With the publication of the book Surviving the Silence: Black Women's Stories of Rape, my personal life was understandably changed. But also dramatically altered was my academic/professional life. Surviving the Silence and its being in the world has reshaped my pedagogy. The writing of memoir and its dissemination has shifted my thinking about "theory." There was always tension for me as I began to write. I felt as if I were forced to make a choice of which audience to "write for" - to speak to.

I believe if we are to broaden the categories of what we call "the academic" and challenge those "sacred boundaries," books such as Surviving the Silence need to be read, critiqued, and fit into the pedagogy of and about women, especially within the arena of black women's literature and pedagogy. Colleagues across the nation interested in issues of trauma, violence, and black women's lives (writers, scholars, filmmakers, activists) are now more than ever working together to develop a "language" for writing and teaching in the areas of rape, sexual assault, and other traumas. Many of these colleagues, men and women, have graciously used Surviving the Silence in their college and university courses. Doing so, I believe, encourages a more expansive pedagogy on the university front. Each time, for example, that I use Dartmouth University professor Susan Brison's academic memoir, Aftermath, or practicing psychologist Martha Manning's professional memoir, Undercurrents, or Duke University professor and colleague Karla F.C. Holloway's personal yet academic treatise, Passed On - when I recur to these texts - I know I am shifting and expanding the parameters of trauma, literature, theory, and the "lived lives of women."

Graduate-student scholars have been some of my most ardent supporters, analyzing and critiquing in their classes the text Surviving the Silence. Now I better understand what I accomplished by writing through memoir; I can now evaluate the process as well as the consequences of many of my writing decisions.

It was in 1990 that I began to think about writing what eventually became (in 1998) the book Surviving the Silence: Black Women's Stories of Rape. The book's foundation was extremely personal: that is, it was motivated by my own rapes, rapes perpetrated by two black males - burglars, in my own home - as the legal version has it: "rapes committed in the process of another crime." In spite of that very personal beginning, my initial thinking on the content of the book I was writing was to produce an academic piece on rape, slavery, black men and women, and the impact of sexual violence on black lives. After all, I was an academic; therefore, I told myself, I should write something totally academic - footnotes, bibliography, allusions - the whole academic bundle! My research began with the idea of producing - in book form - an "ethnography of black rape." With this focus, all seemed to be taking shape-gaining purpose, I thought. And I began to interview black women rape survivors. The audiotapes increased in number. However, as I interviewed the women, I soon became patently aware of two things: one: I was not writing, and two: I was in denial about my own rapes. I was surely procrastinating (or what we, in the field of trauma, sometimes call "paralyzed by fear"). I had unraveled an incredibly intricate string of secrets and continued silences - and I was at the center of it all. My realization became clear: I was still "in hiding" and not openly talking about my own wounding. I had, thus, failed in the face of the first goal of writing memoir: truth telling. If I had failed at truth telling, then, how could I possibly face "objectively" and in supportive ways the other women and their narratives? The answer was, I couldn't - nor should I ever have thought I could. In fact, the actual writing (that is, words on the page) of Surviving the Silence did not begin until I had "owned up to" my own rapes, the details, the aftermath. It was almost as if I were not allowed to transcribe the words of the other women until I had "faced myself." It was at this juncture I realized - I was creating community. And in such a community one must share "the unspeakable." Mine was no longer a solely academic endeavor. And it was then that I remembered feminist scholar Carolyn Heilbrun's proclamation that "it is not so much women's lack of language as their failure to speak profoundly to one another" (emphasis mine) (Writing A Woman's Life, 43). And with that, my fingers gained strength!

With resistance, I slowly accepted the fact that I actually was writing a book about black rape - a very personal book - with a wide audience, not an historical, statistic-laden treatise on rape and sexual assault. Once I spoke the words aloud and believed them: "I am writing this book for the ordinary woman - the "woman on the bus" - I knew that Surviving the Silence, which began as an ethnography, had to rid itself of words such as "methodology"; "thick description"; "raison d'être"; and "philosophical muse" (although I was particularly fond of that one) - and other equally obtuse lexical items. I was, in fact, with the other women of the book, speaking wisdom from terror - and I wanted the words to be accessible. With the addition of this new, expanded - and unexpected - audience, the manuscript became viable.

I am taught in my work (in part) by the theory promoted by two Latina writers, Cherie Moraga and the late Gloria Anzuldúa who speak and write of what they term a "theory of the flesh." And yes, at this point my writing and speaking do sound a bit essentialist. But then I am not sure how one discusses black bodies, trauma, and "the personal" while remaining non-essentialist. The intersection of our lives and our work represents whole grids of the urban, indeed, the cosmopolitan, les mestizas and the international; they are major crossings, not just simple intersections of streets and corners and byways. We are talking here of whole grids of race, ethnicity, gender, class, sexuality, disability. As time progresses, and with the feedback of other readers and researchers, I continue to learn how "life" intersects my research, my writing, my teaching.

By way of a personal example: With the recent loss - the death of my oldest childhood connection, my best friend - and the death of my mother, a year and some months later - I now must say slightly different things about Surviving the Silence - a book I wrote just seven years ago going on a quarter of a century. To whom, for instance, do I now tell the story - of the unspeakable, of that which is usually whispered in corners, behind curtains, in the shadows? Neither my friend nor my mother were survivors of rape, but they might as well have been. They understood the complex and manifold crossings of the seemingly disparate parts of my life. They were witness to my strangeness after the rapes - and to my struggles to "just get through the day." They were, for me, the essence of community. And in (at) their "endings," I was present. We were each other's bodies. My hurt was archived in theirs. And so - these are the offices of black women in the Americas. These are the offices of women in the Americas. When those long-time confidantes are no longer there, to whom does one tell the stories? The stories that American Indian writer Leslie Marmon Silko says we must hold onto lest we have nothing?

Once Surviving the Silence was completed and given over to "dear reader," I took a long, deep, cleansing breath, and I thought, "Now I can return to the real world of teaching and writing about 'ordinary academic' issues and topics." Little did I know that the publication of the book would be only the beginning of my engagement with topics of trauma/loss/violence and black women's lives. I thought with the finishing of Surviving the Silence I had put an end to the voices, the urgings to uncover yet more information, more stories. But as it turns out, Surviving the Silence only marked a "caesura" - a pause. There was more to be done. My book was merely a comma. My work has now taken on other angles and - slowly - the paragraphs beyond "rape and black women" have begun to fill in.

Pedagogy

Out of a study of rape and black women in the United States and a book of "once-muted voices of black women," Surviving the Silence: Black Women's Stories of Rape has evolved in women's studies at Duke University - a "pedagogy of trauma" - not trauma studies or a pedagogy attached to historical events, but rather a pedagogy that derives its authenticity from the individual, daily lives of ordinary women who have been soul-wounded and have chosen to speak - and to write: Linda Brent, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Sylvia Plath, Radclyff Hall, Susanna Kaysen, Assata Shakur, Meri Nana-Ama Danquah, Kay Redfield Jamison, Edwidge Danticat - and the list could go on. A pedagogy of trauma that extends beyond the usually acknowledged "collective-cultural" traumas of our nations and the globe. The literature is growing. A language is emerging. As writer Margaret Atwood tells us in her poem "Spelling," "A Word / after a word / after a word / is power."

I am so sure there is such a pedagogy because for the past six years I have been engaged with and by a seminar that has "trauma, violence, and women's lives" at its center - a course that considers and studies the "appropriation of body of woman." I designed and named it: "Trauma, Violence, Women Writing." The seminar began with a core study of black women only. It then morphed into a more inclusive discussion - involving other women of color, mainstream white women, and marginal white women trapped in poverty. In subsequent semesters we introduced women of the African diaspora; next we will uncover the stories of women globally. It is a study and a course in progress.

No longer is there "a void, an absence, a silence" - as I wrote in the beginning pages of Surviving the Silence (15). But it does remain that in writing this book, my most remarkable discovery was an extraordinary array of women (in particular, black women) waiting to speak their traumas - waiting to "tell." It seems no one had ever asked to hear their stories.

It is with this in mind that I seek to provide students with an awareness of the existence of trauma in "ordinary time" - and the possible strategies for surviving trauma. With a new language, we are attempting to articulate the horrors and theorize our positionality and possibility in a world of trauma. Our students learn that others have already written the words we think and feel - and now they must try to reconfigure what's been written, in order to make the words applicable to themselves and to other women of the world. Each time I've attempted to end the existence of the course on "trauma violence and women's lives" (thinking its use value limited) - the call has come for it to reappear. The course sometimes changes title; the faces before me certainly shift in identity; the literature broadens in scope, and then - the semester begins again. The course has prevailed. There seems a need. And I believe as academics we should fill that need - fill it through whatever our particular discipline happens to be. To again paraphrase Carolyn Heilbrun: "As women, we are without texts; therefore, we must create them."

Trauma maps its own way. As women we are keepers of secrets. We have always done it - in order to keep peace and create safe spaces for ourselves and for our loved ones. As women of color we keep silent about present and past inequities in order to ensure a more global survival. Our stories are legion. We must create the language. We must learn to speak profoundly to one another.

And now - to give you some notion of the book, the memoir, the collection of voices out of which the pedagogy evolved - I will read from the beginning of Surviving the Silence:

(The following excerpt is reprinted from Surviving the Silence, pages 15-21, with permission from W.W. Norton and Company.)

BEGINNINGS

There was a void . . . an absence . . . a silence. There were no voices. There were no structures of reeling or support. So I went in search of structures and voices - in search of community.

I remember vividly a young black woman I'll call Renee; I met her while on hotline duty. I had been called to a "Code R" at Thomas Jefferson Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Code R indicates that a rape victim has been admitted to the hospital's emergency room.) I thought she was nineteen or twenty years old. She had cuts, fresh bruises, a look of eerie calm. She was waiting to be examined by a physician and sampled for a "rape kit." As an emergency room crisis volunteer for Women Organized Against Rape in Philadelphia, known as WOAR, my duties were specific: help the survivor feel comfortable and safe, explain procedures, and tell her about WOAR's services. We were instructed to stress that the rape was not her fault and instructed to help her feel less alone. I asked Renee several questions. No response. She obviously was shaken. But her silence was as solid as stone. It made me desperate with uneasiness. I knew Renee needed immediate attention. But in the emergency room everyone waits her turn.

Renee seemed to resent my presence. I asked if she wanted to be alone, and she answered with an abrupt "No." We sat in silence, staring into our separate spaces. Before long, Renee began to speak without my urging. She was not nineteen or twenty. She was fourteen. Only hours before, she had been raped at school by a fifteen-year-old boy in her neighborhood who was "known for doing things like this." She said, "I am not the first." When I asked if the boy had been caught, suspended, and arrested, Renee answered: "Why would anybody care? Nobody's going to do anything anyway." The boy had cornered Renee in a locker room - raped her while a group of students stood and watched. This fourteen year old had resisted as best she could. But now, alone in the ER - with me and her much older boyfriend - she needed and was asking for help. The rapist would be out of school for two, at the most, three days - perhaps a week. Then back to terrorize. According to Renee, this was a familiar story. Why should she go back to school if no one could keep in check this fifteen-year-old boy or ensure the safety of girls in the school community? I realized with a sudden emptiness that I had no idea what Renee would confront when she returned to school after "telling."

We who have survived must tell our stories for Renee and her classmates.

While I was nervously awaiting my turn on the stand at my own preliminary hearing - after bringing criminal charges against one of the black men who raped me - I saw women come and go. The other women who were there on the day of my hearing happened also to be African American. I waited and listened. (Everyone waits her turn in the courts of criminal justice.) I learned implicitly that a woman's word is not enough, that we, the women harmed by rape, serve merely as witnesses. The rendering of our specific brutalities, as in any other case in court, becomes "The Commonwealth vs. the Defendant." Our names do not appear.

When my turn came, I told my story; and the case was given a date. It would go to trial. At the time, I didn't know to be happy. Just as well, since I also didn't realize that going to trial meant I would be dragged through harsh details time after time after time, until I persuaded a jury that my rape had actually occurred and that the "alleged perpetrator" was, in fact, the man who raped me. There were many women, on that day and others, who were not given a trial date due to "insufficient evidence."

As a woman harmed by rape, I write for those women who never have their day in court - who, like Renee, are never guaranteed the safety of everyday life.

I met many women while training to become a volunteer for WOAR. Some disclosed their rapes for the first time during our training. As they labored through rape awareness videos and case history role playing, the pain of their scars was palpable. They fought to endure in order to bring solace to others. Some were able to remain; several had to leave to do the work of their own souls.

I write for those who could not stay.

There are women who continue to care for families and children, when rape and sexual violence have ripped away all intimacies of family life. Husbands, friends, lovers flee; they cannot bear the strain of disclosures, the effort of healing. These women live alone in their nightmares. They have no mediators for their "tellings."

I write for the women who lie alone in the night.

There is an uncanny silence surrounding the trauma of black rape. I believe I understand the silence of black women who survive. I am a black woman wounded, and because I kept silent for so long, my newly found voice is still emerging. Silences have become important to me. I'm not sure why I refused to tell. But I do know I was intensely afraid of the truth in all its manifestations. I was afraid to be heard.

Though I continued "to function" after being raped, it would be years before I began to integrate the trauma into my life. It would take years to embrace the joy of seeing morning light as anything but the end of yet another fearful night, survived with scant sleep or rest. But once I allowed myself to feel the fury that anyone - especially black men, who shared my skin color - would burglarize my home, steal my possessions, rob my body, and wound my soul, then - and only then - I was able to begin my own internal sorting, grieving, and retrieving.

I write now for those who must make the same journey.

Surviving the Silence is the mapping of a new space. A space in which black women can learn to trust and speak to "one other" and then to "one another" in a sharing recovery of memory, of sanity. In this book of voices are voices that worried my head for so long. Now they are "out." Never again will they be silent.

In Surviving the Silence you will meet women who have closeted themselves. In some instances, days of silence became years of undisclosed pain. For other women, survival of trauma remained unheard and sadly unheralded. All the women who have told their stories in these pages have chosen to live in some degree of secrecy, to protect themselves from censure, to stave off family discomfort and worry, or to protect those they have been conditioned to believe are African American "brothers." As I have connected with and come to know these courageous women, I have discovered striking, useful, and productive stories of black survival. Women came forward as I disseminated a "call for interviews" to several Philadelphia agencies. Then, by word of mouth, others heard of my work. Many chose to participate. Slowly, cautiously, women emerged from shadows of silence. I found myself in a world tragically inhabited by more - more than ever I imagined.

While men are not usually incorporated into discussions of rape, they have been allowed place and voice in this book. In the pages that follow, you will hear black men who have nurtured and supported black women surviving rape. These black men labored to understand. They speak with honesty as they attempt to tell other men how to feel, reach out, and connect with women wounded. They speak, I believe, to make our collective black lives better, to acknowledge our wounds and, more precisely, our black woman sorrow. They help us "to tell."

As a researcher and a survivor, my voice joins the voices of other women in this book - women for whom I desperately began searching after my own rapes in 1981. The voices of my mother, my father, and my husband join the book's chorus of witnesses. I have every faith that the force of this book's collective memory will engender a sense of community and renewed possibilities of self-love.

In order to ensure positive beginnings, I ask the reader to be patient, to read only as comfort allows. This is not an easy book, or a soft book. I have tried to tell my story and the stories of my survivor-sisters in ways I feel they must be told: with honesty, humility, and compassion. I profess to have no answers. This book is the story of who I was, who I became for a time, and the way in which I reconstructed my life. It is the story of people I found and refound, and chose to take along with me on my journey toward healing.

In the telling of the other women's stories, I have been protective of privacy (perhaps overly so) and the special relationship I now have with each woman. They gave me their trust. To attempt to explain, analyze, theorize, or interpret their actions would be a betrayal of that trust. If I were to further intrude into their lives with theory or precise interpretations, I would surely compromise their stories. They might flee, be silenced once again.

In our conversations, each woman began a new personal journey toward wholeness. Some have been successful and are working in productive ways. Others still struggle with sharing a deeply painful part of their lives, finding themselves repeatedly trapped in victim behavior. For all women with whom I have conversed, I must listen, without judgment or comment, and pass on their words and wisdom. I know now my role is the ancient one of the storyteller: to open the door and create a medium for survival voices. The storyteller of Native American lore is covered with - attached to - myriad cultural figures. Perhaps she is really only listening. For trauma must tell its own story.

Each reader, I hope, will find and take away what she or he needs. Our souls heal on levels, as wounds to flesh heal in layers. I am certain, however, that we can never again wait in silence. We must "tell." We must begin now to talk to one another - woman to woman, woman to man. And since we must, and I make the demand, it is only fair that I begin - use my own voice - before others speak. The reader must know how I was then in the dark silences and despair of 1981. My voice joins our collective voices, and we shall scratch the surface of our wounds. We shall form community with our stories. We will cast spells with our disclosures. "Spelling," by Margaret Atwood, wondrously captures how the spell of language, the power of stories, can move in the world:

· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·

A word after a word
after a word is power.

At the point where language falls away
from the hot bones, at the point
where the rock breaks open and darkness
flows out of it like blood, at
the melting point of granite
where the bones know
they are hollow & the word
splits and doubles & speaks
the truth & the body
itself becomes a mouth.

This is a metaphor.*

· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·

And so - I write . . . as our words split and double and speak the truth of bodies wounded.

*Margaret Atwood, from "Spelling," True Stories (Simon & Schuster: New York, 1981), p. 64.