Surviving the Silence: Black Women's Stories of Rape

In Surviving the Silence, Charlotte Pierce-Baker provides a space for survivors to discuss the unthinkable act of rape. Pierce-Baker, a survivor herself, places rape within a historical and cultural context, explaining the shroud of silence that surrounds it within the black community. She allows women to speak about their experiences as informed by their race and gender identities, weaving together their stories with her own. In her gripping introduction, Pierce-Baker writes, "For black women, where rape is concerned, race has preceded issues of gender. We are taught that we are first black, then women.... Black women have survived by keeping quiet, not solely out of shame, but out of a need to preserve the race and its image. In our attempts to preserve racial pride, we black women have often sacrificed our souls."

Pierce-Baker's careful inclusion of many voices fills the silence and demonstrates how little has been said until now about black women's experience with sexual assault. Some stories feel incomplete because the narrator is unwilling to speak; the silence becomes palpable in these stories, demonstrating the isolating silence for these women and for other survivors. Surviving the Silence breaks ground by voicing, poignantly and sometimes painfully, the perspectives of the survivors and also their loved ones, as Pierce-Baker creates a space for the fathers, husbands, and male friends to speak. The book's unique discussion of black women's survival experiences supplies a rich addition to the existing dialogue of sexual assault. --Amy Wan