Queen Latifah, in a recent interiew with essence magazine, confessed that she was molested as a child by a teenager. When I first heard of this, I wondered about the timing of this confession. Why now, so many years later? What is Queen Latifah and her PR team up to? A new book, or movie perhaps, perhaps they will be releasing some more telling news in the near future. But in reflecting on the topic of child molestation in the black community, this is no coincidence. Child molestation, while it doesn't discriminate, and happens in all communities, tends to have a more damaging and lingering effect in the black community because like my mom always taught me, " You don't air your dirty laundry". In essence what goes on in your house stays in your house. Not to mention the shame that victims feel, if it ever did come to light of such an occurence in the community, even though it was not there fault. They are even treated as outcasts of sorts. Growing up, I knew of one girl that this happened to in our urban, predominantly minority community. I had never seen or heard of her once word got out. It was as though she disappeared without a trace. She was packed up and sent away. This leads to lingering bouts of depression, stress, and teen sexual activity & pregnancy.
What's amazing to me is even as adults, people often continue to keep their feelings to themselves, as this is the time in our lives in which we are "free". Free to go and come as we please, free to vote, free to make our own decisions; yet still held in bondaage with painful secrets. Why? We don't want our neighbors or "friends" talking about us. My sympathies to the queen, for her experience I would not wish on my worst enemy. However, a strong a person as she is, I find her story to be most inspiring, because she succeeded in life in spite of her challenges. This is living proof that bad things happens to the best of us but only the strong survive, as she did. All hail the Queen!
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