How Women Become Carceral Feminists

(dramatic music)

Yeah R. Kelly didn't do that.

Robert Kelly did.

The legal age is 16 years old.

We see a line of days.

I'm gonna see a black

man who came so far,

almost to a billion dollars, plowed down.

Every other day, the public becomes aware

of how a famous man abused a woman.

And every other day,

the public makes heroes

out of those men and villains.

There is no greater

example of this in recent history

than the rapper Tori Lanes,

who not only shot the

rapper Megan Thee Stallion,

but he launched a years-long smear

campaign against her

that gained him a fan base of

black men all over the world

devoted to berating the

woman who tried to protect him

and landed himself in

prison for 10 years.

I'm a criminal defense attorney

who's represented hundreds

of men accused of crimes,

including violence against women.

And never once did I struggle with this

or secretly root against my clients.

But when Tori Lanes was convicted,

I was one of countless

women happy to see it.

Why? Because you gave us no other choice.

(upbeat music)

My experience on the

internet as someone who opposes

the criminal system,

policing, and prisons

has been an interesting one.

Because on one hand,

I've amassed a following

of thousands of people

who on places like Twitter

followed me

specifically because they claim

to share my belief

that we should dismantle

the criminal system that we have,

that prisons are terrible

places that do not prevent

nor stop crime, that

police lie routinely,

and the media regularly

takes police word as fact

without any scrutiny, and

that criminal prosecution

and incarceration are rarely the answer

to whatever harm has occurred.

Yet, the same people eat

up those words in theory,

usually have visceral

reactions whenever I apply

those beliefs to real-life cases,

especially if it

concerns domestic violence

or violence against women.

And I understand that.

We've been taught to believe that prison

is the answer to wrongdoing,

that taking accountability means being

permanently prosecuted and convicted.

So it makes sense that

people who rightly see men

abusing women as wrong

would believe those men

should be thrown under the jail.

And unfortunately, our

collective lived experience

is that most times, the

only people who caution us

against rushing to

immediately condemn, discard,

and are prosecute men

accused of abusing women

are those who are

trying to deny, dismiss,

or diminish the abuse.

It's usually those who

do not have a problem

with men abusing women.

And in the case of women who do this,

they're usually pick-me's for abusers.

Which is why, on any

occasion where the internet

was virtually stoning some

man at the very first whiff

of a headline

suggesting they abused a woman,

and I made the mistake

of trying to introduce

an abolitionist

framework into the discourse,

I've had my ass handed

to me by those who we call

carceral feminists, who don't give a

(beep)

why it's problematic

that people who claim

to be abolitionists that

oppose punitive criminal systems

that condemn and discard

people are quick to adopt

those same punitive

attitudes and practices

within their social

circles and communities

before knowing anything beyond a headline

and a police account.

If you've never heard

of carceral feminism,

the term was coined

by Elizabeth Bernstein

in her 2007 essay, "The Sexual Politics

of New Abolitionism."

The term is not a complimentary one.

And it refers to feminists

who not only want to rely

on the criminal system

for dealing with issues

of gender-based

violence, they want to throw

the

(beep)

book at abusers who they believe

cannot be reformed, who they believe

are innately violent

and need to be kept away

from the rest of us.

So carceral feminism is

in tension with abolition

for obvious reasons.

But while I don't like carceral feminism,

especially how it

shows up on social media

because I don't think it

will accomplish anything

but expanding the

prison industrial complex,

I've come to realize that

dismissing why carceral feminists

feel the way they do is a mistake.

Because the reason they

feel the way they do is valid.

And until we address the

problem carceral feminists have,

there is no path to

abolition or redemption

for men who commit harm.

Because the truth is, I

think most reasonable women,

including myself, have a

little carceral feminist in us.

Because how could we not?

Why would we not?

I chose to use brown

news when doing my research

for productions like these.

Because not only does their app and

website let you compare

how the media is framing

any given story worldwide

and get context on each source.

In this particular climate where

everyone's targeting you

with clickbaited misinformation,

where it's hard to tell

what's real, what's fake news,

and what's just straight up propaganda,

and maybe even AI, a tool

like brown news is invaluable.

Especially when I'm doing research on

something as sensitive

as Tory Lane shooting Megan Thee Stallion

and the additional restraining order

she requested against him.

We can see that over 100

articles were published

on this story with only 7%

of them being right leaning.

This under reporting on the right side

can indicate a

disproportionate blind spot on that side.

And I'm sure you can

imagine what kind of blind spot

might exist seeing as this

is a case involving violence

against a black woman in music.

Let's compare the difference in reporting

between how some right leaning outlets

frame the assault versus how more left

leaning sources did.

We can see that the left

leaning sources highlight

the fact that Megan has

requested a restraining order

due to the harassment,

while right leaning sources

highlight the possible

media attention this may garner.

One of my favorite features of brown news

is the blind spot report,

which allows you to see stories

like these may be

disproportionately covered

by the left or the

right, allowing you a chance

to step out of your echo chambers.

Brown news just really can't be beat

because it makes it

easy for me to make sure

that I'm not just

spewing unsubstantiated mess

or being biased, which

is why it was a no brainer

for me to go with

them for today's sponsor.

Go to ground.news slash

Olay or scan the QR code

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Brown news is giving my viewers 40% off

their unlimited access vantage plan.

This is their best deal of the year

and will only be

available for a limited time

so you better jump on it.

Brown news is subscriber funded,

so you won't see any

ads on their website,

which is what

contributes to sensationalism

and clickbait reporting.

By subscribing, you're not only getting

an amazing resource,

but you're supporting their work directly

in helping keep media reporting honest.

Thank you for sponsoring

this video, Brown news.

Now back to the video.

Ask yourselves, how

do women who otherwise

do not even believe in

prisons find themselves

rooting to throw abusive

(beep)

under the jail?

Well, it's because we

haven't been given any other choice

and I think there is

no greater proof of that

than the vilification

of Megan Thee Stallion.

I'm a black woman and a

criminal defense attorney,

but I'm also a woman who has experienced

domestic violence and an abolitionist.

Those things do not conflict,

but during the trial against Tory Lanez,

as someone who is not

rooting for him to beat the case,

people assume that they must.

But I maintain that believe it or not,

everything that

unfolded since Tory Lanez shot

Meg Thee Stallion

makes a case for abolition

and illustrates how our

criminal system serves

as an impediment to

truly taking accountability

and addressing harm.

Stay with me.

Condemning crime is not

the same as solving it.

To solve crime, you must prevent it

and you can only do that by interrogating

and understanding how and why the crime

came about the root cause

so that you can address it.

Abolition is about preventing harm

and the fundamental

recognition that what we're doing now,

mass incarceration does not do that

because it's not meant to.

And instead, it makes matters worse

because it's meant to.

Yet we are invested in

treating criminal convictions

and incarcerations as the

answer to all of our problems,

as being synonymous with justice.

So we refuse to interrogate our issues

without the legal

system or to hold each other

accountable without it.

What's worse is we often

can't hold each other accountable

for harm we've caused in honest, healing,

non-punitive ways that

help address and correct

that behavior because the

threat of our criminal system

stands in tension with that.

Let me explain what I mean.

I was relieved and honestly happy, happy

that Meg Thee Stallion when

Tory Lanez was found guilty

of all his charges.

I did not feel that way

because I was especially outraged

by his crime or because

I think his conviction

or any conviction constitutes justice,

nor because I think he deserves prison

or that incarcerating

him will benefit anyone,

change what's been done or prevent it

from happening in the future.

Over four years ago, Tory

Lanez shot Meg Thee Stallion

in her foot.

Initially, we only knew she'd been shot

and everyone assumed Tory

did it, but Meg said nothing.

The internet responded

with countless memes and jokes

about Tory shooting her.

That's important because

the people who now hate Meg

and champion Tory Lanez and artists who

wouldn't have crossed

their minds if they'd been asked to name

their top 50 rappers

of today, what have you

believed that that hatred

does not come from misogyny,

that it is solely the result

of their unshakable

conviction that she is lying

on an innocent black man.

They would have you

believe that if they had a video

of him shooting her,

if they knew he shot her

without a single shadow of a doubt,

that they would sing a different tune.

That's why it's important

to remember that initially,

before they cycled

through these conspiracies,

Seattle goalposts shifted

from she was never shot to okay,

she was shot, but she's

lying about who shot her,

to slut shaming her, to

challenge her credibility

while never addressing

the credibility of the man

actually on trial or the litany of things

that diminished his credibility.

They assumed he shot her and

they thought it was hilarious.

And Megan still said nothing.

Then Tory Lanez

apologized to Megan privately,

but even though Meg had remained silent

and nothing suggested that

she wanted to press charges

against Tory, Tory's team, who probably

reasonably understood

that it's the district attorney's office

who presses the charges, not the victim.

And in wanting to protect

Tory from negative press,

they leaked stories to the blogs

that would absolve him of wrongdoing,

which reasonably

antagonized and upset Meg.

It was then and only

then that Meg decided

to tell the public how he'd shot her,

but she protected him nonetheless,

because she was scared the

police would brutalize them

and she told them he had

a gun or what he'd done.

So she allowed the police to handcuff her

and criminalize her to his benefit,

all whilst the bullet was in her foot.

And telling the truth prompted Tory Lanez

to mercilessly attack

her however he could,

doing things like making a music video

where he chopped off a horse's foot

that was supposed to represent her,

and thus fueling a massive hate train

against the woman he'd liked,

because he foolishly thought

his freedom depended on it,

that beating this woman down

in the court of public opinion

would change his chances at trial.

And the result was that for years,

swaths of black men, artists and athletes

like LeBron James, who had never given

him a second thought

and even disliked him

in some cases like Drake,

began trying to

iconify him and ascend him

to this unearned

importance in the community,

shouting him out, uplifting his music

and thoughtlessly criticizing Meg.

This bitch live, I get in shots

But she's still a stallion

When they were chastised for it,

they all responded,

including Tory himself,

with some variation of

wait until the trial,

the truth will come out at trial,

you'll all be so sorry

when Tory's found innocent.

I highlighted they to

emphasize this point.

It was Tory's supporters who chose the

outcome of the trial

as the benchmark heir.

They announced to us that

they would treat the outcome

of the trial as the arbiter of truth,

as the final word, not us.

Abolitionists know, women know,

domestic violence survivors know,

black people know,

that the criminal

system is not about justice,

that trials rarely

provide clarity as to the facts,

that judges and juries

are just human beings

with biases and blind

spots and can get it wrong,

that you could be guilty of a crime

and still neither you,

the victim or society

are made whole or better by convicting

and or incarcerating you.

We know that, but the

people championing Tory

drew that line in the sand anyway.

That is why I was happy for Meg.

That is why I was

relieved Tory was convicted.

Because if he hadn't been,

the agents of misogyny had made it clear

that they not only

would have tortured Meg,

but they continue to torture every woman

who's ever been in a position.

And those who have yet to be,

but may feel too afraid of being met

with the same response to

speak up when it happens to them.

And while it's why I was relieved,

it's also precisely why

I believe in abolition.

Because we live in a

society that has taught us

that the only metric

for justice is a system

that we know doesn't bring it about.

So we still rely on it

to be the deciding factor.

And on top of that, just

the existence of this system

prevented the parties involved from

pursuing another path.

Think about it.

It's quite possible

that in a different world,

Tory would already apologize to Meg

and multiple parties involved in private,

would have felt

comfortable taking responsibility

for his actions and

atoning some other way

had taking responsibility not come

at the cost of his freedom.

It's just as likely that

in a world where Tory's team

wasn't worried the

district attorney's office

could and would press charges

regardless of the

victim's wants and silence,

they wouldn't have felt compelled

to leak counter narratives

to blogs and antagonize Meg

into cooperating with

their case against Tory.

Imagine a world where Tory

could have owned what he did,

addressed what caused him to act that way

and correct that behavior.

Imagine a world where we as a society

address those issues

and the issues of the people

that seek to excuse his behavior

rather than weaponize a

criminal system against each other,

knowing that system is itself a weapon

formed against us all.

But that's not what happened.

Because not only is that

not the world we live in,

in addition to the limitations imposed

by the criminal system,

the reality is and has always been

that whenever a black

woman is the victim of abuse

at the hands of a man, no

matter what the circumstances,

she will be made to

answer for her own pain

and turned into either the

butt of the joke or a villain.

People become contortionist to hold trial

against black women for

the harm they suffered

to determine the myriad of ways

they were both to blame

for it and deserving of it.

And it's this fact

standing in the way of abolition.

Because the vilification of victims

isn't a horrible thing that may happen

if they speak up about their abuse.

It's what will happen.

It's guaranteed.

This is what I call

the abuser's second act.

And on some level, it's

even worse than the first act,

the abuse itself.

Because not only has the

victim already had to suffer

the original abuse,

the public is not now only

going to become accessories

after the fact of the crime

because they are going to

help the abuser gaslight,

disparage and verbally beat

their victim into silence.

But because this is

happening in the public's fair,

the intended victim is

not the only one made

to experience the

trauma of this second act.

This public lashing

is felt by all victims.

And it's society's constant infliction

of this second act on victims

who not only had to

experience their own first

and second acts,

but who know that they're

going to have to experience

that second act each and every time

a woman's abuse is made public.

It's that that burst carceral feminism

and the knee-jerk reaction to convict

and condemn alleged abusers

in the court of public

opinion without a trial.

Because they know, because we know,

it's what will absolutely be done

to any and every potential victim.

That's where the primal urge

to lean into punitive measures

for men who put us all through this

second act comes from.

Carceral feminism is

born out of the truth

that there is literally

no path a woman can take,

especially black women,

but it's true of all women.

There is no path a woman can take

that society will not oppose, discredit,

and vilify her for.

Meghan was proof of that,

but we have countless examples.

Take Robin Givens.

In 1988, she filed for

divorce for Mike Tyson

because he violently beat

her and had a volatile temper.

And we know that Mike Tyson abused her.

In his own

(beep)

1989 biography,

"Fire and Fair, The

Inside Story of Mike Tyson,"

Mike Tyson is quoted, quote,

"I like to hurt women

when I make love to them.

It gives me pleasure."

He specifically called

punching Robin Givens, quote,

"the best punch I've ever

thrown in my entire life.

It was when I fought Robin

in Steve Lot's apartment.

She really offended me and I went, bam!

She flew backwards, hitting

every wall in the apartment.

That was the best punch I've

ever thrown in my entire life."

And yet, this is how the

media framed Robin Givens.

You know what people write

about you, say about you.

You know, this is the

beautiful, glamorous actress

with a beautiful, glamorous mother

who ought to ruin this

basically, I don't know what,

tough guy? My mom's life?

Yes, yes, yes.

She was called

everything but a child, a god,

a gold digger, the most

hated woman in America.

To this day, on her Wikipedia page

where it discusses her

relationship with Tyson,

the people who wrote it are still trying

to frame her as the

villain by saying she didn't have

a prenup that she made up her miscarriage

and she and her mom

was spending his money.

Even though Robin

Givens sat next to Mike Tyson

across from Barbara

Walters and told the world

he was violent and volatile and he sat

right there next to her

and he did not deny it

because he could not deny it.

Robin, some of the

things that we've read,

that he's hit you, that he's chased you

and your mother around in Russia,

that Mike has a very

volatile temper, true?

Extremely volatile temper.

I think people see that

about every three months.

He's got a side to him that's scary.

Michael is a manic depressive, he is.

I mean, that's just a fact.

And when he's in a manic

state, he doesn't sleep.

He has enormous amounts of energy.

So your sleeping agitates him.

He gets you up.

There's an argument.

I mean, of course you want to sleep.

So you run out of the

room and he runs after you.

Right.

And people see this

and it's in the paper.

Right.

What he did deny was the idea

that Robin was spending lavishly,

that she was a gold digger.

You said all your

millions, Robin could have anything

that she asked for a

lot, that she spent a lot?

No, I have to force her to buy things.

I have to force her

to dress a certain way.

She wants to go out with jeans and boots.

This is how the world

responded to Robin Givens

when she didn't even

ask them for anything.

Not from them, nor from Mike Tyson.

She didn't ask for him to be prosecuted.

So you can't say she tried

to send a black man to jail.

She didn't sue him in civil court for

money for abusing her.

All she wanted was a

divorce and a restraining order.

And in order to do that,

she cited spousal abuse.

So she had to tell her

story about her abuse.

And for that, a world who

had nothing to do with it

decided that they hate her,

that she must be a gold digger.

And thus lying about the abuse,

the abuser himself did

not and could not deny.

People can know, know with certainty

that a woman was abused

and still refuse to lend her sympathy.

Take Tina Turner.

Not only did the 1993 movie

"What's Love Got to Do With It"

starring Angela Bassett

and Laurence Fishburne

depict the real life story

of Ike and Tina Turner's life

where he beat her

mercilessly for 16 years.

In real life, Ike Turner

could barely bring himself

to deny the abuse

because he wanted his abuse

to be attributed as the

reason for her success.

If everything Tina

says about you is true,

then you're a bad man.

Well, well, I would say

this, maybe so, if it was true.

But if that's what it took

to make her what she is today,

then I have no regrets.

There's no scars on Tina.

You can take a real close look at her.

Well, what I did do to Tina is like,

I've slapped Tina.

The only time I ever

punched Tina in my life

was the last fight that we had.

And that was in Dallas, Texas.

This is the last time we broke up.

I've slapped her

anytime, when I say slapped her,

it's like, I think we lived a lie.

He was allowed to just continue on.

He wasn't banished to the shadows.

He wasn't truly shamed.

And what's wild is that

we know about Ike's abuse

because Tina decided to

write a book about her life

and tell her story in

order to explain to her critics

why she left Ike, only for

her abuse to become a joke

and a meme even after she's passed on.

Take Dee Barnes.

In 1990, Dee Barnes had a

hip hop show called Pump It Up.

And on that show, Ice Cube,

not Dee Barnes, dissed NWA.

And because Dr. Dre did not

like what Ice Cube had to say,

when he ran into a 22-year-old Dee Barnes

in a Hollywood

nightclub on January 27, 1991,

Dee Barnes said he picked

her up by her hair unprovoked

and began slamming her head

in the right side of her body

repeatedly against a

brick wall near the stairway

as his bodyguard held

off the crowd with a gun.

And after he tried to throw

her down the stairs and failed,

he began kicking her

in the ribs and hands.

She escaped and ran

into the women's restroom

and he followed her.

He followed her into the women's restroom

and grabbed her from

behind by the hair again

and proceeded to punch

her in the back of the head

before he and his

bodyguard ran from the building.

And there was absolutely no disputing

that this is what Dr. Dre did to her

in a crowded club in front of witnesses.

He pleaded no contest to it.

Yet, people spread rumors

that she was only suing Dr. Dre

because he hadn't

promoted a project of hers.

And this is what Dr. Dre's

group members in NWA had to say.

She got beat down.

The person who hosted

that show did something.

She know what she did and got beat down

and I hope it happened again.

See you around, buddy boy.

What was that, Ren?

What'd she do that was that--

What did she do?

What did she do that

created the situation

and made it that bad?

Try to make us look stupid.

Try to play us.

Is that a national TV?

Try to play us.

A national TV.

Try to play us in front

of millions of people.

It's not over yet.

E. Barnes's lawyers say they're obtaining

a restraining order against Dre

who they claim has

continued to threaten Barnes.

And the larger community's responses

were very similar to that.

And that's not even the

only woman that we know

for a fact Dr. Dre has brutally abused.

Think about Michalay.

And the community has

excused Dr. Dre's abuse

against women for decades,

continuing to celebrate him.

Take Kiki Palmer, who

despite being allegedly loved

and cherished by the black community

that has watched her grow

up since Akila and the Bee,

saw firsthand how the

community that loves you

will discredit you if you

try to speak up against a man.

Today, Trey Songz has

repeatedly been accused

of rape and sexual assault.

He's been accused of

so much abuse of women

that I cannot keep up.

And he's been arrested numerous times

for violence, lewd behavior, and more.

But before Trey Songz being an abuser

became common knowledge,

Kiki Palmer tried to

tell us what he was in 2017.

And people didn't want to believe it.

Something Kiki would later

point out in the breakfast club

after other people

started speaking up against him.

Did you and other Trey

Songz ever get cool again?

Man, you know, I've

not talked to that guy.

Was it a misunderstanding?

You know, it wasn't a misunderstanding.

Did you tell the story of what?

I tell my truth.

And you know, I just

thought it was real interesting

that after all those things went down,

someone else had something to say.

First of all, I love black people.

I love my people.

I'm not gonna try to

ever tear nobody down,

try to tear no black man down.

That's not who I am,

you know what I'm saying?

Like, that's not what I stand for.

That's not what I'm about.

So if I say something,

I'm saying something,

for a reason, and I

feel like so many times

black women say stuff

and nobody gives a shit,

but somebody of another complexion,

somebody of another

color, they say something.

And then it's like,

we're taking it to court.

It's time to get serious.

Hashtag me too.

And she's right, because

in 2017, when she spoke up,

when it happened,

Wendy Williams's response

to Kiki's story was very representative

of the vocal majority.

Kiki Palmer, you're gonna

sit down right next to Madonna.

(audience applauding) Kiki, I like you.

You're a friend to my radio show,

you're a friend to my TV show,

but I'm a straight

shooter, and I got a papow.

So Kiki Palmer is fighting

with Trey Songz, the singer.

Apparently, Kiki's accusing Trey Songz

of secretly filming her and

putting her in his new video.

There was a party at Trey Songz's house,

and Kiki was there.

There's a song that Trey Songz does,

and in the song, it's not like he says

the best things about her.

He says something about, you know,

I wanna palm her our

president's favorite P word.

(audience gasping)

So that's what he says about Kiki Palmer,

and I guess she felt like--

And Wendy was so comfortable with this

(beep)

up popular opinion that she said it

to Kiki's face, giving Kiki no choice

but to check her in person and make light

of a serious situation.

You know what, Kiki?

Honestly, when I told

the story about Trey Songz,

I thought you'd be like,

some people might be like,

she talked about me on Hot Topics,

now I don't wanna go on her show,

even though you already booked.

You are a girl after my--

No!

She now--

You tell the rest, and

what all had happened?

Well, you know, because

you done told everybody,

especially, okay?

But I don't wanna keep broad

meeting that one situation,

but I will say, Wendy, I would've loved

to turn on your show

and saw you be a little

bit more compassionate

and less accusatory and ridiculed.

I couldn't, I couldn't.

Why, girl?

Because the gag is you wasn't there.

Well--

(audience cheering)

And that wouldn't even

be the last time Kiki

would have to grit her

teeth and bear a community

minimizing a man's abuse towards her.

Because in 2023--

It's been one year

since Kiki and ex-boyfriend

Darius Jackson's

relationship came crashing down

and ended up in court with

allegations of domestic violence

and a custody battle over now

20-month-old son Leo.

In November, Kiki was granted

a temporary restraining order

after submitting

screenshots of multiple alleged

physical assaults

captured by her security camera.

Darius first publicized their

relationship troubles

in a social media post

criticizing a dress she wore

to an usher concert.

Quote, "It's the outfit, though.

"You a mom."

I randomly was on my phone

that saw a Shaver post of the comment

and I was just, I was honestly just shot.

The 31-year-old sat with

people for their new cover story

ahead of releasing her

new memoir, Master of Me.

In it, she writes, quote,

"I wish I could say he

was terrible the entire time

"or that I was, but it

wasn't that black and white."

We saw with our own eyes

Kiki's child's father Darius,

a man none of us know

from Adam, abuse Kiki,

someone we've loved for decades,

and all the public,

who she acts nothing of,

seemed to care about was joining him

and slut-shaming her

over a dress she wore

to an usher concert.

Take Cassie Ventura.

Cassie filed a

jaw-dropping lawsuit against Diddy

for years of physical and sexual abuse,

and Diddy settled the

lawsuit in less than 24 hours.

Yet, the public discourse

accused her of only wanting money,

of trying to bring this black man down,

only for footage to leak of

Cassie trying to escape Diddy,

only to be punted like a football and

dragged like an animal.

And I can tell you

countless other women's stories

to illustrate to you

how the world responds

to black women's abuse, but I would

rather tell you my own.

Abolition isn't just

about abolishing prisons

and leaving the world as it is.

I know that's what people think,

but that's not what it means.

In order to have a world without prisons,

we must first rid ourselves of the harm

we pretend to use prisons to address.

And to do that, we must not only address

the root causes of that harm,

but also the beliefs,

attitudes, and behaviors

preventing us from employing

alternatives to incarceration

and reimagining what justice is.

Meaning, it is

insufficient to imagine a world

without prisons where women

do not have to feel relieved

that Tory Lanez was convicted

because men won't be awaiting

an acquittal to weaponize against us

without also acknowledging why that's not

the world we live in.

Imagining an

abolitionist future requires us

to contend with the present reality

that our world not only refuses to

protect black women,

but it also violently lashes out on women

who try to protect ourselves.

I've never referred to

myself as either a victim

or a survivor of domestic violence,

because once you do, it becomes central

to people's assumptions about you

and what you must

believe or be triggered by.

Those assumptions don't

usually line up with my reality,

as I'm a woman who

became a defense attorney

after it happened to me,

and I have no special

hatred hang up or qualms

with people accused of domestic violence

or with representing them.

So on the few occasions I

have mentioned my experience,

it's been just that, a mention.

Offered up in a usually

heavily watered down manner

that admittedly

usually centers and humanizes

a man who abused me,

only to rebut the

assumption that as an abolitionist,

I've never experienced crime

and would feel differently if I had to,

and to assert that I

wholeheartedly believe

the involvement of the criminal system

could not make me or him whole,

nor could it prevent another woman

from experiencing what I did.

For many years, I hadn't

actually ever told the story,

especially not for the purposes

of sharing what happened to me,

because I didn't really see how such a

deeply personal pain

could matter to anyone but me.

But when people couldn't understand

why so many black women were relieved

when Tory Lanez was convicted,

when they couldn't

understand why we felt so strongly

about how Meg was being treated,

and the certainty in which

we knew she and other women

would be mistreated in the

aftermath of an acquittal,

I realized that what they

were missing was reality.

The reality that what

happened to Meg is not an anomaly,

that every day, regular,

degular black women and girls

experience a microcosm of

what the world did to Meg,

and that there's no

reimagining a world without prisons

without first reckoning with that.

This is how I, like so

many other black women,

know what it's like to

protect a man who attacked you,

risked your life, and

somehow still be made the villain

in one of the most

traumatic experiences of your life.

On April 25th, 2014, I

was a 20-year-old junior

at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio,

living off campus with my then-boyfriend,

whom I'd been with a year

and who'd recently joined a

historically black fraternity

solely because I had

introduced him to the members

and paid his dues when

his white mother refused.

That night, my sorority

was throwing a joint party

with his fraternity.

At the party, a fight broke out

between his and another fraternity.

The fight was quickly resolved

for all of the other participants,

but not for my then-boyfriend.

He ran down the street

and returned with a paddle

he had apparently gotten

from the trunk of his car,

and he tried to

further escalate the fights

despite being sorely outnumbered.

And I was friends with all

the men he was trying to fight,

so I begged them to

spare him, and they agreed.

My friend, LaDawn, and I

then dragged him down the street

where he continued to argue with us

because he wanted to return to the fight.

But to the police driving by,

it looked like he was

fighting with my friends,

so they stopped to

ask her if she was okay.

She said she was, but he

started arguing with them

about why they were

stopping him and questioning him,

so they handcuffed him and

put him in their backseat.

I spent at least 30

minutes pleading with the police

to let him go, and surprisingly,

they eventually agreed on the

condition that he apologized.

So I then spent another 20

minutes pleading with him

to apologize to the

police and assuring him

that I knew he should

not have to apologize,

but I promised that we

could unpack it together

once they let you go

and we get home safe.

Eventually, he

begrudgingly apologized to them.

The moment the police uncuffed him,

he darted down the

street to his parked car.

But the police had given me his car keys

because he was too drunk to drive,

so I just followed

slowly behind into the car,

accompanied by my friend that the police

had assumed he was fighting with

and one of his fraternity brothers.

I vividly remember pulling

up to our apartment building

because it was raining,

and he jumped out of the car

before I even brought

the car to a complete stop.

And I had on this

pair of Reebok Kamikazes

I'd gotten for Christmas

that I remember watching

get muddied as I followed behind him

because he was running

through the wet grass.

And I kept those shoes,

and I still have those shoes.

Once we were inside the apartment,

he did not go to

either of our two bedrooms.

He instead threw himself onto

the couch in the living room

and began to yell at me for

wanting him to go to jail.

And I remember being flabbergasted.

I literally just got done talking this

man out of handcuffs,

out of the police car, and

out of the criminal charges

they'd been ready to slap him with.

And there he was telling

me I want him to go to jail.

Which by the way, looking back on now

as a criminal defense attorney,

I wasn't half as

outraged as I deserve to be

because I would never

encourage anyone to talk to the police

or to believe that

they could talk to police

out of making an arrest

they had already made.

That was the rare exception to the rule

and he didn't appreciate it.

So I decided I had enough.

I'd spent a year being

tortured by his episodes

and his undiagnosed

issues, and this was my limit.

So I said to him, "You

know what, I'm done."

And I left him on the couch

and I went to our bedroom,

which was down the hall at

the back of the apartment.

I changed into a large

navy blue Tweety Bird t-shirt

and I got in bed.

And I kept that shirt and

I still have that shirt.

Shortly after closing my eyes,

I heard him running

full speed down the hall,

but it was so fast, I'm telling y'all,

before I could even fully open my eyes,

his hands were around my neck.

And that was the first time

I truly ever

experienced a man's strength.

I was scratching at him.

I was trying so hard to get his hands

from around my neck.

And I remember the exact

moment the panic set in

when I realized that no

matter how hard I was trying,

I could not loosen

his grip around my neck.

And he only stopped

choking me just long enough

to be able to grab me by my braids

and fling me across the room.

And I'm telling you, when he did that,

he ripped multiple braids

from the front of my scalp.

And when I landed, I tried to run

and he grabbed me, tearing my shirt.

He pulled me back down to the ground

and he started kicking me in my head.

And I don't remember exactly

how many times he kicked me,

but I remember telling the doctor

who told me I had a concussion

that I lost count after the 36 kick.

And I do remember that

while he was kicking me,

he was calling me by other people's names

and he was screaming

messages that seemed meant

for whomever he seemed to

be seeing instead of me.

And at some point the

neighbors must have heard me screaming

and crying for him to

stop and call the police.

And the knock at the door startled him

literally just long enough

to give me an opportunity

to run towards the door.

And when I opened it, I was

expecting to see my friends

because they told me

they planned to drop by

because they were concerned

about how he'd been acting all night.

But instead of it being my friends,

it was the same officers

that I had convinced literally

not even an hour earlier to release him,

like probably not even 30 minutes.

But my friends I

initially expected to see

did arrive moments later.

And they were with me

as I sat on the floor

and nothing but that

torn up Tweety Bird shirt

with braids visibly missing from my head,

crying and pleading with the police not

to arrest him again.

I even told them to

arrest me in his place,

which is so fucking crazy.

And all of us is happening.

I can hear him in our

bedroom screaming at officers,

fuck that bitch, in reference to me,

the woman protecting

him to her detriment.

So I call his mother to

help me convince the police

not to arrest him.

He was black by racial, but black, but

his mother was white.

So I put the phone on speakers

so that she could talk to the police

and convince them not to arrest him.

But she told them to

arrest him and they did.

And as they were dragging

him out of the apartment,

I literally could hear him screaming,

begging them to please

let me talk to my girl.

And when he called me from jail,

he cried about hurting me

and how disappointed he was

because as a black man, he

had always promised himself

he would never go to jail.

That was a place he really

never wanted to see himself in.

And I understood that.

And I told him how that

understanding was precisely

why I begged them not to

arrest him in the first place

and why I wasn't going to

proceed with a case against him.

Then I met with some of

his fraternity brothers

and his only friend who

had come to our apartment

to check on me and offer their

condemnations of him

because everyone knew what he did.

They knew exactly who he was.

Two of them had literally witnessed

many of the night's

events, but I still begged them.

I begged them not to ostracize him.

Then his mom drove over two

hours down to our apartment

and told me I had quote,

"Brought this out of her son."

And it was my fault he'd attacked me

because it was childish of me to tell him

I was done with the relationship

when he accused me of

wanting him to go to jail.

Mind you, this was a

woman who I had watched

physically run from him in a mall

in Dayton, Ohio months

earlier and had warned me

that I needed to decide

if I could be with him

because he was quote, "Looking at her

like he wants to beat her ass."

She then looked me dead in my eye,

and told me that my

name was not on the lease

and that the order of

protection the court would impose

regardless of what I wanted meant

that we could not be

together despite living together

and having no other place to go,

she put all my fucking

things in garbage bags

and threw them outside.

This was the week before my finals,

so I went into my finals week,

homeless, traumatized, and

exhausted on my friend's couch,

and exhausted because I

wasn't allowed to go to sleep

with a fucking concussion.

Despite that, upon the

advice of his attorney,

I wrote a leniency letter to the court

explaining that he was an amazing person

who was troubled but needed therapy

and mental health

treatment, not criminal prosecution.

I took the bus with money I did not have

to get the letter notarized

and submitted to the court.

His mother and fraternity

brother called to criticize me

for acknowledging any fault on his part

and for saying the letter

that he needed mental health treatment.

But I did not know how

else to write a letter

supporting him

without totally invalidating

that he had fucking attacked me.

And I refused to

cooperate with the prosecutor

and I ignored every

call until they were forced

to dismiss his case in

the order of protection.

It was about a month

or so between his arrest

and the case's dismissal.

I know because I couldn't see him,

but I spent that time

doing everything I could

to protect him.

And I remember the weight of the

depression I sank into

when his fraternity

brothers and my sorority sisters,

the same people I had

begged not to ostracize him,

had instead decided to ostracize me.

When he was released from

jail after arraignments,

one of his fraternity

brothers who barely knew him

did not like him.

Who I had personally known for years,

saying to him,

"I bet you can't wait

to cut that bitch off."

And they all laughed about how it

wouldn't have happened

if he'd been with my

light-skinned sorority sisters

he'd apparently tried

getting with earlier

in the night he attacked me.

They provided him physical shelter

to cheat on me at their homes.

People I had been friends with for years

who had taken me to the

hospital and sat with me

when the doctor told

me I had a concussion,

shrugged their shoulders and told me

that they did not believe he attacked me

because despite the

fact that he never denied

what he had done to me

and always appeared

profoundly hurt, ashamed,

and traumatized with a whole experience

when he spoke to me,

while his case was open,

he either denied, minimized,

or allowed his friends'

conspiracy theories to fly

because he was afraid

of going back to jail.

They painted him as this light-skinned,

small and non-threatening man

versus a big, dark black woman

who must be secretly

violent and adversarial.

I was a five-foot-two

woman who was asleep

when he, a five-foot-nine man,

choking me with all his strength.

Instead of being a

victim of domestic violence,

they called it a toxic relationship

and painted this

picture about mutual violence

where we must simply

have a violent relationship

where I must have attacked him

and he just defended himself.

I have never put my

hands on him or any other man

and I was asleep,

but that didn't stop them

from constantly implying

that I must have been the aggressor

and raising all these new

hypotheticals about my complicity

and all these

justifications for what he'd done.

One of the worst lows I had ever felt

was hearing someone say he attacked me

and hearing someone who

stood in my house as my friend

respond, "Well, you know she's big,"

and then erupt into

laughter at the implication

that my weight meant I

couldn't be a victim.

And mind you, I'm a regular-sized bitch

and this man is much larger than me.

I never imagined that

I would feel gratitude

to still have the shirt and shoes I wore

the night he attacked me.

I'd never have fad

him that for my sanity,

I would need to look at

that ripped Tweety Bird shirt

and the muddle-nosed shoes

just to be sure that

something I lived through

happened to me because

people would gaslight me

so violently to make me wonder,

did I attack this man first?

When I know what happened,

I know that many people roll their eyes

when they hear, "Protect Black Women,"

because they perceive it as a

self-indulgent rallying cry

from a whiny interest group,

rather than a cry for help

from who Malcolm X described

as the most unprotected, disrespected,

and neglected group

of women on the planet.

I'm not trying to convince anyone

that they should protect Black women.

I'm illustrating how I

know that we are not,

even when we're the first people to

protect our abusers.

We cannot live in a world without prisons

where Black women do not

breathe a sigh of relief

when a Black man is

convicted for abusing a Black woman,

where Meg isn't forced to

rely on the criminal system

if we refuse to offer

Black women protection

anywhere else within our communities.

If we want a world where there's

redemption for abusers,

we must first stop

celebrating and protecting abusers.