Wounds of the Spirit: Black Women, Violence, and Resistance Ethics

Preface

Preface Can We Talk? Throughout my work on this project I knew that I wanted to be in dialogue with activists, academics, domestic violence practitioners, lay and clergy church leaders, counselors, social workers, public health workers, or anyone who cares about opposing violence against black women. I have been repeatedly advised against such broad intentions. “You have to choose one audience,” certain experts told me. I stubbornly insisted that the nature of this topic requires that we ignore the boundaries that keep us from working together. I know that I am taking a risk. Some suggested that I leave out the women’s stories and concentrate on theory. Others gravitated toward the practical suggestions at the very end of the book and complained about the amount of cultural analysis preceding it. One person advised me to include less of the “church/religious stuff,” while another commented that the spiritual and religious emphases are what is most interesting about the book. I know that I live in a world where it would be quite unusual for a women’s studies professor of postmodern feminist theory, a black church bishop, and an economically poor battered women’s shelter resident, to sit down together for a dialogue and strategy session. But I maintain that we must begin to build such bridges in order to increase resistance to the violence against women in our communities. To make progress on this, we need a methodology that at least tries to blur categories like “the people ” versus the intellectual elite. My resolve (stubbornness?) is all my mother’s fault. From her I learned a faith that presumes grand possibilities for social change. ix ...