Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a pandemic. Over 40-million child sexual abuse survivors are living in the U.S. Additionally, millions of harm-doers and bystanders, through their inaction, allow the abuse to occur in families. How can we address this pandemic in a way that centers the immediate survivors without discarding the harm-doers? Love WITH Accountability: Digging Up the Roots of Child Sexual Abuse is the 2019 released anthology that features transformative storytelling by 43-diasporic Black adult survivors and advocates exploring ideas and models of accountability in the context of eradicating CSA. Child sexual abuse survivor-activist and Love WITH Accountability editor Aishah Shahidah Simmons will talk about how the anthology prioritizes compassionately disrupting and ending CSA. Two of the anthology’s contributors Monika Johnson-Hostler and Traci D. Wright, will join Aishah and share about their chapter that highlights the power of mentorship to heal, transform, and impact future generations.
Bio: Aishah Shahidah Simmons is an award-winning Black feminist lesbian cultural worker who, for over 25-years, has examined the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and sexual violence. She is the producer/director of the Ford Foundation-funded, groundbreaking documentary film, NO! The Rape Documentary (2006), and the cutting-edge anthology, Love WITH Accountability Digging Up the Roots of Child Sexual Abuse (AK Press, 2019). Aishah’s work is informed by her lived experiences as a child sexual abuse survivor, adult rape survivor, and Buddhist practitioner committed to disrupting and ending the inhumane, humanely.