It’s Harder for Black Women to Leave: Iowa Domestic Violence Advocates Say
Part 1: Black women in Iowa encounter unique problems that can make domestic violence harder to escape.
Editor’s Note: This is the first in a 4-part series about domestic violence in the Black community. Please share, and thank you for reading and subscribing.
When Andrea Haynes walked into a Christian bookstore three years ago, she didn’t know that would signal the end of her abusive 15-year marriage.
Her daughter, Justine, 12 years-old at the time, kept eyeing a book. When Haynes saw it, she didn’t immediately connect the dots.
“The book was called “Domestic Violence: Assault on a Woman’s Worth,” she said. “It completely threw me off because I didn't see that I was an abused woman.”
The book contained the keys to her freedom.
“And I'm reading verbal abuse. I'm reading sexual abuse. I’m reading emotional abuse. And, I’m checking off all these damn boxes,” said Haynes, 52. “And I'm like, well, wow, this is the name of my enemy. This is why I'm so miserable. I am being assaulted in several different ways. Every, every day.”
Domestic violence, and its intersection with race and gender, can make it harder for Black women in Iowa to leave abusive relationships. Advocates said some of these reasons include:
Blacks are coached from a young age not to speak about their problems with people outside their homes.
Iowa disproportionately jails and imprisons Black men — and Black women may distrust the police and feel “shame” at involving law enforcement in family problems.
Religious establishments can prioritize keeping families together over a victim’s individual well-being.
Therapy is gaining popularity among Blacks, but there are still many questions about how it works and if it’s affordable.
Haynes said she grew up in a “very strict” religious environment, singing in the church. Abuse has been a constant thread in the story of her life. In her early 20s, she worked as a sex worker in South Florida. After a whirlwind courtship in 2004, she began a 15-year marriage and had two daughters, Ayasha, 13, and Justine, now 15.
The book served as the catalyst for Hayne’s metamorphosis from victim to survivor to advocate — from Haynes to who she’s known as now, Courageous Fire. She uses both her experience with domestic violence and artistic abilities to help other Black women see the abuse present in their own lives.
“A part of my being able to get free from domestic violence was the National Domestic Violence Hotline, and I had to sneak and do it at home, which was incredibly risky. And if I’d had a safe place that I could have gone to, that would have been more ideal,” she said.
She gives talks, conducts training and works with victims. She’ll share her experiences in Birth Through Ascension, an online event that will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 20. It features performances, poetry, music and a community conversation. It’s designed to show Black women how to seek help for themselves or others. Participants must register online in advance and purchase tickets in “pay what you will pricing,” which means participants decide how much to pay for their tickets. Donations will also be accepted and help support Courageous Fire programming for victims.
The video presentation contains the “how-to steps of getting out of it, and understanding how I got into it in the first place and then turns that process into a repeatable process for Black women to be able to break their cycle of domestic violence and prevent future cycles of predatory relationships,” she said.
Domestic violence includes physical violence, sexual violence, threat and emotional abuse, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. According to the coalition, 35.3% of Iowa women and 29.3% of Iowa men have experienced intimate partner physical violence, intimate partner sexual violence and/or intimate partner stalking in their lifetimes. Nationally, 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men in the U.S. have experienced some form of physical violence by an intimate partner, according to the agency’s fact sheet.
The Des Moines Police Department reported investigating 10,000 domestic abuse calls last year. According to the Iowa Attorney General, 340 women, men and bystanders have been killed in domestic violence murders since 1995, and 230 of those were women.
Black Iowans face structural racism and stark disparities that appear just about everywhere — in education, wages, unemployment, housing, healthcare and incarceration. Experts said economic factors can stress relationships, which makes leaving abusive relationships harder for Black women.
The lingering coronavirus pandemic has also caused job loss and financially stressed millions of American families as they’ve had to quarantine together. Reports of domestic violence have surged worldwide.
Lisa Ambrose is CEO of Amani Community Services. The agency’s website states it’s a “culturally specific domestic violence and sexual assault agency” serving Blacks in Black Hawk and Linn counties. It’s expanding to Polk County. Its services are free and confidential.
“One of the things we know is within our culture, we're not supposed to talk about domestic violence or sexual assault, or even talk to people about what's going on in our homes,” Ambrose said. “So a lot of our clients are suffering in silence because they don't want to tell their business.”
Victims can minimize, dismiss and deny the abuse for a variety of reasons.
“Like ‘you have to be doing something wrong for this to be happening,’ like ‘this a good guy,” like ‘God, he goes to work every day. He feeds the kids,’” said Breanne Ward, a licensed mental health counselor and a nationally recognized certified rehabilitation counselor with the Commission on Rehabilitation Counselor Certification, who is CEO and founder of ForWard Consulting, a mental health private practice firm in Des Moines.
🟢 Coming on Thursday:
Part 2 of “It’s Harder for Black Women to Leave” resumes with ‘You Take the Good with the Bad — No Man is Perfect’ and Unpacking “Birth Through Ascension.”
Call 1.800.799.SAFE (7233)
Resources:
Courageous Fire 🟢 Livestream: Birth Through Ascension 🟢 Facebook CashApp: $courageousfirellc 🟢 PayPal
Iowa Coalition for Collective Change
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