Nowhere to turn: A Black feminist autoethnography of interpersonal violence

Introduction

In July 2020, rapper Megan Thee Stallion was shot by her then boyfriend Tory Lanez, a fellow rapper. The incident brought to the surface (again) a long, ongoing conversation about the experiences of Black women survivors of intimate partner violence, much like high-profile cases (e.g., Tina Turner) have done before. Specifically, these cases show how Black men particularly can uphold patriarchal violence in intimate or romantic contexts. Moreover, these cases show the tensions that can arise when survivors seek help from law enforcement. For example, the idea of racial loyalty and not calling the police on a Black man affect the options available to Black women. In other words, Black women often have nowhere to turn when they experience violence. In this article, I employ Black Feminist Autoethnography as a methodological framework to analyze a personal instance of road rage where I was attacked, to explore how Black women survivors make meaning of their experiences, the thought process behind their decision to involve the police, how Black men uphold patriarchal violence in non-intimate contexts, and how Black women resist or refuse to accept the violence. This analysis reveals the raced and gendered components underlying the private/public nature of interpersonal violence experienced by Black women and the relationship between intimate and non-intimate interpersonal violence.

The matrices of domination and violence

Interpersonal violence experienced by Black women is part of a larger web of violence against Black women that has become normalized and routinized (Collins, 1999). Violence is a source of power (Collins, 1999) and has always acted as a form of social control of Black women (Burke, 2019; Collins, 1999). Moreover, Black women experience violence in different ways. For example, Black trans women experience violence at the intersection of homophobia, transphobia, racism, and misogyny (De Vries, 2012; Hoston, 2018). Despite the differences in the experiences of gender-based violence and marginalization among Black trans and cis women, their collective experiences reflect the deeply entrenched processes and structures rooted in cisheteronormativity and patriarchy (Hoston, 2018).

Patricia Hill Collins’ Black feminist thought, specifically the Matrix of Domination (1999), and Beth E. Richie’s Matrix of Violence (2012) are useful as theoretical and cultural frameworks for understanding the complexity of interpersonal violence experienced by Black women. The four domains of the Matrix of Domination are: structural, disciplinary, hegemonic, and interpersonal (Collins, 1999); the Matrix of Violence reconfigures and extends the Matrix of Domination to incorporate a dynamic continuum of the type of interpersonal violence Black women experience (physical, sexual, emotional manipulation) and the context (intimate, community, state) in which they experience violence (Richie, 2012).

The structural domain of the Matrix of Domination encompasses how interlocking social institutions are organized to reproduce Black women’s subordination over time (Collins, 1999). For example, Black women and women are color are more likely to have low incomes compared to white women and therefore must rely on public health systems that may be under resourced (Bent-Goodley, 2007). This suggests that for many Black women, they are forced to experience violence because they do not have access to the financial resources to leave the relationship.

Black women who experience interpersonal violence face institutional and organizational barriers. One such barrier is discriminatory treatment in cases of intimate partner violence (IPV). For example, Black women are sometimes reluctant to seek formal help for or reveal experiences of IPV to child welfare workers because they experience higher child removals across racialized groups (Bent-Goodley, 2004). Moreover, healthcare professionals and those working with IPV survivors have limited training on IPV and lack cultural competence (Bent-Goodley, 2007). For example, there are language barriers, not just in what is said, but also in context. In a study of Black women’s perceptions of IPV, Black women differentiated between a “beating” and “abuse” (Bent-Goodley, 2004). For them, a “beating” meant broken bones and was considered escalated “abuse” (Bent-Goodley, 2004). Thus, there are differences in how Black women who experience IPV describe their experiences versus how their experiences are described by others.

The disciplinary domain manages power relations to create docile and disciplined populations of Black women (Collins, 1999). One example of this is the legal system. The legal system punishes Black women for behaviors that are logical extensions of the violence in their intimate relationships, what is known as gender entrapment (Richie, 2003). For instance, Black women are more likely to be arrested for IPV than white women (Plass, 1993) as was the case for Marissa Alexander, who served 3 years of a 20-year sentence for firing a warning shot at her husband after he threatened to kill her (Gross, 2015; Ritchie, 2017). Moreover, Black women seeking help from law enforcement may be exposed to even more violence. In the case of Daniel Holtzclaw, a former Oklahoma City, Oklahoma police officer, he victimized and sexually exploited mostly Black women with criminal records (The Marshall Project, 2020). This is also an example of the sexual exploitation perpetrated by state agencies and public policies. Law enforcement also has an issue with perpetrating IPV. Two studies found that at least 40% of police officers committing some level of violence against their spouses (Johnson, 1991; Neidig et al., 1992). Therefore, relying on the police is not always a safe option for Black women who experience violence.

The hegemonic domain of power concerns ideology, culture, and consciousness regarding Black people (Collins, 1999). This domain is powerful because it can shape consciousness (i.e., ideas about domination, power, and personhood) via the manipulation of ideologies, symbols, images, and other mechanisms. (Collins, 1999). Precolonial ideologies about IPV have been manipulated and replaced by colonial ideologies about IPV. For example, IPV has always been considered a private matter. English common law and Blackstone—a widely read 19th century writer of legal treatise—heavily influenced colonial thought (Schneider, 2000). English common law gave a husband the legal right to abuse his wife so long as to maintain family discipline while Blackstone’s writings dictated that husband and wife were one, but the one was the husband (Schneider, 2000). The idea was that the husband was the head of the family unit and had a legal right to keep that family unit in order. Moreover, this emphasis on the family unit kept IPV in the private sphere opposed to the public sphere (Smith, 1974).

Studies suggest that IPV did not exist in African culture, and it followed the enslavement of Africans in the United States (Dennis et al., 1995; Myers, 1993; Olufumni, 1996). Further, enslaved African women were exposed to extreme sexual and physical violence at the hands of white men, an example of the physical and sexual exploitation perpetrated by state agencies and public policies. As one example, Marion Sims, known as the “father of gynecology,” experimented on enslaved women in Alabama during the 1840s (Wailoo, 2018). This experimentation was rooted in the idea that the Black body was “insensible to pain” and could withstand hard labor according to Sims’ colleague, Dr. Samuel Cartwright (Searle and Pernick, 1986). It is within the hegemonic domain that white cisheteropatriarchal ideas about Black women, their bodies, and violence intersect. Under a cisheteropatriarchy, Black women are rendered vulnerable and disposable.

The fourth domain, the interpersonal domain, concerns the day-to-day internalization of the dominant group’s individual and cultural ways of knowing (Collins, 1999). It is within this domain that the individual and cultural ways of the white cisheteropatriarchy are internalized, that is the domain in which the colonial ideas about Black women and their bodies are internalized and acted upon (i.e., Black women are to accept and endure violence). Black women receive sociocultural messages, or cultural cues, that foster the notion that because of the oppression experienced by Black men, Black women must take on a sacrificial role (West, 1999), what is known as racial loyalty. Racial loyalty involves Black women “withstand[ing] abuse and mak[ing] a conscious self-sacrifice for what she perceives as the greater good of the community but to her own physical, psychological, and spiritual detriment” (Bent-Goodley, 2001: 323). Black women who experience IPV are encouraged to “maintain family secrecy” and keep family “business” in the family by not reporting the violence (Bent-Goodley, 2007). They are also encouraged to focus on their abusive partner’s “good” qualities. By decentering Black women’s needs as it relates to IPV, these messages are acted out with cisheteropatriarchal aims because they end up protecting the perceived needs of the perpetrator and, in the long run, undermine those needs by refusing to engage to challenge the violence (Gomez, 2019). In other words, racial loyalty enables abuse and protects the abuser. Further, these seemingly innocuous messages reflect the emotional manipulation that Black women experience caused by a hostile social environment created by their intimate partners and community members (Richie, 2012).

Ideas about racial loyalty, cisheteropatriarchy, and IPV can foster distrust between Black women who experience IPV and the very people that are supposed to help them. One woman was (subtly) asked by a religious leader to focus on her partner’s “good” qualities. “…By this time I was so worn down and tired, I just said, ‘OK, I’ll stay.’ He was telling me, ‘…You better hang on to him…’ When the questions came to me, ‘Was he a good provider?’ I had to say, ‘Yeah,’ because he was. ‘Was he good to the kids? Have he ever hurt the kids? Have he ever been abusive to the kids?’ No, he wasn’t. Then they wanted to know what my freakin’ problem was! I was tired of gettin’ beat up!” (Potter, 2007: 273). Some Black women note a hindrance to help-seeking is that they believe family members will betray them by giving into the wishes of the perpetrator (Morrison et al., 2006). In one specific case, a woman had come home to find her abusive husband only to be told that her own father had given him the key and told him that he could move in (Morrison et al., 2006). In another example, a religious leader pleaded with a Black woman to not involve the police because it would “destroy [the perpetrator’s] career” (Oyewuwo-Gassikia, 2019). Further, ideas about women being unintelligent for remaining in violent relationships (Morrison et al., 2006) compounded with ideas about secrecy (Bent-Goodley, 2007; Sears, 2018) obscures the role of cisheteropatriarchy and shifts the responsibility of addressing the violence from Black men who to Black women who are experiencing IPV.

Racial loyalty is not the only concept that contributes to the interpersonal violence Black women experience. The idea that Black women can accept and endure violence lends itself to the Strong Black Woman (SBW) stereotype. Embodying the Strong Black Woman (SBW) stereotype can be a source of self-reliance for Black women, that is, a source of empowerment, but can also confine Black women to this stereotype (Harris-Perry, 2013). The Strong Black Woman stereotype dictates that Black women should be autonomously responsible and self-denying caregivers in their families and communities (Harris-Perry, 2013). This creates unrealistic intracommunity expectations for Black women where they are perceived to be unassailable, unshakeable, and naturally strong (Harris-Perry, 2013). Moreover, this creates unrealistic expectations for Black women outside of the community. Stereotypes about Black women being able to “handle” the violence have led to them being denied services (Bent-Goodley, 2007). Therefore, racial loyalty and the SBW stereotype are harmful because while the SBW stereotype sends the message that Black women can endure violence, racial loyalty simultaneously sends that message that Black women should endure violence.

Interpersonal violence experienced by Black women

In 2012 Black women were two and half times more likely to be killed by a man than that of white women (Violence Policy Center, 2014) and it has only gotten worse since then. In 2020, Black women were three times as likely to be killed by a man than that of white women (Violence Policy Center, 2022). Black women compared to Black men are more likely to be killed by a spouse, intimate acquaintance, or a family member than a stranger (Violence Policy Center, 2022). The literature on Black women’s experiences with violence tends to focus on IPV opposed to non-intimate (community) violence. Specifically, the literature discusses help-seeking behaviors (Anyikwa, 2015; Cho et al., 2017; El-Khory et al., 2004; Flicker et al., 2011; Fugate et al., 2005; Goodman et al., 2003; Lacey et al., 2020; Morrison et al., 2006; Oyewuwo-Gassikia, 2019; Potter, 2007); barriers to help-seeking (Hien and Ruglass, 2009; Hodges and Cabanilla, 2011; Rodriguez et al., 2009; Sabri et al., 2015); Black women’s lived experiences with IPV (Bent-Goodley, 2004; Postmus, 2015; Sears, 2018; Stockman et al., 2014; Sylaska and Edwards, 2013); and the effects of IPV on Black women’s mental and physical health (Bent-Goodley, 2007; Sabri, et al., 2013; Stockman et al., 2015). Despite mounting evidence on the deleterious effects of IPV on Black women’s mental and physical health, the ways in which they seek help and the barriers to seeking help, violence against Black women is rising.

There are some similarities between romantic and non-romantic interpersonal violence experienced by Black women. For instance, acute and chronic stress, irrespective of source, can affect immune system functioning and increase susceptibility to disease and infection (Cohen and Williamson, 1991). There is limited research however on the qualitative experiences of Black women who experience interpersonal violence in non-romantic contexts and how they make meaning of the violence. Some of the research that is available examines literature relevant to understanding the impact of community violence on Black women and children, focusing on those who have witnessed violence and injury, and have lost loved ones to community violence (Jenkins, 2002). Survivors report psychological distress, increased rates of aggression, diminished physical health, and additional challenges in their parental roles (Jenkins, 2002) similarly to survivors of IPV. Despite these challenges, survivors have developed a variety of coping strategies, including praying and political activism (e.g., organizing the community around violence prevention activities) (Hill et al., 1995). Research suggests that individuals can derive empowerment from coping strategies, specifically community organizing (Speer and Hughey, 1995). Therefore, it is equally important to understand how experiences of community violence can affect Black women, particularly their needs.

Method

In this article, I employ Black Feminist Autoethnography (BFA) as a methodological framework to analyze a personal instance of road rage where I was attacked. Black Feminist Autoethnography is a theoretical and methodological framework that combines Black Feminist Thought (Collins, 1999) and autoethnography as a means for Black women academics to narrate their lived experiences (Griffin, 2012). Black Feminist Autoethnography is important for marking Black women’s “determined presence and rich contributions within and beyond the academy; document [Black women’s] strength amid the grind of imposed struggles; serve as an emotive release; and perhaps most important, preserve the collective wisdom of [Black women’s] lived experiences” (Griffin, 2012: 143). I extend the practice of Black women in academia using autoethnography to write about and make meaning of their lived experiences (Griffin, 2012; Keeton, 2021; Maseti, 2018; McCoy, 2021; Osei, 2019), by combining Patricia Hill Collins’ Matrix of Domination (1999) and Beth E. Richie’s Matrix of Violence (2012) and autoethnography to develop my own BFA to explore my experiences of interpersonal violence, specifically road rage. Autoethnography is the “use of personal experience to examine and/or critique cultural experience” (Jones et al., 2016: 22). Autoethnography is useful in uncovering deeply concealed oppressions (Lourens, 2018). It is also valuable in that it allows the personal/psychological to illuminate the political, while the political influences the psychological (Maseti, 2018). I use BFA to make meaning of a personal experience, connecting micro interactions to larger sociocultural phenomena. I connect an experience of interpersonal violence, specifically road rage, to the larger phenomenon of violence against Black women.

Autoethnography, specifically BFA, can be an empowering tool to Black women victims and survivors of interpersonal violence. According to Johnson et al. (2005) empowerment is defined as “enabling women to access skills and resources to cope more effectively with current as well as future stress and trauma” (p. 109). Empowerment is important because it can mediate the relationship between interpersonal violence and the severity of mental health outcomes among Black women who experience interpersonal violence (Wright et al., 2010). Further, phenomenological research shows that Black women construct meaning from experiences of interpersonal violence through the development of “creative essence” or internal methods of coping with trauma that fosters power and personal strength (Davis, 1998). This method provides a platform for self-transformation that may bring healing from emotional scars of the past (Chang, 2008). In other words, it is through telling my story through the lens of BFA that I can derive empowerment and explore my experiences as a Black woman survivor of interpersonal violence, hopefully healing myself in the process.

Nowhere to turn

In February 2020, I was involved in a road rage incident on US-Highway 23 in Ann Arbor, MI. The morning had started out as a regular day, but things changed around two o’clock in the afternoon. Normally, I would have class on Tuesdays, but class had been canceled. Because of the free time I now had, I decided to go and visit my partner at the time, who lived about 40 min away via the highway. I hadn’t been driving but 10 minutes before I realized that the passing lane that I was in was moving slower than the non-passing lane (as in it was clear the flow of traffic was stilted). I was also about five or six cars back from the lead car. There were no perceivable barriers (i.e., accidents and construction) as to why this should be the case, so I put on my right turn signal and moved into the non-passing lane. As I was advancing, I noticed that there was more than enough space for me to get back into the passing lane in front of this blue car that happened to be slowing up the lane. So again, I put my (left) turn signal on and made sure there was enough room. The driver sped up a little when I indicated what I was trying to do (but I maneuvered back into the lane with ample room). Now that I was in front of the blue car, I proceeded to get over into the non-passing lane to continue about my day. The blue car increased its speed and switched lanes until it was on my tail. I perceived the driver to be a (cisgender heterosexual) Black man.

I removed my foot from the accelerator and gave the driver in the blue car the finger in the rearview mirror. A barrage of expletives left my mouth. He stopped tailing me for a few seconds. Instead, he opted for some daredevil maneuvering to get back into the passing lane just to get next to my driver’s side: speeding up past 80 plus miles per hour, switching lanes, tailing the van in front of him to the point where if the driver of the van had lightly tapped their brakes, they would have gone hurdling down the highway. He was now on my driver’s side. I flashed him the finger again. He rolled down the passenger window. A barrage of trajectiles—pencils, bottle caps, trinkets—hurdled toward my driver’s side window. Not once. But TWICE. The entire time, he was still trying to get in front of me, intimidate me. He distracted me as well as the other drivers on the road. In decades of driving, I’ve never felt so attacked to the point where I felt the need to defend myself. I was enraged. And the rage continued to grow. The audacity of him to assault my car, bully me, and endanger not only me but others on the road as well.

Three thoughts went through my head at that point. The first was that I was going to follow him and fight him myself. However illegal this might be, my immediate reaction was to handle it myself. I was triggered. The same feelings I felt when I was an adolescent experiencing dating violence, I experienced when I was attacked. I felt vulnerable. Defenseless. To me, it was more than about him causing damage to my car. The technologies (devices, vehicles, etc.) that we use can be an extension of our bodies, for example, a wheelchair can be an extension of a disabled body (Toombs, 1995). Damaging the wheelchair means doing damage to the disabled body, harming the disabled person. Like the wheelchair, my car was an extension of me. Attacking my car meant attacking me. He was trying to cause harm to me as a human being. As a Black woman. Research shows that in cases of road rage specifically, men are more likely to be both victims and offenders (Smart et al., 2004). Moreover, the most vulnerable victims (pedestrians and cyclists) are the least likely to view road rage incidents as a random event and the most likely to feel that they were specifically targeted (Cavacuiti et al., 2013). Road rage incidents also tend to evolve more rapidly when there is a greater real or perceived power imbalance between the victims and offenders (Cavacuiti et al., 2013). I do question if his reaction would have been the same if I had been a different race or gender. That is, if he had not perceived me as a Black woman, would he have gone as far as he did?

The second reason why I wanted to follow and fight the driver is because my feelings also mattered: I was angry. I felt that the driver had overreacted to something that may be deemed an aggressive move, but it is also an everyday occurrence. It is not only that the driver lashed out at me, but the extent to which he did. He tailed another driver just to get next to my side. He threw things at my car to distract my driving, twice. He did not care about my vehicle, and he most certainly did not care about my well-being.

After I realized that I had nothing in the car to protect myself with and that it might not be a wise idea for me to act in the name of vigilante justice, shaken, I called my partner. I didn’t know what I thought he could do from where he was at while I was still driving on the highway, but I didn’t know what to do. After we figured out that there was really nothing he could do physically, I finally decided to call the police.

While I was talking on the phone to the Michigan State Police (MSP), I noticed a car drive up abruptly on my right side. The driver—a white man—flashed his badge at me to indicate that he was a police officer. At this point, my assumption is that he witnessed the entire thing. I nodded my head to acknowledge him and pointed aggressively at the driver in front of me to indicate to him that I am not the driver who has the road rage issues. The MSP dispatcher—who I am assuming is a white woman (but this is based on voice alone)—was able to confirm that someone from the police officer’s car—though never confirmed that the person was a police officer—did report the incident. When the police officer—who I assume is either working undercover or is off duty as his vehicle was a regular vehicle—pulled up next to the driver, he flashed his badge. The driver tapped his brakes. Whatever the reason for the tap, I lost sight of him not soon thereafter. As I continued to drive, I passed by the police officer who earlier flashed his badge and gave him a wave to thank him for reporting it.

The public/private nature of interpersonal violence experienced by Black women

I decided to involve the police because the incident happened in public, in broad daylight. I assumed that other drivers on the road may have reported the incident, so I felt more inclined to report it because—if it did get reported by someone else—I wanted my truth to be told. Moreover, this driver, by endangering other drivers, made his actions public whereas my actions stayed private (e.g., flashing the finger and cursing within the confines of my car). Another reason why I decided to call the police last is because I did not want the police to think that the driver and I had a current or prior sexual or romantic relationship. I grew up with the sentiment that—though I don’t remember whom, what, or where I learned this from—when white law enforcement officers are involved in disputes between Black men and women, they will automatically assume that they are romantically or otherwise sexually involved. Or that it is a dispute between a sex worker and their pimp. In other words, I did not want the police to stereotype, generalize, and therefore normalize what they observed as a “domestic dispute.”

Let me make it clear that, in theory, it should not matter if I knew the driver or if we were otherwise involved in some way. Since he attacked me—or at least attempted to cause damage to my personal property and distract my driving—he deserves to be held legally accountable for his actions. However, what I want to point out is that assuming the driver and I are otherwise involved, thereby categorizing the interaction as a “domestic dispute,” moves the interaction from the public sphere to the private one, therefore normalizing, naturalizing, and marginalizing the violence (Schneider, 2000; Smith, 1974). As such, the dispute would be handled in accordance with a different set of rules, from a public attack by a stranger while driving along the highway to a private dispute between two people who otherwise have a romantic or sexual relationship. I was hesitant to call the police because if they did categorize it as a “domestic dispute,” I felt they would not have the same motivation to help me as they would if it were an attack by a random stranger. In other words, I felt that by framing my case as a “domestic dispute,” any “justice” I might receive would vanish into the private sphere where my “husband” (the driver) would be justified in “disciplining” me (by attacking me/my car).

Gender entrapment (Richie, 2003) implies that there are a different set of rules applied to Black and white couples. In my case, if I had attempted to go after the other driver there is a high likelihood I would have been arrested or charged with retaliation if reported, irrespective of our relationship with each other. Moreover, going after the other driver would have kept this interaction in the private sphere, instead of keeping it in the public sphere.

Strong Black woman and racial loyalty

The analysis of my experience can reveal the raced and gendered components underlying the private/public nature of interpersonal violence experienced by Black women. In particular, this analysis can demonstrate how Black women who experience interpersonal violence negotiate racial loyalty and the SBW stereotype in their daily lives. This analysis sheds light on racial loyalty and the SBW stereotype and how they can conflict and consent with one another to affect the decision-making process of Black women who experience interpersonal violence.

A few days after the incident, I found myself going through several thoughts, replaying it over and over. I kept thinking that I didn’t have enough room to change lanes. I kept thinking that I forgot to turn on my signal—even though I was sure I turned it on. I kept asking myself what I did to deserve the response I received? “Maybe,” I think to myself, “the driver was justified in his actions; maybe I did deserve it.” I started second guessing my feelings about the incident. I was so afraid, so shaken up, that I skipped swim class. Then, I got so angry with myself because I “let him get to me.” I was upset with myself for being afraid because as a “strong Black woman,” I should always be without fear.

Racial loyalty and the SBW stereotype both conflicted and consented with one another for me during the road rage incident. First, while the SBW stereotype dictates that I take charge, which I did by moving ahead of the other driver, the concept of racial loyalty dictates that I should have stayed behind the other driver because he was a Black man. Second, the SBW stereotype dictates that I assert myself, which I did by taking my foot off the accelerator, shouting expletives, and giving the other driver the finger; but the concept of racial loyalty dictates that I shouldn’t have done any of these things. Third, the concept of racial loyalty dictates that I refuse to call the police (on a Black man) and the SBW stereotype dictates that I “handle” the situation myself, both of which puts the onus of the violence on me. Although in the beginning, my first thought was to handle it myself, I chose not to. Finally, the concept of racial loyalty and the SBW stereotype both dictate that I should have accepted the violence. However, I resisted the concept of racial loyalty and the parts of the SBW stereotype that dictate I take the situation on myself and refused to accept the violence by asserting myself and involving the MSP.

Implications for social work research and practice

Interpersonal violence experienced by Black women is a complex phenomenon rooted in racism, homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny. These interlocking systems of oppression necessitate the use of the Matrices of Domination and Violence (Collins, 1999; Richie, 2012) to understand the complexities of interpersonal violence experienced by Black women. In this article, I show how the disciplinary, hegemonic, and interpersonal domains of power intersected for me during a specific instance of road rage in the context of community violence.

Black Feminist Autoethnography has implications for qualitative social work research and practice. Implications for research include the use of Black Feminist Autoethnography as a methodological framework to identify areas of empowerment, strength, and support for Black women survivors of violence. Practice implications for social workers, especially those who work with perpetrators of violence, include critiquing and examining the current interventions for interpersonal violence experienced by Black women. The primary method used to disrupt IPV experienced by Black women is partner abuse education counseling (i.e., battery intervention programs). However, these programs rely on the individual experiencing violence to report or disclose this violence to the law. This suggests that these programs are non-intersectional because they fail to consider the structural, institutional, organizational, and interpersonal barriers that Black women face when seeking help from the law (Bent-Goodley, 2007). Thus, this BFA encourages social workers to examine the ways interpersonal violence experienced by Black women is addressed in both romantic and non-romantic contexts for better understanding of how to center the needs of victims and survivors.

Conclusion

This study begins to fill the gap in research on the lived experiences of Black women victims and survivors of non-intimate interpersonal violence. Building on existing literature on interpersonal violence experienced by Black women, specifically IPV, this study extends the literature by using the Matrices of Domination and Violence (Collins, 1999; Richie, 2012) to analyze violence against Black women in a community context. Moreover, this study bridges qualitative research with Social Work practice. This study encourages the training of social workers on how to use the matrices to empower and support Black women experiencing interpersonal violence. Social workers can use the matrices to better understand the complexity of interpersonal violence experienced by Black women to address the needs of victims and survivors.

It is important to note that this Black Feminist Autoethnography is unique to me. In other words, I created my own BFA to analyze my lived experience of non-intimate interpersonal violence. Additional qualitative research needs to be conducted to understand different Black women’s lived experiences with non-intimate interpersonal violence. Moreover, additional research is needed on the mental and physical health effects of non-intimate personal violence on Black women’s well-being.