When the Mourning Is Selective: A Reflection on Silence, Justice, and Sacred Courage(audio version included)

Black women also experience significantly higher rates of psychological abuse — including humiliation, insults, name-calling and coercive control — than do women overall.

American Psychological Association

From the people who brought us this:

National Black Church Initiative Denounces #MeToo Movement; Local Leaders Respond https://t.co/x5j9VrDHMk via @MinReporterROC

— Black News Portal (@BlackNewsPortal) March 30, 2018

This too was disappointing:

1. More Warnings Than Rejoicing?

Lately, it seems that there have been more rebukes against “celebrating” someone’s passing than there were actual celebrations.
But I suspect the real discomfort wasn’t about celebration—it was about the absence of public mourning from women.

Especially from Black women.

Because we’ve seen this before.

It echoes the anger aimed at us when we don’t rally to defend a man who was publicly violent, cruel, or degrading toward Black women and girls. We’re expected to show mercy, silence, and grace even when we were never shown protection.

2. Where Were the Warnings Then?

If Black women are now being scolded for voicing our truth about someone who harmed us or others—
Where were these same stern moral warnings when he was harming us?

Where was the call for gentleness, for dignity, when he was publicly ridiculing Black women, girls, and elders?

Did anyone caution him to watch his tone?
Were there sermons or open letters reminding him that women and girls are sacred?

No?

So why now?

Are Black women and girls not also deserving of moral concern?
Of community protection?
Of collective grief when we are harmed?

3. The Warnings We Still Need

I pray that this moment sparks consistent courage in our faith communities.

Because if we’re going to speak on morality, let’s tell the whole truth.

Where are the warnings about what’s really killing our people?

• Child sexual abuse.
  1 in 4 Black girls is sexually abused before the age of 18.
  That trauma often births lifelong struggles: addiction, depression, chronic illness, isolation, disability, and more.

• Violence between Black men and boys.
  Our young men deserve to live. They deserve tools for peace.

• Violence against Black women and girls.
  Including domestic violence, sexual violence, and Black femicide.
  Black women are 2.5x more likely to be murdered by men than white women.
  90% of us know our killers.

• The abuse-to-prison pipeline.
  Black girls are locked up instead of loved back to life.
  Instead of therapy, we get mugshots.

• Psychological abuse.
  Too many Black women suffer humiliation, control, name-calling, and emotional violence—often in silence.

4. A Long-Suffering Memory

We haven’t forgotten that R. Kelly continued to thrive in gospel circles, even while abusing girls in plain sight.

We haven’t forgotten the silence.
The complicity.
The praise.

We haven’t forgotten that even our spiritual spaces—those meant to be sanctuaries—sometimes turn a blind eye when the harm is coming from someone seen as talented, powerful, or beloved.

5. What the Church Could Be

I pray for the day when every house of worship is a refuge—not a courtroom.
Where victims are believed, not rebuked.
Where survivors are held, not hushed.
Where healing is not conditional.

I pray for the day when the church proclaims boldly:

“If abuse and violence are Goliath—then we, the church, are David.”

That we stand for truth, not tradition.
That we shield the wounded, not the powerful.
That we remember: Jesus didn’t silence hurting women—He listened, lifted, and loved.

6. In My Prayers

Abuse.
Violence.
Bullying.
Inflicting pain on already hurting people…

We cannot make room for that and still call it community.

And yes, I genuinely want healing for these men too.

Because calling women names…
Mocking our bodies…
Blaming us for our own abuse…
Those are not acts of leadership.
They’re symptoms of unhealed pain.

Living with rage, jealousy, suspicion, and self-hate is exhausting.
It’s lonely.
And it’s deadly.

But healing is possible.
If we stop masking our wounds with ego.
If we stop confusing cruelty for community critique.
If we start telling the truth:

Shame doesn’t belong to the abused.
It belongs to abuse itself.

7. Let the Church Rise

May God raise us up on this issue and every one that plagues our people.

Because Black women are the backbone of the Black church.
We are the majority in the pews, in the choirs, in the community.

At some point, the church must speak for us, too.

Because:

Black women’s lives matter.
Black girls’ lives matter.
Not just when we sing.
Not just when we serve.
But when we cry.
When we resist.
When we speak.
When we survive.