White Boys Sexually Assaulted Me in School and They Got Away With it
My cries for help were ignored and pushed aside
I grew up in a predominantly white community and went to a predominantly white high school. I was repeatedly touched and groped by rich white boys in school and nothing was ever done about it. They got away with it! As an adult, I look back on some of the disgusting treatment I faced growing up from the age of 12 to 16 years old and I want to scream to the heavens because, at that time, I remember trying to voice my pain but my screams were muffled. I am speaking up now! I vow to use this platform to continue to scream and shout about these atrocities because they still continue to this day.
Here are some truths according to the women’s institute for policy research:
- More than 20 percent of black women are raped during their lifetimes — a higher share than among women overall.
- Black women were two and a half times more likely to be murdered by men than their white counterparts. And, more than 9 in 10 black female victims knew their killers.
- Black women also experience significantly higher rates of psychological abuse — including humiliation, insults, name-calling, and coercive control — than do women overall.
We are human, we are not rag dolls, we have feelings, we bleed, we cry.
At the tender age of 12, I had C-cup breasts, I wore a bra, I had full lips and curvaceous thighs and hips. I was ridiculed in high school by the white boys, they would laugh at me but they would grope me in the dark. As I pass the alley to go to class or to the dining hall, they would place their hands on my boobs and laugh.
At one point, a tall, muscular white boy in year 11 at the time, I don’t know his name. He pushed his penis on me from behind as we queued up for lunch. He laughed and breathed his hot breath on my neck. He tried to grope my breast but I ran away and locked myself in the toilet. I told a friend, a white girl and she laughed and said that I was imagining things and because he was the most popular boy in school, it would be best to keep my mouth shut.
Some weeks later, an older boy from my school saw me leaving the movie theatre, walking toward the bus stop he pulled his penis out and flashed me. That day, I went to the police station and reported it, they literally told me to leave and go home. I told my dad, he kind of laughed and brushed it off.
I told my teacher the next day at school, she told me to report it to the school counselor, I did and I was advised to keep it within the four walls of the counseling office because these things don’t end well.
I screamed for help, but my voice was repeatedly muffled. Two boys from my school chased me and tried to sexually attack me in the park after school. Again, I told my teacher and was told to keep it to myself. At such a young age, no one educated me on sexual assault but I knew it was wrong. I felt this sickly feeling like I was to blame, like I had enticed these boys to touch me so forcefully. I was told that young boys are hormonal, it’s natural.
When I look back on how things were handled, it scares me because I am sure there are thousands, if not millions of young girls who go through the same thing and it goes unreported, brushed under the carpet like dust, when our voices should be amplified, louder and louder.
If you are reading this and you have been sexually assaulted or abused, speak up! Your voice means something to people who struggle to speak up. People who go to bed at night and scream into the pillow and shout into the void. Stand up and speak up!
I haven’t spoken about this to anyone but I played my part in putting one of the boys behind bars. He abused someone else as an adult and I was asked by a friend to speak up for her in court. I went, I told my story and I made a statement to the police. It turned out that he had done it to more than 20 girls over the years and they all came forward, we got justice! Yes! One man down!
The shame you feel when you are sexually violated, cannot be described or explained. I pray for anyone who has experienced this type of shame from sexual crimes. I pray that you find peace, I pray that you get a chance to tell your story, I pray that you find your voice, I pray that it never happens again, I pray that you learn to love yourself wholeheartedly. I pray that you get justice, because you deserve it, we all deserve it.
