“For many Black survivors, feeling that they won’t be believed is a major barrier to reporting sexual violence,” reported RAINN, (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization. “When survivors in the Black community do reach out for help, they are sometimes met with a lack of culturally competent resources.”
Representation of Black people and other people of color in consent and healthy relationship education is crucial for empowerment and giving them the healthy relationship resources every individual deserves. Increasing representation in consent education would deconstruct the whitewashing of sexual harassment, making resources available, as well as making students of color feel safer reporting sexual harm.
According to The National Black Women’s Justice Institute, for every Black woman who reports rape, at least 15 Black women do not. This is horrifying. Representation holds deep influence over people feeling heard; that is why expanding representation in consent education is so important.
Berkeley High School Stop Harassing is working to support this mission, increasing diversity in its consent education. For the past few years, BHS Stop Harassing has provided consent and healthy relationship education to Willard, Longfellow, and King middle schools. The current co-presidents, Reba Gamson-Knight and Katelyn Liao are both students of color. “(Diversity in the club has) gotten a lot better this year because we’ve been targeting our friends that are people of color,” said Gamson-Knight.
The work they are doing is critical to cultivating a more representative discussion of consent.
In a classroom setting, Black students and other students of color can struggle to feel included in the consent education taught by white teachers.“If you have a teacher who’s white and they’re telling you about all the things you can do to report and all of the resources that you have, in my experience, I felt like those resources may not be as open to me as they are to other students,” said Uma Kiyawat, an Indian-American junior at BHS.
This means that students of color may feel less comfortable seeking out resources or support when dealing with sexual assault.
“I think it goes pretty deep into families’ in the BIPOC community; consent and sex is just not talked about as much compared to the white families,” continued Kiyawat.
If things are not being discussed at home, then it’s much harder for students to internalize information and understand how to seek out support just from school presentations. This creates another divide in the consent and healthy relationship education of communities of color.
Additionally, people of color are more likely to experience sexual harassment, despite being far less likely to report it than their white counterparts.
“People feel more comfortable when they feel represented by the people in power in general,” said Gamson-Knight. By increasing representation in consent education, resources would become more accessible, and students of color could feel safer when reporting sexual harm.