This Moment Is Teaching Us

🖤 WeSurviveAbuse.com

A young Black woman—famous, talented, in the public eye—is harmed in plain view.
She finds the courage to come forward. To say: I am not safe. I am in pain. I need help.

And what happens?

People laugh.
People doubt.
People dissect.
People advise her on how to be a better victim.

And the rest of us?

We watch.
We analyze.
We measure how she handled it.
We forget that this moment isn’t about our commentary—it’s about our capacity to listen.

This is a teachable moment for us.
Not for her.
For us.

And so we must ask ourselves:

• Why do we think we are entitled to evaluate someone else’s pain as if it were a performance?

• Why do we find it easier to critique a victim’s choices than to question the systems that cornered her in the first place?

• Why do we believe that wealth or fame makes someone immune to harm—or unworthy of our compassion?

• Why are we more interested in how she told her story than why she had to?

• Why do we confuse visibility with power—and silence with dignity?

• Why do we keep demanding that Black women be strong, be silent, be gracious—when we should be demanding safety, accountability, and care?

• Why does society ask Survivors to prove their pain instead of asking perpetrators why they inflicted it?

This moment is not about measuring how “well” she survived.

It’s about facing how deeply we’ve normalized harm.
How easily we abandon those who speak up.
How quickly we forget that we were never meant to be spectators at someone else’s suffering.

If we truly want to be better, safer, wiser—

Then we must start by asking the real questions.
The uncomfortable questions.
The questions that don’t just shift blame—but shift culture.

Because the lesson is right in front of us.
And it’s asking: Will we finally learn it?

🖤 WeSurviveAbuse.com
Because Survivors don’t owe us their pain for our enlightenment. But when it’s offered, we must have the courage to grow from it.