Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation

3. How We Won the Mainstream but Lost the Movement

[ 65 ] 3 How We Won the Mainstream but Lost the Movement Around the time that I began collecting stories of women like Tanya, Ms. B was assaulted, and when the New Jersey 4 were convicted, there was a national celebration of the decennial anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act, which had passed with bipartisan support. Former Attorney GeneralJohnAshcroftwasoneofthefeaturedspeakers.1 Ashcroftisaconservative Republican, appointed by President George W. Bush as a strategic and symbolic representation of his conservative agenda, including harsh criminal justice approaches to persistent social problems. Ashcroft’s appearance at a conference on violence against women was paradoxical and profound. To many activists in the audience, it spoke volumes about the ways in which the anti-violence movement in this country had become institutionalized. That the anti-violence movement had achieved sufficient social validation that John Ashcroft would be invited to speak at this critical event (and that he would accept the invitation) demonstrated that the anti-violence movement had won mainstream legitimization. This validation was a result of key decisionsthatsoftenedtheradicalpoliticsoftheworkandultimatelybetrayedthe visionsoftheearlygrassrootsfeminist,anti-racistactivism. As I discussed in chapter 2, the problem of violence against Black women is pernicious and the causes are systematic. The chapter showed that the staggering rates of physical abuse, the harrowing emotional torture, and the How We Lost the Movement [ 66 ] degradingsexualassaultsoccurinallspheresoflifeforsomewomen.Thefurther marginalized their status is, the more devastating the impact, such that Black women in the most marginalized communities are not safe in their homes or in their neighborhoods, and the institutions that should assist and protect them do not. Additionally, public policies are hostile to poor, Black women, already stigmatized, which furthers the impact of male violence. The data shows how the brutal attacks injured their bodies and their psyches and that the emotional scars are often permanent, creating internal trauma and persistent climates of fear and feelings of worthlessness. The consequences for individuals, their families, and communities are far reaching, profoundly shaping the social, emotional, and political experiences of the vulnerable populationofBlackwomenwhoarethefocusofthisbook. This chapter is the first of two chapters that lay out the social and ideological conditions that surround the male violence that Black women experience . Here I describe the evolution of the social response to violence against women; beginning with the first organized programs in the early 1960s, through the establishment of a formalized governmental response with the passage of the Violence Against Women Act in 1994, to the critical juncture that the anti-violence movement finds itself in today; facing challenges associated with institutionalization, co-optation, and declining influence which leaves some women in as much danger as ever. This chapter will describe the key events that led us to this point as well as the shifts in public consciousness and political ideology that characterized eight distinct stages of the anti-violence movement’s history. By reviewing the various pressures and influences on the work over time, readers will come to understand how and why we won the mainstream, but lost aspects of the work that characterized it as a social change movement. In chapter 4, I describe the broader social and ideological changes that were occurring at the same time that the anti-violence movement was evolving—the conservative wave that lead to the buildup of America’s prison nation. How We Won the Mainstream but Lost the Movement: From Grassroots Activism to Institutionalization It is important to begin this discussion by defining the conceptualization I am using of the “anti-violence movement.” When I use that phrase in How We Lost the Movement [ 67 ] this book, I am referring to the work that is done by individuals, groups, and organizations to end male violence against women by looking at the root causes of the problems. This work has as its goal taking steps toward making systemic changes in how society is organized so that women are not in positions that are vulnerable to male power. The anti-violence movement is a loosely organized collectivity that challenges individual behaviors, cultural values, accepted norms, public policies, and laws that lead to abuse of women. In contrast to agencies that are more focused on providing services and support to individual women who have been harmed, the work that I am referring to when I use the term “anti-violence movement” includes those groups of social actors that are making demands on the existing social order to be different; more oriented toward social justice than social services...