🧨 The Dangerous Myth: “We Were All Getting Along” From the 1980s through the early 2000s, a comforting myth took hold:“We were united.”
🧨 The Dangerous Myth: “We Were All Getting Along”
From the 1980s through the early 2000s, a comforting myth took hold:
“We were united.”
“There was harmony.”
“Everyone was represented.”
TV had Black families. VAWA (Violence Against Women Act) had passed. Diversity panels were popping up.
So why bring up race, poverty, or trauma now?
But for those of us who lived the truths behind the headlines—the story was very different.
⚠️ What Got Left Out — On Purpose
Especially in the women’s movement to end violence, we were expected to keep silent about:
1. Racism and Colonialism
You could whisper about “diversity,” but not speak about slavery, redlining, or the roots of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women.
You couldn’t mention police violence, forced sterilizations, Jim Crow, lynching, or how our ancestors survived brutality. Even though how and what our ancestors survived directly impacts the next generation.
2. Poverty and Homelessness
Domestic violence shelters were modeled on middle-class assumptions.
If you were poor or unhoused, you were treated as if you “brought it on yourself.”
Little effort was made to understand economic abuse, housing insecurity, or barriers to employment.
3. Disability and Chronic Illness
Disabled girls and women were left out entirely or treated as burdens.
No sign language interpreters in shelters. No ramps (There was one in the back where I worked but we knew it was rare). No trauma-informed care for neurodivergent or chronically ill Survivors.
4. How This Country Has Always Treated Girls
Girls—especially Black, Indigenous, disabled, and poor girls—were:
Hypersexualized
Disbelieved
Punished for being harmed
There was little room to talk about survival-based behavior, coercion, or how girlhood is policed rather than protected.
5. How America Treats Children
We weren’t allowed to say the quiet part out loud:
This country has never truly valued children unless they served its interests.
Child abuse, foster care failures, school pushout, child marriage—were seen as “side issues,” not central to violence prevention.
6. Language Barriers and Cultural Misunderstandings
I do not think that I will ever forget the time that I was working in the shelter and a woman who came in with her two children. She spoke Spanish and barely any English came in. Unfortunately, I speak English and had by then forgotten much of my years of high school Spanish.
One of my former directors was very fluent and after a long phone call with her I was able to find out why she was there. I was glad she was there. The relationship sounded deadly dangerous and I admired her courage.
But when I came to work the next day, she was gone. I already knew she was feeling uncomfortable. But, also, her brothers called her and ordered her back home. They had “spoken with her husband.”
So that’s how I learned that we had to do more than just learn the language of other groups of people. We have to connect with other experts around culture. I cold-called a Latina social worker who explained how family dynamics could have impacted her decision.
Later she joined me in a conference workshop. It turned out that some of the little things that were our born-in-America norm could be off putting to people from other cultures. Notice I did not say ‘wrong’, but it did help us to understand that women from other cultures can view help-seeking services and practices very differently. –TGJP
🧱 Inside the Movement: Silence Was the Culture
Even as VAWA was celebrated:
Few Black, Indigenous, or marginalized staff were hired and fewer to leadership roles.
Those who were hired? Many left quickly—tired of being silenced, tokenized, or gaslit.
Speaking about trauma we inherited—or that systems continued to cause—was seen as divisive.
We were asked to come up with solutions,
but not allowed to tell the full truth.
We were told:
“Just be grateful you’re in the room.” (eye roll, sighs, blank stares, staring at nails)
“Focus on the future, not the past.” (eye roll, sighs, blank stares, staring at nails)
📺 “But There Were Black People on TV…”
This was the shield people used when we spoke truth:
“You had Oprah.”
“There was The Cosby Show.”
“You’re being too negative.”
But visibility is not liberation.
Representation is not justice.
Being on camera doesn’t undo being unheard, unpaid, or unsafe.
🌪️ Why This Matters Now
That myth of harmony still lingers—and still does harm.
When people long for “the way things were,”
they’re often remembering a time when we were silent—not when we were safe.
💬 Truth Matters in Our Movements
If we want to end violence—truly end it—we cannot do it by ignoring:
The generational harm caused by poverty, racism, and systemic neglect
The brutality hidden behind respectability politics
The Survivors and communities left behind while others got awards, funding, and air time
🛤️ We’re Still Here—Telling the Whole Story
We built our own tables.
Started our own shelters.
Created our own healing circles.
Laid altars for girls they called lost.
And we never stopped protecting each other.
We are not bitter—we are clear.
We are not forgotten—we are rising.
And we are not silent—we are sacred memory and living correction.
🧭 A Question for the Movement:
Are you still asking us to help without hearing us?
Are you still expecting us to fix it without naming it?
We cannot build a world free of violence
by upholding the myths that allowed it to thrive.
P. Jay Sidney on Media Exclusion
(Speaking to liberal producer David Susskind):
“You talk that good stuff on TV, but you don’t practice what you preach… If you really want to be the decent guy you pretend to be, you’ll offer opportunities to talented Negro performers, just as you do to whites.”
When Susskind brushed off Sidney’s demands, Sidney fired back:
“Mr. Susskind, I don’t get ulcers. I give ulcers.”
— Sidney demanded authentic inclusion, not performative liberal rhetoric
