways. One is I go back to spiritualizing. We’ll pray about it and share with the victim. Just go home and work it out. It'll be okay. Ask God to help you forgive. Forgiveness is a big issue because women are thought to forgive and just move on, and they go back into the lion's den, and their situation is not helped.
Because of that, women will sit in silence because they have been given the wrong instructions on how to get out of the abusive relationship or how to be safe or create a safety plan in an abusive relationship because of lack of education.
[00:08:15] RW: Now, in your case, you sought help from your spiritual leaders. Was that the case of spiritualizing the situation in your case or telling you to forgive your partner? Were those some of the issues that came up for you?
[00:08:32] SC: Well, for me, the issue back then, my pastor wasn't able to advise me because he just did not have the tools and the time to help me. That sent me back into the relationship, and my family didn't talk about domestic violence or we just didn't share that information. Even though they knew that I was in a domestic violence situation, it was just something that was not talked about.
Again, that goes back to the guilt and shame that we deal with in the African-American families. One of the things that I always hear is, “What happens in the home stays in the home”, and that alone can create an area isolation for victims of domestic abuse.
[00:09:32] RW: That tact of isolation always comes up. How do you think in particular that isolation can impact a victim who is also a Christian in a whole sort of she is a Christian woman. She is ashamed and then not wanting people of the church to know. The family doesn't know. How do you think that particular tactic impacts that particular victim?
[00:10:04] SC: Well, it has a big impact, and I could just use myself as an example. I just thought being a married woman that I made those vows and I need to do what I need to do to make this marriage work.
In the end, I ended up suffering and staying in a situation much longer than I should've stayed in. It’s because I didn’t have the resources. Or when I went to the people who I thought would help me, they didn't have the resources. Again, it goes back to education. So many women fear speaking out about domestic violence, especially if it's not talked about in their religious community. If it's not something that's in the forefront, you rarely have the tools to provide when someone does come forward.
[00:11:07] RW: When you’ve had these conversations with people in ministry and I know when we were in your SOE Did You Know conference you had a phenomenal panel of clergy from different walks talking about what they do or what their concerns were around this issue. What can you share with our audience about what clergy say about what they intend to do or what they find an issue for them?
[00:11:38] SC: One of the things, I recently interviewed two clergy members about domestic violence. The male clergy that I interviewed, one of the things that stood out was that he was saying that with the clergy, they just don't have the tools, a lot of them to provide help.
This is just something this particular clergy said. Because of the nature of the work that they do in ministry, often time they need to be taught how not to be abusive towards their spouse or loved ones and family members. That opened a different door. That wasn't a perspective that I thought about dealing with just from a clergy perspective for them to deal with their own issues that can lead to abusive relationships. The clergy said it's not always physical. It could be emotional and psychological because of the stress and the things that come along with being a pastor.
On the other hand, the female pastor that I interview talked about how a lot of male clergy are just nonchalant about it and just overlook a lot of what's being done as clergy and as men and pretty much dismiss it in their congregations.
[00:13:24] RW: When you talk about the lack of education, it sounds like this is all around need for the education around just gender issues and gender roles, as well as around intimate partner violence. We both know that the church certainly is a patriarchal institution, and there are many, many, many folks that would like to pull out scriptures to backup abuse and abusive behavior, whether that's verbal or emotional, even from the pulpit in where some pastors are really tyrants from the pulpit and kind of verbally abuse their parishioners. It would be difficult to have them kind of flip that and change that and have compassion for a victim. It sounds like there's clearly a lot of work to be done.
In your current work, what are you doing at this point in terms of those workshops or your work with the young girls and women? What kinds of things are you doing to be a part of the solution?
[00:14:41] SC: One of the things that I'm doing, I created a six-module training course, and the training is a curriculum that’s geared toward educating church leaders and leaders in the African-American church and laity for that sense.
This training is to help to identify domestic violence situations in their congregation and how to address it and not from just a spiritualized perspective. The training deals with just domestic violence in general, and this is specifically geared towards the African-American church. That's my focus because the numbers are extremely high in the African-American community, and the services are not the same for African Americans.
There are so many other issues that we have to deal with in our community that keep us from dealing with domestic violence, and we could look today with all the social justice issues with crime and mass incarceration and the issues that African-American men. How the police deal with our African-American men, which is evident in today's society. Our African-American women are reluctant to call the police for domestic violence issues because they don't want to put them in a system that's already oppressing them.
I created a six-curriculum. It’s six modules and it's called The Voice of Silence: Domestic Violence and the African-American Church Response. The first module deals with domestic violence and abuse of African-American women. Then the second module is the history of violence against African-American women, and that's something that we can't negate the fact that African-American women, our bodies have not been our own throughout history. Someone always dictated how we should use our bodies, so understanding the history is very, very important in dealing with domestic violence because we have the racism, sexism, discrimination, patriarchal events towards us, and spirituality and religion. We cannot overlook that in dealing with domestic violence.
The third module deals with trauma-informed care because anybody that has been a part of a domestic situation, there is some trauma. In my own experience well into my 40s, I was still dealing with trauma of the abuse. There are so many things that can trigger the abuse, and we just need to be mindful of those things like trauma-informed care. Something that’s really starting to be talked about now is traumatic brain injury, and that's something that wasn't talked about. It’s something that is really being discussed like in the last couple years that has a long-term effect on women.
Then we can’t forget about community violence. We deal with the trauma of community violence and things that African-American church do. We talk about what the African-American church can do to help. The fourth module is theological sensitivity and pretty much what you were just talking about, Roes, that what the pastor can do from the pulpit, what the church can do, how to not misuse Scripture or how to use Scripture to help with the healing process and the role of clergy not just in the church but in the community.
One of the things that I learned is that there is not a cohesiveness between domestic violence agencies and community agencies in the church. There is a separation there because our agencies want to make sure that the family is safe, whereas the church is looking at the sanctity of marriage and the family.
[00:19:45] RW: That's not always a connect. That’s very often a disconnect, given violence in the home.
[00:19:51] SC: Yes.
[00:19:54] RW: And having those ministers. Again, these are not always male ministers. These are often women ministers as well. They’re getting that same message and those same lessons. That's how they are taught in seminary. I'm sure you know, having recently gone through seminary yourself, knowing those lessons and what’s taught or what’s not taught, so you have to really kind of seek out this information for themselves.
As you were talking about the six modules, which sound excellent, I want to hear more about how to go about getting this or how you’re planning on getting it to the community. But you know that one of those things you said is that black women are three times more likely to be murdered in intimate partner situations than are white women.
Also that the rate of violence against black women is that much higher than it is for white women, not because black men are necessarily that much more violent but because of those reasons you stated about women just staying in the relationship away past the time they’re at very high risk for danger because they do not want to have the man put into the legal system and so many myths about the man who abuses wife is this thug kind of type of ignorant, uneducated, whatever, some of the stereotypes but not necessarily.
This could be the well-educated white collar guy who goes to work in his suit every day and has never been in any kind of trouble. Certainly, that guy and the policemen or the firemen or the whoever those guys are, they haven’t been in any trouble with the law, so it then brings this responsibility onto the woman, even though there’s abuse, to say, “Well, he is a good man.” “Well, he’s a good man. He’s providing for you. Why would you call the police?” It’s that guilt that it’s sort of a societal guilt which it starts with the family and the laws.
But then the larger black community that say, “Well, it's really not that bad. It can't be that bad.” It makes it very difficult for those women to leave that situation, so I’m glad that you brought that up here.
[00:22:37] SC: Yes. That is true, Rose. It does make it difficult for them to leave, and especially older women that are in those situations and have been in situations some time until their spouse pass away. That’s their reprieve is their passing away. But you hit on something really important is that domestic violence is not confined to any race or ethnic background or any income background, education. It does not have a face or it's not bound to those demographics. Yes, the poor as well as the rich are abused. That's very important for people to know.
[00:23:31] RW: Yeah. One of the big stereotypes I think.
[00:23:33] SC: Yes, it is.
[00:23:33] RW: And there are so many around them. Hence, the shame that you talked about at the top because of so many of the stereotypes that just make it very, very difficult for women to come forward.
As I mentioned and I think it's important to mention, women as well as men need to be educated because many women who will be bystanders or this sort of the people in the church or those that would, could, and should be allies are not always there because of their own misconceptions around who the victim is and why the victim is a victim.
Remarks that I've heard that are certainly very victim blaming and that you are in the situation because you don't leave. You’re in this situation because you must like that kind of treatment. You don't respect yourself and so on and so forth. That kind of victim blaming creates that atmosphere where the woman is afraid to really tell anybody, and that's part of the shame that she’s holding herself in.
[00:24:47] SC: Yes. That is true when the people around you are not able to support you when you're going through a DV situation, and that's why it's so important. In the church, women's ministries, if you just get together and talk about it and create a safe space for women to come and share.
One of the things is that we stress or that I stress in my training is confidentiality. A lot of people are afraid to come forward because if I go to my pastor and maybe they send me to one of the deacons or somebody to help with my situation, before you know it everyone in the church is aware of your situation. That’s one thing I teach. If you are going to have a domestic violence ministry or offer any type of services in your church, confidentiality is key, and I am very adamant about that. If you cannot keep your mouth closed, this is not the area you should be working in.
[00:26:11] RW: Well, then actually I have now worked with churches who had sort of a reciprocal agreement. They work together to get the training. This was years ago. I would say a good maybe 15 years ago. But these two churches in Camden County, they work together to get the domestic violence education. But part of what their agreement was that if a member from a church had a situation, they would go to the neighboring church to get the counseling and the support and vice versa. In that way, as partners, then they were able to offer that confidentiality that’s definitely needed.
[00:26:57] SC: Right, and that’s great. Also, I just want to note that some churches have very effective domestic violence programs. It's not all churches but definitely more needs to be done around domestic violence in the church because in most African-American churches, 70 to 80% of the church is made up of women.
[00:27:21] RW: Absolutely. Yes, that’s true.
[00:27:23] SC: But the women's issues are not being placed at the forefront of the ministry, and most of your leaders are male.
[00:27:34] RW: That is so, so, so correct. What kinds of things do you think need to happen within those churches to get women to try to push more for these issues to be key issues within the church? How did churches get that to happen, the congregations get that to happen?
[00:27:59] SC: Well, for one thing, Rose, as women, we cannot be afraid to use our voice. That’s what’s key because a lot of churches you have to get the buy-in from the leadership in order to have domestic violence in the church because a lot of pastors believe that it doesn't happen in their church. Just getting past that are we teach the Bible here but it's more than that. It's bigger than that. You know it’s much bigger than that. We’re talking about women who go to their homes, which is supposed to be their sanctuary or their safe place, and it’s not safe.
[00:28:50] RW: No, it’s not safe. Especially when you have – It doesn’t mean that you need to be an officer of the church. But if they’re prominent long-standing members of the church and he has been abusive, then who's going to hold him accountable? That’s part of the issue is being held accountable and not be allowed to get away with it.
[00:29:19] SC: Right. Not just dismiss the behavior because of their role in leadership or them being a prominent person or you’re afraid you may lose income or they’re that key person in the congregation or in the church.
Again, we have to build those relationships, and I just can't stress enough education. Education is so key to make this happen. Once we get past that and educate people on what to do and what not to do and then just small things that you could do. A pastor may not have the tools or enough people to create a domestic violence ministry, but you can connect with agencies in your community. You can connect with other churches. You can provide resources in your bathrooms. You could just lay out flyers —
[00:30:23] RW: Some of the smaller things but having the concerted effort. Can you tell us again where you will get the course that you're doing? Is that already published? Can we get it now? Where would it be available?
[00:30:39] SC: Well, I just completed the course, so my goal is to get it published as the curriculum. But I am available to facilitate the course if a congregation is looking to have the course offered at their church. One of the things that this course is it’s portable, and we use the resources in that church’s community to help support it because when I did this at my local church, we used the agency in the area to come in and to talk to us and to build a relationship with the agency in that area.
[00:31:26] RW: That's wonderful. Maybe you can give us your information. How can people be in touch with you if they're interested in having you come out?
[00:31:37] SC: Sure. My email address is scarter, C-A-R-T-E-R, S as in Sam, C-A-R-T-E-R, 1291@verizon.net.
[00:31:57] RW: This is some of the information we will post on our website, Harambe Social Services, your information as well, and try to share it with our followers so that you can get hopefully more people interested in being taught by you.
[00:32:17] SC: That would be great.
[00:32:18] RW: Yes. We want to thank you so much for joining us for our podcast tonight. You have been so informative and hopefully that you will come back and visit us again.
[00:32:33] SC: Sure. Thank you for having me.
[00:32:35] RW: All right. Good night.
[00:32:38] SC: Good night.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[00:32:40] RW: Thanks for joining We Hear You podcast with our host, Rose Williams, from Harambe Social Services, a grassroots organization in South Jersey. Harambe is Swahili for pulling together in unity. We use the principles of the Nguzo Saba in all of our services to educate communities about domestic violence and sexual assault. Our primary focus is to provide counseling services to victims and survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. If you or someone you know needs to talk to us, please call 609-225-6936. Again, that number is 609-225-6936. Our counseling services are free of charge.
Be sure to follow Harambe Social Services on Instagram and Facebook. We would love to hear your feedback about tonight's focus. Tell a family member a d friend about the show. You can help us get the word out. Go to buzzsprout.com to make a review. Thank you. Be safe. Be well.
[END]