- 9 months ago
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00:00Welcome to today's town hall, money manipulation, exploring economic abuse in black relationships
00:15presented by Ujima and the Allstate Foundation in partnership with Essence.
00:19We are here today to have a transparent, fruitful, and much needed conversation.
00:25Please welcome our esteemed panelists, Kimya Motley, CCO of A Call to Men, Sharice Kimbrough,
00:33Allstate Foundation Senior Manager and Relationship Abuse Program Officer, Karma Cotman, CEO of Ujima,
00:41and Kimberly Wilson, Essence Senior Editor and today's host.
00:47As many of us know, relationship abuse is a pervasive issue within the United States.
00:53When we think about one in four women and one in seven men experience domestic violence at some point within their life,
01:02black women are three times more likely to die at the hands of an intimate partner or an ex-partner.
01:09Intimate partner homicide is among the leading causes of death for black women between the ages of 15 and 35.
01:16Domestic violence among African-American teens is twice the rate of white teens.
01:21So ladies, I'm excited to jump right in.
01:25And Kimya, I'm actually going to start with you.
01:27So as a survivor, you have bravely shared your story with Essence readers in the past.
01:35Can you just talk more about your personal experience and how financial abuse played a role in what you have experienced?
01:42I can definitely do that.
01:44I met and married the man that I thought would be the man of my dreams.
01:50And we got married pretty quickly.
01:53Within a year of that marriage, different forms of abuse I encountered because he did those things to me.
02:03And by the third year, I decided, OK, I want to go ahead and get a divorce, not knowing that I needed a safety plan or anything of that nature.
02:13I just told him that I wanted a divorce.
02:16And he met me outside my daughter's daycare center.
02:21And when we got out of the car, he shot me four times with a .38.
02:27He shot me in my face here, in my neck, in the back of my head, and in my back.
02:36And he went on to shoot my then 10-year-old daughter one time in the head as well.
02:43The wonderful thing about that is that we both survived.
02:46You would never be able to tell that those things happened today.
02:50I'm sitting here before all of you now.
02:52And my daughter is a culinary student.
02:55She's the number one reason I can't stick to my diet points.
02:59Because she bakes such wonderful things.
03:03And a lot of times I tell people that, you know, I didn't just wake up one day, you know, to get shot by my husband.
03:09Because people will say, oh, wow, your case is so extreme.
03:14It didn't begin that way.
03:15It started building over time.
03:17And specifically around the realm of economic abuse.
03:20When we were dating, he did a great job of partnering with me financially.
03:25The moment we got married, he said, I need to control the finances.
03:29Six months later, my house was in foreclosure.
03:35My minivan had been repossessed.
03:38And there were times I had to go to the neighbor's house to take showers or even cook a meal for my children.
03:44Because he did not know how to handle finances whatsoever.
03:48I'll add one other thing, you know, to that.
03:54When I think about the men in his life and how they probably could have stepped in, you know, at times to intervene.
04:00I remember when we were dating that I went to go meet his parents.
04:04And I told his parents, particularly his dad, what a wonderful man he was.
04:09When we went back to visit one year later, his father said, do you remember when you came to visit and you told us what a wonderful son we had raised?
04:19He said, I started to tell you then he was allergic to paying bills.
04:25How do you like him now?
04:27Well, one, thank you so much for sharing that story with each of us here today.
04:31Um, you have dedicated your life now to this topic in this mission.
04:39How did you get involved in what kind of just keeps you going?
04:42Yes.
04:43Well, I honestly, after going through something like that, I thought men were the enemy.
04:48And then I heard our CEO, Tony Porter, give a conversation about the man box.
04:54And I thought, now this is different.
04:57I want to, I want to hear this.
04:58You know, I want to, I want to know more about it.
05:00And I started doing some training with them, but I was still watching them, you know, because I'm not certain.
05:07Are you one way when you're talking about, um, male socialization in another way, you know, with staff and all the men.
05:16And I mean, all of them on our job, come, come to work every day and say, I'm ready to end violence against women and girls.
05:24I'm ready to prevent violence against women and girls.
05:26And they come on fire and watching them interact, not only with us, but other women that we're working with in such a healthy way.
05:33It heals me and it motivates me to want to keep doing, you know, this work.
05:39I knew nothing about what domestic violence was, nothing.
05:43I did not know that this was violence.
05:46I couldn't name it as that.
05:48I thought this was what you go through in a relationship.
05:51So those two things.
05:52Thank you so much.
05:55Sharice, I'm actually going to turn it over to you because we, Kimia shared her story, this idea around economic abuse.
06:03Can you share more for those who don't know what that is and how it shows up in relationships?
06:08Sure.
06:09And I just want to echo what you said and to thank my sister, Kimia, for sharing her story so bravely and courageously.
06:13And so thank you for that.
06:16So financial abuse really is when one person tries to control, manipulate, or restrict another person's ability to earn, use, or accumulate financial resources and assets.
06:28So that can look like anything from job interference, which can look like preventing somebody physically from going to work or incessantly calling and texting someone while at work.
06:38It can look like showing up to that person's job and making a disruption so that they cannot work.
06:42It can also mean school interference or career advancement interference.
06:48It can look like withholding resources, controlling all the resources, putting someone on an allowance without a mutual consent agreed upon payment.
06:57So financial abuse really occurs in lots of ways.
07:00But as Kimia said, she didn't recognize it then.
07:03And a lot of Americans don't.
07:05Studies show that 78% of Americans don't recognize financial abuse as a form of domestic violence.
07:11Yet it occurs in 99% of domestic violence cases.
07:15There's a recent study that we commissioned that one of our partners did that shows that survivors reported a median of $0 in savings and only $172.50 that they could access without their abusive partner knowing.
07:30And I also want to say it's important to note that this crosses socioeconomic backgrounds.
07:35I think sometimes we think it only happens to certain kinds of folks who only have a certain kind of education level or a certain kind of economic status.
07:42But the truth is, it happens across the socioeconomic status.
07:46And in particular, in our community, in the Black community, it happens no matter how many degrees you have, where you live, what kind of car you drive, how big your bank account is.
07:55Everyone is subject to financial abuse.
07:59And you make a great point.
08:00This shows up in so many different types of relationships.
08:04But for you, Karma, how does this differ?
08:08How does financial abuse differ for Black women specifically?
08:11Absolutely.
08:12Well, thank you.
08:13And again, I want to echo the appreciation to you, Kenya.
08:18Thank you so much for sharing your story and bringing voice to an issue that we know exists, but we don't often get to see it.
08:25And so I really appreciate you being here.
08:27And thank you for sharing.
08:28You're welcome.
08:30And as my sister Cherise said, financial abuse is really apparent across socioeconomic levels, but does look different for Black women.
08:39And it shows up and manifests differently for us because Black women, aside from not being seen as victims, there are the overlay of misogynoir.
08:49We're seen as lazy.
08:51So when you have situations where someone is calling your job and putting your job in jeopardy, it's not seen as abuse.
08:59It's just seen as something that we do.
09:01Right?
09:02And so then we have to dispel and explain why this situation is dangerous and what the layers of violence are.
09:08And so then that impacts us individually, but it impacts us collectively.
09:14In addition to that, when you're talking about middle class Black women, we're not offered the same resources.
09:19And so when we talk about the realization around what Black women experience, it's not just the dynamics of bias externally.
09:27There's also challenges within our community that we have to be honest about.
09:31Very often for Black women, when you have someone who's supporting you, the first thing your girlfriend is going to say is,
09:37girl, you better stick with that man because you got somebody to pay your bills.
09:43Right?
09:43And so we experience that pressure from family, from friends.
09:46So the overlay of systemic bias, racism, oppression with what happens to us internally and our family and friends creates a system for Black women where we feel like there's no place to turn.
09:57Mm-hmm.
09:58Wow.
10:00One in four women, one in seven men, which means all of us know somebody, right, personally who has been impacted by some form of domestic abuse, financial abuse.
10:12I would love it if each one of you could share maybe some things that we all could do.
10:16One of the things that is important, so I want to talk specifically to the men.
10:21Mm-hmm.
10:21It's wonderful that we're all together as women, we're having this conversation, but what's missing is that men are not having these types of conversations.
10:31I remember I was a teacher, you know, at the time, and I would try to explain to my principal, who's male, what was going on, and he would say,
10:40whatever's happening to you at home, you need to leave that in the parking lot before you come in here.
10:47You know, that would have been a very real opportunity for him to step in and say, here are resources that we have at the county, here's some counseling that I can offer you, anything of that nature.
10:59And we need more men having, like I said, having the conversations, being willing to call their friends in and say, I noticed that you said this about your partner or that about your partner.
11:10Mm-hmm.
11:11Not on our watch.
11:12We need more of that.
11:13Mm-hmm.
11:14And then just kind of piggybacking off of how Kimia shared that her employer could have been more supportive, all employers, everybody employs survivors, whether they know that they do or not, just based on the statistics.
11:29So if you start with that framework and then think about and consider, how can I, as an employer, as a manager, support somebody on my team and my company and my organization that may be a survivor?
11:39Absolutely.
11:41And when I think about family and friends, we play a critical role in supporting survivors.
11:48And I'd say, if you do nothing else, start with believing and trusting.
11:53We have got to believe survivors when they say that they're in a violent situation or when they start to talk about what's happening in their homes.
12:01And we've got to trust that they're the experts in their situation.
12:05And as Kimia's story shares, that is the single most dangerous time for a survivor is the moment that they leave.
12:13And then there is the financial aspect where what Cherie said is real about people not having sufficient funds to take care of themselves, to take care of their families.
12:24And what do we do as women?
12:26We put everybody first, right?
12:28And so if we don't feel like we can take care of our family, if we don't feel like we have the financial support, then we will sacrifice our safety.
12:35And so one of the things that we've got to be able to do is to help out survivors when there is the discussion about what's happening in your home, that it's not limited to your physical safety, that we're talking about your emotional safety, and we're also talking about your financial safety.
12:51And that that's a part and a component of the safety plan.
12:56And then I think it's also critically important for us as family, as friends, as community, as employers, to know that all of these other pieces around manipulation are existing in that home.
13:09In that relationship, this person is being told, you know, you're not worthy.
13:14I will make sure that you are not safe.
13:17You cannot manage money.
13:18And so when all of those things are happening, it's important for us to not pile on.
13:23And for Black women, particularly for Black women, that is an experience that we have all had, right?
13:30Where we are told that we've got to put safety behind a real insurance that we're protecting Black men.
13:39Yes.
13:40May I add something to that as well?
13:41When I think about my friends in my circle, there's a stigma of us having the strong Black woman, the strong Black woman syndrome, right?
13:52I think they were ill-informed as well.
13:55And so they were ill-informing me.
13:57No one ever called it abuse.
13:59They just thought, well, you're not strong enough to handle him.
14:02You need to get a backbone.
14:03You need to be stronger.
14:04And that's such deadly advice, you know, to give people.
14:09And to your point, Kimia, it's not supposed to happen to us, right?
14:13This victimization is not something that we are supposed to experience.
14:17And when you're looking at middle-class Black women, it's definitely not supposed to happen to us.
14:23And what happens is for middle-class Black women, we tend not to share when the situation is happening in our homes because it's not happening to us.
14:30So when we do reach out, we're at a higher lethality, right?
14:34That's when you start to see that we're more likely to be murdered because we've waited so long to reach out.
14:41And now we're at a critical point in which we're having to seek services and seek support.
14:47Absolutely.
14:47So we talk about the people around us, right?
14:52Especially in the dating phase and the courting stage.
14:55And I think, Karma, you mentioned this earlier.
14:57People will be like, that's a good man, Savannah.
14:59And with that, we ignore so many red flags for the sake of keeping a man or maintaining a relationship.
15:12Kimia, I would love to hear from you.
15:14Just what are some red flags that we should be looking for in these early stages of dating?
15:21Before you get too serious, just what are some things that we should be looking out for?
15:25In terms of when we're thinking about the economic aspect of it, I have two things I could share.
15:33So if I began with my ex-husband, if I had to go back and look at it again, I would see he was not prepared to take on a marriage type of relationship.
15:44You're not really stable economically.
15:47Your financial situation is not the best.
15:51I probably would have taken my time in that relationship because it made it easy for him to begin to use my own personal finances.
16:00The other thing that people don't really think about is when they are men of means and they come in immediately and they're buying you large gifts.
16:11And they want to take you on big trips.
16:13And I mean, like, literally, you've known them a month and you want to take me to Aruba.
16:16Something's wrong with that.
16:18Those grand, sweeping, financial, romantic gestures should throw off or some kind of alarm in your head going, why is he moving so fast?
16:30You know, as heavy as all this is, there is real joy in it.
16:36There is real light at the end of the tunnel.
16:38There is real light in the daily walk of it all.
16:41There is real light and joy in our community.
16:44And as much as we're talking about the challenges that we have in relationships and we're saying, you know, we're talking about Black men, we love Black men, right?
16:54And so we've got to be able to say, at the same time that I'm going to protect you, I'm also going to hold you accountable.
17:02Because, you know, one of the things that's so important and, you know, I think we all will agree is we can't sacrifice our daughters to save our sons.
17:10This is about keeping Black women safe and also keeping Black men safe.
17:15And that we recognize that if we're not safe, they're not safe.
17:19If we're harmed, they're harmed.
17:20And so this is about the whole of our community being well.
17:24And that, for me, brings me joy.
17:26We'll see you next time.