Friday briefing: The stark reality for Black women making allegations of sexual misconduct

Good morning. I’m Nimo Omer, the assistant editor of First Edition, and I’ll be with you every Friday.

It’s been a pretty grim week for women.

Most visibly, in politics a national newspaper published a story comparing one of the country’s leading female politicians to Sharon Stone’s character in Basic Instinct. News broke a few days later that an MP is being investigated after allegations he was watching porn in the Commons chamber. 56 other MPs are under investigation for sexual misconduct.

But it isn’t only about the most powerful women in the country. This week the Guardian and BBC published allegations from seven women against former BBC DJ Tim Westwood. He has strenuously denied wrongdoing. All of the women are Black, and some felt that racism would lead people to minimise, dismiss or ignore their claims.

So why is it so difficult for these women to be heard? I spoke to the Guardian’s community affairs correspondent, Aamna Mohdin, who worked on the Westwood story, to find out.

Before that, a bit of housekeeping. It’s a bank holiday on Monday, so there won’t be a newsletter – but take a look lower down for our cultural picks to entertain you this long weekend – and Archie will be back with you on Tuesday. Now, the headlines.

Five big stories

1. Ukraine | Last night, Russia attacked Kyiv with two cruise missiles. Ukrainian rescue officials have said the explosions have injured at least ten people and partially destroyed a 25 storey residential building. Click here for all the latest from Ukraine.

2. Ukraine | In one of the largest deployments since the cold war, the UK is set to send 8,000 troops to eastern Europe to combat Russian aggression. The news came as Joe Biden asked Congress for a massive new $33bn US aid package for the country.

3. Race | A non-verbal black 17-year-old was taken to an immigration centre despite never having left the UK. The teenager was incorrectly recorded as Nigerian and recorded as facing “imminent” removal from the UK before he was found.

4. Politics | A female MP accused a Labour frontbencher of telling her she would succeed because men wanted to sleep with her. The news came as Boris Johnson faced pressure to act over claims a Tory MP watched pornography in parliament.

5. Brexit | British seaports are considering legal action against the government to recover the costs of unused border control posts after confirmation post-Brexit import checks will be delayed for a fourth time.

In depth: What Black women face

For a better sense of how the intersections of race and gender affect Black women who make complaints of sexual misconduct, I spoke to Dr Ava Kanyeredzi, a senior lecturer in forensic, clinical and community psychology at the University of East London.

“Black women’s victimisation is never quite believed as valid, because Black women are experiencing racism, colourism – there’s a lot of forms of abuse and violence that Black women manage in their everyday experiences,” she says.

She argues that this gets reproduced in the institutions and services that are meant to help them. Here are some of the key barriers:

***

Lack of trust

Before we even get to the problems Black women face in the criminal justice system, we have to start with the big picture: their lack of faith in public institutions in the first place.

“There are huge levels of distrust,” Aamna tells me. “They see the violence and trauma that the institutions that are meant to protect them cause in their communities. So the idea that they would go to the police is just laughable to a lot of people.”

The police isn’t the only route for women who make complaints of abuse: they might turn to charities, social services, or the NHS. But a lot of the time, these services fail to understand the nuances of Black women’s experiences. “We’ve got a government that doesn’t believe in culturally sensitive services any more,” Aamna says.

To some on the right, that’s a punchline. In practice, what it means is finding better ways to help women whose first language isn’t English, or who have precarious legal status, or who have different ideas of what a “normal” family looks like.

The Black women Dr Kanyeredzi spoke to for her research “felt betrayed by social work professionals,” she said. “These services become places that do not recognise their victimisation. So why would they seek support from a service that they believe is unsafe and doesn’t represent their interests?”

This lack of trust extends to the media too. When Aamna was reporting her story on Tim Westwood, she had many extended conversations with the women making these allegations. It was a slow, challenging process – and before her sources would open up to her and her colleague Alexandra Topping, they had to earn their trust.

***

Generational injustice

If the police and the social services often fail the Black women they are meant to help, they are hardly acting in a vacuum, Dr Kanyeredzi says. Generations of bigotry mean that they are less likely to be recognised as possible victims of sexual violence and abuse. “Broadly speaking, there are ‘ideal’ typical victims of sexual violence,” she said. “And the ideal typical victims of sexual violence aren’t Black women.”

This can, and has, manifested in the “adultification” of Black girls, Aamna says: “Black girls particularly just get seen as adults from a really young age.” This phenomenon was exemplified recently in a school in Hackney, where a 15-year-old Black girl was strip searched by police, while she was on her period, because her teachers thought they smelt cannabis.

***

Access to services and justice

All of this makes it difficult for Black women to access the relevant services that should protect and help them. But even when Black women do approach these services, it doesn’t always turn out well. According to data from Refuge, a domestic violence charity, between March 2020 and June 2021, Black women were 14% less likely to be referred to them for support by police than their white counterparts. This is despite the fact that, in that period, Black women were 3% more likely to report abuse. An investigation by National World also revealed that 37 police forces were more likely to bring charges for rape, sexual assault and domestic abuse cases when the person was white.

***

The wider context

There are other reasons Black women may be reluctant to share their experience. “Not only did they think that the institutions would not believe them, they also said that they thought it would backfire quite negatively on them,” Aamna said. They may face sexism within their own communities, too, she added.

Convictions for sexual assaults, rapes, and other forms of sexual violence are extremely low generally – according to the charity Rape Crisis only one in 100 rapes reported to police result in a charge. If things are already so bad overall, where does that leave Black women?

Sport

Football | Eintracht Frankfurt beat West Ham 2-1 last night. “We didn’t show enough quality. Sometimes the opposition make it hard for you,” said West Ham manager David Moyes.

Cricket | Ben Stokes said that it was “a real privilege” to captain England after he was appointed to the job on Thursday. Stokes said that his predecessor Joe Root would be a “key ally” in the team.

Football | Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp said he is “delighted, humbled, blessed, privileged and excited” to sign a two-year contract extension with the club. Under Klopp, the team are in the running for an unprecedented quadruple this season.

What else we’ve been reading

• What do we really know about ourselves? Writer and culture critic Sinéad Stubbins asks this question to herself after a friendly encounter with a stranger. It’s incredibly moving and has left me wondering which personality quirks of mine are real or imagined. Nimo

• It’s hard to imagine a more emphatic case for the banning of conversion therapy for trans people than this anonymous writer’s account of the toll it took. Archie

• Meirion Jones, a journalist who was part of the team that exposed Jimmy Saville, shrewdly examines how arcane libel laws protect those in power from accountability. It’s an infuriatingly good read. Nimo

• David Simon’s new show, We Own This City, is stuffed with alumni of The Wire, and set in Baltimore, but it’s totally great in its own right. David Smith tells the eye-watering true story of police corruption behind it. (Do not read it if you mind about spoilers! Although I think you should get over it!) Archie

• You might vaguely recall the Pick For Britain scheme – an attempt to hire British workers to replace seasonal workers kept out of the UK by coronavirus. Jack Beaumont found out what happened next in this excellent piece for the Fence. (It does not go well.) Archie

The front pages

The Guardian leads today with “Biden defies Putin’s threats by doubling aid for Ukraine” while the Telegraph has “Britain to send 8,000 troops to Eastern Europe”. The Financial Times’ version is “Biden asks Congress for £33bn in extra aid to support Ukraine”. “Brit killed in Ukraine” says the Metro. The splash in the i is “New sexual harassment claims hit parliament”. The Times’ front page has “Stop taking painkillers for arthritis, patients told”. “A step nearer justice for my James” – that’s the Mirror, about the murder of James Bulger and his father’s hope of a public inquiry. “Death of BBC licence fee in funding shake-up” says the Express, while the Daily Mail’s page one lead is “Labour’s lockdown lies and hypocrisy”.

Something for the weekend

Our critics’ roundup of the best things to watch, read and listen to right now

TV
Navalny (BBC iPlayer)
“This startling, terrifying documentary offers up a potted history of Alexei Navalny’s anti-Putin, pro-democracy activism. It ends in a darkness that is all the more pronounced for our knowledge of where Putin is about to take Russia and the world”. – Phil Harrison

Music
Let’s Eat Grandma – Two Ribbons
“The duo’s third album is all-out pop: neon-hued synthesisers pitched somewhere between jubilant 80s hits and hands-in-the-air dancefloor breakdowns. It tackles grief but focuses more on navigating the changing nature of friendship with age. Compelling listening.” – Alexis Petridis

Film
Downton Abbey: A New Era
“Julian Fellowes’s creation has lurched defiantly up from its deathbed for another Charleston around the sickroom. I have to admit that I did find this film entertaining – more outrageously silly and hammy and artlessly snobby than ever.” – Peter Bradshaw

Podcast
Looking For Esther
“What’s in a name? In this incredibly moving series, host Esther Robertson – a Scottish woman of colour who had three different names before she was three years old – finds out what really happened when she was adopted and re-adopted.” – Hollie Richardson

Today in Focus

Will Elon Musk regret buying Twitter?

It’s not rocket science – but it might be even harder. Alex Hern explains why Elon Musk may find that running Twitter and making a profit is a greater challenge than he bargained for.

Cartoon of the day | Pete Songi

The Upside

A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad

Britain’s first ever national LGBTQ+ museum is about to open in London. The director of Queer Britain, former editor Gay Times Joseph Galliano, was inspired by a Tate Britain exhibition in 2017 which made him realise “you could create a blockbuster exhibition around queer subjects”, he tells Owen Jones. It hopes to attract 26,000 people in its first year. Who’s it for, trustee Anjum Mouj is asked? “It’s for everyone!”

Sign up here for our new daily newsletter, First Edition