Amanda Kijera was on a humanitarian trip to Haiti, when she was violently raped by a black man. The act was both coincidental and devastating, as Kijera was actually in Haiti to dispel the “myths” that violence against women on the island was overstated by women’s rights organizations. The intention of Kijera’s trip was to push back on the portrayal of black men as “savages” in the media. Her hope was that she would eliminate misconceptions and push back against common views imposed by “the man.” However, Kijera’s trip took a turn for the worse when one of the men she had worked to protect cornered her on the rooftop, and raped her numerous times.
“The experience was almost more than I could bear,” Kijera wrote about the incident, “I pleaded with him to honor my commitment to Haiti, to him as a brother in the mutual struggle for an end to our common oppression, but to no avail. He didn’t care.”
According to Kijera, she eventually stopped fighting him, claiming that there was nothing she could do to stop him from raping her repeatedly. After the tragic experience, she placed the blame on a very unexpected course. Women are not the source of their oppression; oppressive policies and the as-yet unaddressed white patriarchy which still dominates the global stage are,” she explained.
She also went on to argue that it is up to the United Nations to support people who are forced to bear the brunt of black male aggression. Kijera makes the outrageous claim that dependency on white people causes them to act out against them. She alludes that this was the reason for her attack.
