The Way Forward Emerging 
Strategies For Crime Victims Of 
Color 

JACKI CHERNICOFF: Good afternoon or good morning, everyone, 
depending on where you're joining us from. Thank you for joining 
our virtual session today, the way forward emerging strategies 
for crime victims of color shaping the future with culturally 
specific innovations. My name is Jacki Chernicoff with the Center 
on Victimization and Safety at the Vera Institute of Justice and 
the National Resource Center for Reaching Victims. OK, with that, 
I want to turn things over to Zoe flowers who's going to introduce 
herself and the panelist for today's discussion. Zoe, this floor is 
yours. 

ZOE FLOWERS: There we go. Great. Hi, everyone. Zoe Flowers 
here. Thank you all for checking in. Looks like we have a little 
over 500 people, so thank you for sharing space with us today. I 
am Zoe flowers. I am the CEO of Soul Requirements, a healing 
centered consulting business that merges art, healing, and social 
justice. 

And I am so pleased to be moderating this conversation with two 
of my favorite people in the world. We are all three of us 
consultants with the Women of Color Network, a national grass 


roots organization that works to center the wellness, the 
leadership, and safety injustice for women of color, OK? 

And so Purvi Shah, I will introduce Purvi first. She is just come on 
the screen. She and I have been consultants with Women of Color 
Network now for I think, like eight years or so. And let me read 
some of Purvi's information to you also you will know what you're 
in for, OK? 

So Purvi Shah is a writer and social justice advocate while serving 
as the Executive Director of Sakhi for South Asian Women. She 
won the inaugural Sony South Asian excellence award for social 
service. In 2017 through a participatory change process, she 
authored a year-long study called Seeding Generations, which 
spurred the New York City community-based interventions for 
people who caused harm and abuse. 

She is also the author of two books of poetry Terrain Tracks and 
Miracle Marks. Both-- I have both of those books, they are both 
fabulous. We have all of her information so please support her 
and grab those books, OK? During the 10th anniversary of 9/11, 
she directed Together We Are New York, a community-based 
poetry project to highlight Asian-American voices. Her favorite art 
practices are her sparkly eye shadow, raucous laughter, and 
seeking justice. And you can discover more about Purvi at Purvi-- 
Purvi Poets. And I will put her bio in the chat. 


And so the other co-conspirator, co-presenter today is the 
wonderful Maria Franco-Rahman. Maria and I also have been 
working together for a long time. I think we're at our four or five 
year mark. And we started working together at the Joyful Heart 
Foundation, and so I will tell you more about Maria. Maria is a 
yoga teacher and Dance From the Heart facilitator. Born, raised, 
and base in Los Angeles. 

She is the founder and CEO of Con Todo Corazon where she 
works locally and nationally offering heart centered holistic 
healing services designed to support personal and social 
transformation. Her work centers the healing and liberation of 
women of color survivors, advocates, and activists, and our fellow 
communities on the margins. Maria has led sessions at healing 
retreats and conferences in South and Southern California, 
Florida, Massachusetts, and Ecuador. 

During her time at the Joyful Heart Foundation, she co-authored 
a holistic healing arts model in collaboration with Georgetown 
University. The model is offered as a retreat for survivors of 
gender-based violence as well as those of service to survivors. 
The model is designed to support resilience and long-term well-
being as well as reduce stress related to trauma. 

Her 15 years of service to survivors also includes direct service to 
undocumented violence survivors at a Latinx culturally specific 
transitional shelter and advocacy at the state level. She currently 


serves as a consultant for Women of Color Network Inc. and 
teaching artists with critical mass dance company. She is a 
student of cross cultural healing methods, including shamanic 
apprenticeship. Maria is a Chicana moving through this world 
honoring her ancestors and the coming generations Con Todo 
Corazon. 

And so you know, one of the things that the three of us have in 
common is we definitely center healing, we definitely center 
working with our most enlightened ancestors, our legacy, our 
lineages. And one of the things that they did ask me to do was to 
start us off with a short meditation. And so I will do that. OK, I'm 
going to keep it short and brief. 

So what I would ask you all to do is wherever you are let yourself 
get comfortable. And go ahead and close your eyes if you feel 
safe doing that. Let your shoulders drop. Let your hands be down 
by your sides. Maybe this is the first when you've had a chance to 
calm down today. So this is our invitation to you. 

Take a deep breath in through your nose, let it out through the 
mouth. Let yourself be still in this moment. Let yourself be 
present to this conversation. Take a deep breath in through your 
nose. Exhale it out through your mouth. Let yourself receive this 
information with all parts of your body. Take a deep breath in 
through your nose. Exhale it through your mouth. We invite you 
on this journey with us. We're glad you're here. You are perfect, 


whole, and complete. When you're ready, open your eyes, and 
we will start. 

And one of the things that our intention for this series, The Way 
Forward, is we want to create spaces where you all can have 
spaciousness. We are so aware of how hard everyone has been 
working. And we want these conversations to be different. We 
want you all to see yourselves in this conversation. We want you 
to be a part of the conversation. And so we will invite you at 
certain points to put your information in the chat, put your 
questions in the chat. 

And yeah, I'm going to go ahead and start. Let me make some 
adjustments to this presentation so that I can actually see you 
all, so that I can see my friends as they're talking. So see how I 
can do that. I share my screen and still see the people. I might 
not be able to. I might need some technical assistance. So for me 
and Maria, Maria, I don't see you, but I am going to ask you all to 
just react to this video, to the photo, excuse me. 

So Purvi and Maria, our first question that I'm asking is what are 
some ways of responding to domestic violence that have been 
born out of community and ancestral wisdom? So that's the first 
question that I would love for either one of you to chime in and 
answer. What are some ways of responding to DV that have been 
born out of community and ancestral wisdom? And if you want to 
talk about why we chose this picture, you could do that as well. 


MARIA DEL ROSARIO FRANCO-RAHMAN: Hello, everyone. 
Welcome. [NON-ENGLISH] we are in the words of my ancestors. 
This is Maria. And my lineage is from Mexico and original people 
of the Mexica. And as I call them into their circle, I also want to 
honor and name the original stewards of where I'm calling from. 
I'm based in Los Angeles. And so giving thanks to their original 
stewards, the Chumash and the Tongva people. 

And if you are called to bring into our space the name of the 
original peoples of the place from where you are connecting in 
from today, you are welcome to do so. Ancestors an ancestral 
medicine, we'll be definitely exploring a lot of that today together. 

And as we talk about violence and some of the original responses 
to violence, I think of the healing art of Mexico, Curanderismo. 
And there's a phenomenal book by a sister in the movement in 
the '80s. Her name is Elena Avila. And it's called Women Who 
Glows in the Dark. And she talks a lot about the origins of this 
ancestral medicine, her experience in the movement, and really 
wanting to bring in more holistic practices. And again, this was in 
the '80s. And she has a very mighty, but lean quote, in terms of 
how Curanderismo came to be. 

And she said there was a need to develop a medicine that could 
heal the pain and the immense [NON-ENGLISH] or soul loss that 
resulted from the cultural destruction, enslavement, and rape 
that occurred during the Spanish conquest of the Americas. So 


we see that in response to colonization, you have these 
responses, these community responses from these old ways of 
being. And it was born out of a need. It was born out of people 
having experienced soul loss, which pre-dates what many of us 
now know as, or refer to as disassociation in modern psychology. 

And it's a natural response to trauma that protects us from what 
we experience. So I want to lift that up in terms of these innate 
ways, these intuitive ways that so many traditions rooted in Earth 
honoring practices, rooted across tradition, rooted across 
different ancestral ways, really have set the stage for what most 
of us use daily in our work with survivors. And I think about 
something like the word psyche. And we think about psychology. 
The ancient word for psyche, I can't think of it now, it looks at the 
life of the soul. And it looks at the soul being represented of the 
butterfly. 

And it also has words rooted in the breath, so this animating 
force that gave all of us life. And so I just want to really call that 
forward, that we have these responses. We have these ways that 
have kept our peoples' resilience for many, many years. And in 
terms of this photo here in front of us, I see a lot of what I've 
come to know as survivor needs represented here. 

I see a breaking of isolation through the connection in both 
photos, in both the photography and the illustrated art. I see 
multigeneration. I see family. I see the needs of children. In the 


middle of the photograph, I see perhaps a daughter. In the 
illustrated image, I see lots of little ones, a couple of little ones, 
holding on to elders. And in terms of ancestral ways of being, in 
terms of the illustrated image, I see that there's some blue 
beings that are present there too, which indicates to me that the 
spirit world is there. 

And when we think about these ways of knowing, these ancient 
ways of knowing, the individual is never extracted or removed 
from the community, from family, from the environment. So 
there's this larger ecosystem. And we see that represented here. 
And I also see the moon, grandmother moon, which may have 
significance for many traditions. I know in my tradition, we think 
of the Mexica or Aztec goddess Coyolxauhqui. 

And I can talk a little bit more about her later. And then there's 
this bird looking on at this flock of people. So when we see a flock 
of birds, they're usually in this V-shaped form. And that V-shaped 
form teaches that the importance of also how we can share 
leadership with one another. So in these V-shaped migration, 
there is never just one bird that leads. So there's one person here 
leading the migration. The birds take turns. And so what does 
that mean in terms of co-leadership models that we can learn 
from. 


ZOE FLOWERS: Thank you so much, Maria. This is a perfect 
stopping point. We just need to pause for one moment. And so I 
would invite you all to put anything in the chat. I'm pausing. 

You all can let me know when to start. Audrey, are we good? 
Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Jacki. Thank you all 
so much as we continue to get everything together. So I see you 
all are already posting some responses to what Maria shared in 
the chat. And so please continue to do that throughout the 
conversation. And I'm going to turn it over to Purvi now-- this 
question, what are some ways of responding to domestic 
violence, or just to violence, community violence in general, that 
were born out of community and ancestral wisdom? 

PURVI SHAH: Thank you so much, Zoe. This is Purvi. And so 
happy to be in community with you all today. I am coming to you 
from the lands of the Canarsie and Lenape Peoples in Brooklyn, 
New York. And so grateful to be doing this work. 

When I think of ancestral wisdom, one of the ways that I think 
about it is the shape of it. So one of the ways that I grew up was 
dancing and doing folk dance. And one of the folk dances 
particularly that lives in me is called Garba. And it's a fertility 
dance. It's about the woman. It's about the baby. It's about the 
goddess. It's about fertility. And recognizing that, again, gender 
is not binary. That we have feminine and masculine qualities in 
us. 


And with Garba, like with many peoples' dances, it's done in a 
circle. And so that black and white image here is a photograph by 
three wonderful artists, who collaborated with us when I was at 
Sakhi for South Asian Women, when we did a film about what 
creates change. And that's the title of the film. And so Fariba 
worked with us to take photographs. And as we interviewed 
community members, survivors, advocates-- we know these 
categories are fluid, that we are all of these things at some 
moment in time. 

And what we realized is that, again, there's a connection. And so, 
there's an interconnection, an interweaving. We often talk about 
intersectionality, which is such a critical term, codified by 
Kimberle Crenshaw, but has a long history in terms of thinking 
about how we see the world, how we experience the world, how 
we experience oppression. And one way I think about that is also, 
again, in the shape of a circle. 

And that is to say, are the services we provide circular? Are they 
integrated? Are they reinforcing? Are they collective? Are they 
connected? Or are they more kind of, as Maria was speaking to, 
the ecosystem of colonization? The ecosystem of capitalism? Of 
gatekeeping? Of linearity? Of you get to this point, and maybe I'll 
support you or not? Or you'll only have access to this amount of 
support, or people only have access to this amount of resources? 


And as we do this work, I think it is really important to think 
about how are we creating kinship? How are we creating 
networks and communities? How are we creating modes of 
support in a very tangible way? So for example, in our 
communities, one of the common modes of support is through 
peer support. So peer support groups, as a circle of folks in 
similar positions being able to offer each other guidance, offer 
each other strategies. 

And yes, advocates are so crucial, but what do we imagine and 
envision in our responses that are beyond a legal system? That 
are beyond this sense of like, oh, we'll punish somebody in a 
particular way? Which are actually about transforming the 
conditions that make violence possible. So, so many of our 
groups are working to break this sense of linearity, and to, as 
Maria also mentioned, work across generations. So this particular 
photo, this black and white image is also-- again, it's a daughter 
ensconced by her parents who have supported her in her 
journey's safety. 

And when we think about this, we know that not all families, not 
all communities do support survivors. And so we need to work at 
community change. We need to work to change the attitudes, 
and the structures, and systems that actually perpetuate 
violence. Some of the ways in which we do that is through 
intergenerational work. So one of the modalities that we often 


see as not available is whole family services, or services that 
think about extended family members, or services that think 
about peoples' workplaces, or services that happen in a way that 
is not just about one on one transactions. 

So for example, one of the community-based activities that we 
did while I was at Sakhi was to have a maela, which is a 
community festival. It was an opportunity to showcase dance, to 
showcase community organizations, and to showcase ways in 
which people connect, and can come together, and feel like it's a 
community context. And that, to me, is part of what healing is 
actually about, and what resilience is enabled. 

Because we need to understand that our communities have 
resources, that we have strengths, that we have traditions. And 
that we can come together and rely on those, even as we 
challenge patriarchy, even as we challenge heteronormativity. 
Even as we challenge various things in our community, we can 
also rely on community modes of gathering, connecting, and 
support in order for us to really challenge the conditions that 
create violence. 

And within that, we also then need to look at too the structures of 
larger violence, which is to say like how is it that our work that 
transforms policy, or that transforms to defund police, but put 
more resources into mental health or social work, why is there 
that disparity in funding? Why is it that culturally specific 


communities get less resources than others? So we look to the 
larger history of colonization, racism. And we have to intervene at 
those levels. Because intimate violence is very deeply connected 
to the violence in our lives. 

So making those connections is, again the work of the circle, the 
work to connect and to work to have new visions for how we 
actually create change. I'm also going to drop a couple of 
resources in the chat that I mentioned. 

ZOE FLOWERS: Thank you so much Purvi. So, so many things 
happening. So for one, Purvi, I would love for you to just go back. 
Someone had a question, I think about patriarchy. And so the 
person that said that, please let me know if you meant to say 
patriarchy. And then also, I just want to put a little spaciousness 
before, Purvi, I have you give that definition. For those of, you 
all, just to stop for a second. 

Oh, the subtitle said patriot. OK, good, that's why we took him 
off. OK, amazing. All right, so you don't need patriarchy. The 
subtitles are messing things up. OK. So just take a breath and 
think about the things that you've heard so far. Taking a deep 
breath in, exhaling it out. And a few of the things I wrote were 
over-reliance on linearity. 

Maybe thinking about does that bring up an area of resistance for 
you? To think about dismantling the linear, the systems, the 


things that Purvi raised? Breaking apart attitudes, structures, 
systems, what are your responses to that? Maybe thinking about 
how you all are benefiting or you have benefited from the linear, 
from these firm structures. 

And then what do you think about when you think about 
gathering, connectivity, and true support? So those are just a 
couple of things that I would invite you all to just think about for 
a moment as we shift into this next question. 

And so, again, either one of you can answer this question. What 
have you seen when people from outside of our communities are 
put in charge of administrating our justice and our healing? Thank 
you, Sorrell Thank you for that. So powerful. What have you 
seen? So when folks come in with these ideas that are sometimes 
linear, with these structures, with these systems, what have you 
all seen happen? What does it mean to a community? What does 
it mean to a people? If you all could just take some time to parse 
that out. 

MARIA DEL ROSARIO FRANCO-RAHMAN: So building on what 
Purvi laid out, in terms of looking at where we are as a 
movement at this moment in time, looking at who we are within 
the context of the systems present here in our country, thinking 
about the legal system in particular, and thinking about how that 
is an external apparatus, an external intervention that moved into 


the way that we're able to be of service or not to survivors. And 
so our movement is what, 60 to 70 years old at this point. 

And somewhere we looked at how do we have this issue be 
looked at as a social issue? And in that process, there was a big 
move and push to have a criminal legal response be a part of 
saying this is a social harm, versus just an issue between two 
partners. 

And so in terms of the long-term view, you had a lot of 
advocates, particularly someone like Beth Richie, who talked 
about, well, let's look at the long term effects, again within the 
context of this country, and within seeing how the criminal 
system can affect those on the margins, and may affect 
survivors, survivors of color in particular, who are now going to 
be moving through the system. And her cautioning was 
absolutely prophetic, because we fast forward to now, and we 
look at dual arrest. We look at retaliatory cases. 

And those who are most affected are women of color, majority 
Black women, in the 60 percentile, Latina women in the 40 
percentile. And so we're now here, fast forward to 2020, and we 
are looking at what does it look like in terms of things like police 
brutality? In terms of reform to defund law enforcement? And in 
particular, bringing it into our movement, we see something like 
85%-- FreeFrom reports that 85% of federal funds for domestic 
violence are given to law enforcement. 


So when we look at who are these outside forces, or sources that 
have come in and perhaps taken the place of community 
solutions, we're at a really ripe time to look at these things as a 
movement, and within the context of the conversation, and the 
divestment proposals that we're seeing from spaces like the 
Movement for Black Lives. 

ZOE FLOWERS: Thank you so much. Purvi, I see you and I are in 
a race to put these resources in the chat. I love it. So why don't 
you go ahead and just continue this conversation Maria was 
talking about. I know you're going to have some amazing things 
to say. 

PURVI SHAH: Yeah, thank you, Zoe. This is Purvi. And one of the-
- there's so many organizations out there doing amazing work, so 
I just want to lift up a few of them. And I want to return us back 
to why do we do this work. For me, I do this work because I 
believe that joy and love is our human right. And that we should 
be able to experience beautiful relationships. 

And so we have to work to model that, to make that an actuality 
in the world. We have to invoke that. We have to work towards it 
ourselves. Because we are human. And we will make mistakes. 
We will harm. And we will also need to learn how to repair. And 
so in that vein, I believe that the work that we are trying to do is 
to actually create both the conditions for love and joy, and also to 
enable examples of that. 


One of the organizations I think of is Freedom Inc, which is a 
Hmong and Black led organization in the Twin Cities area in 
Minnesota. They have been doing amazing work in terms of 
community change. And they really, again, see the community as 
the heart of the work that they're doing. They have elder circles. 
They have circles in terms of working across Hmong and Black 
communities. They have circles to really talk about the next 
generation and youth circles. And so there is a way in which their 
work, again, has a wholeness, has a context, and has, again, 
these different generations involved. 

Similarly, an organization that many of y'all might know here in 
New York City, Black Women's Blueprint, also does a lot of 
community focus change work. And I remember so vividly when 
we were in a meeting one time, Savannah Brown, the deputy 
there, said, the work that we're doing is not just healing 
ourselves and the future, but also healing the past. Healing what 
our ancestors wanted for us. 

And so when we think about the work in this way, that we're 
healing this moment, but we're also healing before and after, we 
see the work in a different context. And then when we think 
about so much of the work-- I know there was a question about 
patriarchy, what does that mean? And I see patriarchy, which is 
the lineage of patriarchs, or men, having power is part of the 
condition of what we would say is oppression and misogyny. 


Of course, patriarchy also affects men. And in many ways, it 
affects men by what a call to men calls the mailbox, the man box, 
like what does it mean to be a man. And so in that vein, not only 
are boys who experience violence in the home affected, but 
they're also affected by cultures of creating conditions of 
perpetuating violence. And not being able to actually address 
normal human emotions, like anger, or frustration, with the 
strategies of response. 

So you'll see also in the field so many ways in which we're talking 
about healthy masculinity. And again, this is to say that as we 
think again that gender is a binary. It's not one thing or another, 
we all can have masculine traits. We all can have feminine traits. 
And so how do we have these behaviors, how do we have these 
essences in a healthy, productive way. 

And so part of that, in terms of looking at responses that are 
doing amazing work to address also contexts of violence, I think 
of the National Compadres Network, which does healing circles. 
Which looks at also colonization and the force and brutality 
experienced by indigenous and La Raza communities, and the 
ways in which men have perpetuated violence as well within the 
community. 

So you'll also have organizations like Caminar Latino, who again 
serves across the family. And so we're not trying to remove parts 
of our family, parts of our community, we're trying to heal our 


communities and family. So those are some of the organizations 
that I think of, folks that are doing amazing work. 

And I'll add just one more, which is the Alma Center, which works 
in Milwaukee, which also is a community which is very over-
policed. Particularly, has a disparity in terms of Black and Latinx 
community members. And they have a Wisdom Walk that they do 
for folks with perpetuated violence and caused harm. And so 
there are ways that, again, in the work that I did in Seeding 
Generations, I talk about healing with accountability. 

And the point of healing with accountability is to say that 
accountability is crucial. We need accountability for causing harm. 
And we want that accountability to also be restorative. We want it 
to actually lead to more wholeness. And we want to then be able 
to have somebody be in conversation, be in productive 
relationship, be able to heal also into the next generation. 

ZOE FLOWERS: Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you both 
again. Let's just take a quick break for an interpreter switch. And 
please put any questions you all have in the chat. Thank you. 
Thank you for that. This is Zoe, thank you. 

So thank you all for everything that you have said so far. And we 
are going to just keep it rolling. We have put resources in the 
chat for you all. We would love to hear any questions that you all 
have. There was actually a question, Maria, for you about that 


law enforcement stat. So if you want to put that information in 
the chat, Maria, that would be great. 

MARIA DEL ROSARIO FRANCO-RAHMAN: This is Maria. Karen 
went ahead and provided the FreeFrom website. So for more 
information, I invite folks to visit their site. 

ZOE FLOWERS: And there is a question about-- Purvi, I am 
guessing this is for you-- the name of the New York organization 
that you mentioned. Maybe it was Black Women's Blue Print. And 
Purvi actually just put that in the chat. So we would love any 
other questions that you all have. 

How do you encourage-- oh, wait, OK, we have two. From 
Sorrell-- is there more data or research about Black women and 
police brutality? I do believe that Insight-- I'm going to get that 
web link and put that in the chat. I do believe that Insight has 
information about Black and Brown women and police brutality. 
Let me turn it over to Purvi and Maria to answer that as well. 

MARIA DEL ROSARIO FRANCO-RAHMAN: A couple of sites that 
provide resources on this would be Survived and Punished, and 
Free Marissa Now. They have some pretty helpful information 
there. 

ZOE FLOWERS: Great, thank you. OK, so Survived and Punished. 


PURVI SHAW: This is Purvi. I just want to say, I'm so sorry, 
Freedom Inc is in Wisconsin. Thank you for noting that. And I do 
want to say that they've done some really amazing work in terms 
of the Minneapolis uprising right now. Again, because often 
communities of color are pitched against each other as part of 
white supremacy, and so the work that they are doing, 
particularly in terms of bringing Asian and Black communities 
together is really crucial. So thank you for asking that and 
clarifying. 

ZOE FLOWERS: Great. Thank you so much. OK, so we've got a 
couple of questions. What are some strategies or guidance you all 
have for campus/higher education advocates as we look to 
ensure we are centering the healing needs of our survivors of 
color? So any campus strategies or guidance you all have. 

PURVI SHAW: This is Purvi. Thank you so much for that question. 
So I think for me, I think back to so much of my awakening 
around issues of intimate violence. Partly came from my family. 
My mom is the eldest of four daughters. And so having a lineage 
of women has been so crucial to my life. And then when I think 
about my time at university, student activism, like Take Back the 
Night, and Work Around Sexual Assault has been so crucial. 

And so I think, again, in a similar way, campuses are microcosms 
of the world around us. And I think it's really important to have 
health counseling. It's important to have services. And it's 


important to have peer networks and the possibility for 
community organizing. In that, I think also, similarly, 
conversations around healthy masculinity, around healthy 
sexuality, around what that can look like, what that can be like is 
really crucial in a campus context. 

And again, I think it's really important to center that different 
communities who are coming, whether it's first generation college 
folks or folks who may have come from households where some 
of these conversations were never allowed to happen, that you 
have entry points for these conversations, so that the experience 
of becoming more awake is one where it's led with information, 
led with connection, and led with a chance for choice, as opposed 
to an experience of just imposition, and being moved into like a 
normative American violence. 

ZOE FLOWERS: Thank you. So we have a couple more questions, 
all right. So some I wrote down. And then we will get to the-- and 
I feel like this is going to actually lead us into our next guiding 
question. So this one question comes about defunding the police. 
And so folks want to know what is your understanding about what 
folks are talking about with that? So either one of you can talk 
about what is your understanding about this call to defund the 
police. I don't know if Maria you want to jump in? 

MARIA DEL ROSARIO FRANCO-RAHMAN: Sure. So in terms of my 
understanding the call for Movement for Black Lives is when we 


talk about defunding the police, it is to redistribute these 
resources into community programs that can provide 
interventions that do not use lethal force, that do not come from 
a system rooted in violence, violence that has disproportionately 
affected Black lives. 

And so we look at other options, like mental health services. We 
look at other options like substance abuse programs, perhaps 
education. And we look at how can we create communities that 
are restorative, a lot of what Purvi was talking about. And we can 
do this also through ways of healing through accountability, 
again, as Purvi walked us through, without having met the threat 
of violence be centered in all of this. 

So that's from a greater context. And in terms of the movement, 
I would, again-- I really love the piece that FreeFrom put out in 
response to the uprisings, and in terms of the Movement for 
Black Lives, and supporting what we're seeing on a national level, 
and really looked at how can defunding support survivors, how 
can it support our work for those of us who are of service to 
them, and how it has moved resources away from our 
community. 

So I would really encourage folks to look at their work and how 
they've outlined how we can reimagine. And I think that's a big 
part of what we're being called to do at this moment in time, to 
reimagine a different world, to reimagine different responses that 


we don't have to be rooted and we don't have to center a system 
that again holds a constant threat to the lives of our community 
members, to our Black communities. And that ultimately when 
any of our communities are not free, none of us are free. 

ZOE FLOWERS: This is Zoe. Thank you so much, Maria. And 
please, you all, continue to put your responses in the chat. If you 
know of resources, we invite you to do that as well. So we do 
have a question about restorative approaches, and how they are-
- how can restorative justice approaches be utilized if folks are 
expecting a law enforcement response. So I think that this is 
also-- and then we have another question about the Black Lives 
Matter Movement, which I'll circle back around to, Rachel. I have 
not forgotten. 

But I want to go into this third question about some of the 
models that you have seen develop, that offer holistic 
approaches. Because I think that we can include this restorative 
justice conversation in this conversation about some of the 
models that we're seeing. So Purvi, I don't know if you want to 
jump in and talk about some models that you've seen, or 
develop, that offer holistic approaches. You've already talked 
about so many organizations. Are there any others that you want 
to just give a little bit more attention to. 

PURVI SHAW: Thank you, Zoe. This is Purvi. And one of the 
frameworks that I really want to highlight, and this also connects 


to, Ana Paula your question, which is so important, about 
language, and how do we ensure that we are reaching 
communities who speak multiple languages. And may also have 
different-- I think of also language as a way of being in the world. 
And so I draw inspiration from organizations, such as Deaf Dawn, 
which work with deaf and hard of hearing communities. 

And Shazia Siddiqi and Najma Johnson-- Shazia used to be one of 
the directors at Deaf Dawn, and Najma is one of the directors 
still-- they really like gave a way in which the work is seen as 
being trauma informed and about transformative justice. And so, 
again, coming from within communities experiencing violence, 
needing access to language and services around language access, 
there's also, again, this framework of healing. 

Like, what does connection look like? What does trauma look like? 
What does it mean to understand and reflect trauma? And what is 
the language that we use around that? How do we even access 
that? So I think those contexts are really crucial in terms of 
thinking about, again, how do we have a restorative approach. 

When we think about also-- when we think about, yes, that over-
reliance on the criminal legal system has meant that that's often 
where folks may turn, except who are we really talking about 
there? We know that Black and Brown communities don't 
necessarily call police. And that's because when we were-- when I 
was working in terms of thinking about immigrant communities, 


when folks come Sakhi, they came wanting the abuse to stop, 
totally understandable. 

They didn't necessarily come in wanting to have their partner 
deported or wanting to have their partner criminalized in some 
way. And so when we think about how do we create cultures and 
responses, we know that some survivors will want to have police 
intervention. That is a reality. And part of that reality is because 
we haven't built up other options. 

So when we look at, say, for example at the Audrey Lord project, 
their project Safe Outside the System, it's actually a community-
led effort to really be able to, again, when something is 
happening to your neighbor, when something is happening to 
your friend, how do you intervene? How do you make it possible 
to be safe outside the system? 

So in some ways, our under-funding in other modes of response 
is making it so that, again, we're reliant on criminal legal 
responses. This is particularly, for me, or something that strikes 
me, because crime in general in New York City has gone down, 
but domestic violence, intimate partner homicide is still going up. 
And so what does that mean? 

It means that often folks who are very vulnerable and dangerous 
contexts are actually never reaching out to organizations. They're 
not reaching out to criminal legal systems. They're not reaching 


out to organizations. And what we have seen, though, is 
sometimes folks have been reaching out to other government 
agencies, whether that's through NYCHA or public assistance. 

And so it also again begs of us, as Maria mentioned early on, if 
we see this as a health response, If we see this as a community 
issue, if we see this as a social issue, that means we would be 
intervening and talking about intimate violence in our religious 
communities, in our health care communities, in our friend 
communities, in our workplaces. It wouldn't just be-- right now 
what it is is the responsibility of survivors to come forward and 
heal violence being done within their ecosystem. 

So in this very hyper Western individualized context, again we're 
placing the onus of change on folks who are experiencing the 
harm. And so, yes, we need to build other alternatives. We need 
to build these systems. And also, so many organizations are 
doing incredible reconceptualizing. And I'll end just by sharing 
one more innovation-- Sasha in Detroit, which again reenvisioned 
healing from sexual violence with an Afrocentric frame-- hula 
hooping, various modalities, that again restore that connection to 
who our peoples are, who we can be in the future generation. 

Thank you, Purvi. This is Zoe again. And we are going to just 
pause for an interpreter switch. Hello, we ready? OK, great. So 
thank you all. I mean by all of the questions, all of the responses, 


we knew that this was a conversation that we all have been so 
wanting to have. 

So a couple of things. Please make sure that you register for all 
of the VOCNs and upcoming webinars, because they're all going 
to be amazing. Purvi and Marie are going to be having another 
conversation about issues like this. So please, register if you 
haven't yet, or whenever the link goes out. And also, we're 
asking so many questions. I want you all to track the questions 
that you're asking. Because some of these questions, we are not 
going to have answers to. 

Some of these questions are born out of a global pandemic that 
we've never experienced before. So remember that this is a time 
for raising questions, and pulling these things apart, and looking 
at who can you look to in your community, who can you 
collaborate with. Because we are experiencing something that 
we've never experienced before. And so, that's why we also 
wanted to wait before we had this conversation. Because we 
wanted to see where we were going to be by June. So again, this 
is a time for asking these questions. 

All right, so the question here is, I'm curious your take on the 
Black Lives Matter movement. We have a lot of victims that stand 
with the movement, while others are still frustrated that it is a 
movement that was given by people in power to still control the 
movement. So I'm not sure what you mean about given by 


people in power. Because I actually just saw a post the other day 
about when the Black Lives Matter movement was actually 
started. 

And it started after George-- Lord, I must have blocked his name 
out of my head. The man who killed Trayvon Martin. 

MARIA DEL ROSARIO FRANCO-RAHMAN: Zimmerman. 

ZOE FLOWERS: Thank you, I literally must have blocked it out or 
dissociated. So George Zimmerman was released. And there was 
a post calling for the end of it. And I'm going to find that post. 
And then another woman tagged in, and was like this ends now. 
We're tired of dying. I'm paraphrasing. And she hashtagged it 
Black Lives Matter. 

So the person who posted that Black Lives Matter, that kind of 
started this movement, was a Black woman. I don't look to her as 
being a person in power. I believe she was an advocate or maybe 
an educator. So it was not started by someone in power. Like 
many movements, people who have power may have signed on 
to it. But there are not people in power controlling the movement 
to my knowledge. 

Because I would-- it was largely started by Black women. So I 
don't know what-- Black women certainly have influence over 
certain areas. But when it comes to power, when I think about 


power, I think about people who have the power to end systemic 
racism. So I would just love more clarification on the question so 
that I can answer it fully. Purvi, I see you nodding. Do you want 
to say something? 

PURVI SHAW: Yeah, Toni Morrison said that racism is a 
distraction from us doing the work that we're meant to do. I'm 
paraphrasing. But I think questions like this can sometimes be a 
distraction from, again what is-- our goal is wholeness. Our goal 
is, again, to ensure that folks have access to resources, and that 
we can end racism and end structural violence. 

So we may disagree on how that happens. But I think 
sometimes-- like to me, the question is not does this part of the 
Black community disagree with another part of the Black 
community, because you can be Black in different ways, and you 
get that. The question to me is like, how do we end violence? And 
particularly, why is it that we so often don't talk about white male 
violence? Which leads to mass shootings, which leads to often 
police violence, which leads also to intimate violence, which leads 
to militarization. 

All of these things are connected. And so I think sometimes, not 
that these questions don't matter, but I think it's like, it's 
different to have the conversation for me as Black folks having a 
conversation with each other, than folks who are non-Black 
having this conversation. And so I would just say, to me the 


question is how do we end the structures of violence and 
communities can disagree on how that happens. 

ZOE FLOWERS: So, yes, yes, and yes. And I will say that I've 
been having this conversation, what we call kitchen table talk in 
the Black community. And my thing is whatever issues we have, 
even intra-racially, and like literally I was saying yesterday, we 
can circle back and talk about the anti Blackness in other 
cultures. We're going to get back to that. 

We're going to get back to the violence enacted by Black men 
against Black women. We're going to circle back around to that. 
But right now, we have a common enemy that we're addressing. 
And that enemy is white supremacy, patriarchy, and those things. 
And the root that comes out of that that original tree is the mass 
shootings, is domestic violence, is what people want to call Black 
on Black crime, while ignoring white on white crime. 

OK, that is the root. So we're talking about the root right now of 
these things. We're going to trust and believe, we're going to get 
back to all those other things. And so thank you so much for the 
people that said this truly feels like a way forward conversation. 

Because one of the things that our team, myself, Purvi, Maria, 
Junetta-- who you're going to meet, Junetta Jamerson when she 
does her webinar, Anikka Leonard, when she does her webinar, 
and our ally, Lori and Castelle, when they have their 


conversation, one of the things that we felt was so important, and 
one of the things that we were in alignment about is we need to 
be different coming out of these six months that feel like six 
years, that we've all gone through together. We're not going back 
to norm-- like, we must be different. And so that's why we're 
calling it The Way Forward. 

Because we have been transformed. We have watched 120,000 
of our people die. We have watched murder of a police-- on 
television, murdered of a Black man on television. We have been 
through so much. And I just said yesterday, we are still grieving 
as a country. And it is a miracle that we're still showing up to 
work every day. It's one of the things I said yesterday. And so we 
must be different coming out of this. And so at this group, we felt 
like these are the conversations we want to have so that we can 
all be different. 

There was also this question about defunding the police and 
talking about social workers going into situations. OK, this was 
another kitchen table talk that I had yesterday as well. I also 
have those concerns. We had this conversation about who's 
coming. So we also-- we all have to lift our voices and really talk 
about once we do that, once we start this defunding, we need to 
be real careful about who's coming, and not sending our social 
workers and things like that into harm's way. 


So again, these are conversations that we need to circle back 
around to. But the issue at hand is redistribution of some of these 
things. OK? There was nothing normal about what we're dealing 
with in the way we're living before. Exactly. Transformation is 
important. We must be different, because the world is different. 
Absolutely. 

How can we help the very people that are more afraid to reach 
out for help from the authorities than they are from their 
abusers? These are the questions that we are going to continue 
to ask, that we are going to continue to grapple with individually 
as people, and as our collectives. So Maria, I just wanted to turn 
it over to you to see if you had anything to say. 

MARIA DEL ROSARIO FRANCO-RAHMAN: Sure. I love that you 
talked about-- this is Maria. I love that you talked about the root 
as we were guided by the question of holistic approaches. And 
that that's what we're looking for. We're looking for what is the 
root, and how do we work to transform it. 

And something that I really love that started building from this 
conversation we were just having is also to pull back, in the 
context of systems, in the context of our shared experiences, and 
individual experiences of violence, to sit with ourselves and see 
how these systems, and how these effects may now live inside of 
us. And how we can work to transform and heal those. 


So again, Purvi, she gave so many great-- and I love that she's a 
keeper of so many of these community-based programs, and 
shared their stories and their wisdom with us about really 
working to returning towards wholeness and becoming whole 
once again. So one of the program that I had an honor and 
blessing of working with you, Zoe, on, is the Holistic Healing Arts 
Retreat that came from our work at Joyful Heart Foundation 
together. 

And it really was an opportunity. It was a five-day retreat, three 
full days, two half days, where either at any given program, 
survivors came together, or those of service to survivors, and we 
came to find out many of us who are of service we too come to 
this work because of our survivorship and all of those 
intersections. 

So really pulling back and having an opportunity to be in circle for 
five days, to be in community for five days, to be reconnected to 
the spiritual world. And when we say spiritual world, we're not 
talking about religion. When we look at holistic practices, we look 
at mind, body, spirit. And for some of us, that spirit could be a 
conduit to our creator, the great spirit, the great unknown, or 
not. It could also mean something different for those of us who 
do not believe in a higher source. 

But just that piece of us, that sort of spirit being that energy, that 
aura, that peace that we can feel from somebody else. And so 


giving folks the spaciousness to really turn inward, and giving the 
spaciousness to really have an opportunity to reconnect with their 
soul, with their divine purpose, with why are they here, what are 
their gifts that they can share with the world. 

So in the greater context of the conversation we're having, and 
looking at what are the services that we offer to survivors, to 
those of us who are on the front lines or offering different types 
of service in the movement, how can we support one another in 
having the opportunity to go within and to really have these 
opportunities to heal, to transform, to look at how we may be a 
microcosm of the macrocosm. 

And I think of the ancestor Gloria E. Anzaldúa when she says I 
change my self, I changed my world. And there's many different 
interpretations of this. A lot that I've heard come from 
particularly scholars of color, women of color scholars, queer 
scholars. So it's both. It's our work on an individual level and on a 
healing level. And what does that mean for this greater work that 
we're looking to collectively build. 

ZOE FLOWERS: Yes, thank you. Thank you so much. This is Zoe. 
And again, I just want to encourage all of us that are advocates 
to be a part of these larger conversations that are happening, to 
make sure that our voices are at the table when these decisions 
are made as much as we can. We have another question. 


Can you touch on Black immigrant leaders/organizations, and 
their alternatives to healing from violence experienced going 
through the US immigration system? So do you all know of any 
Black immigrant leaders or organizations and their alternatives to 
healing? 

I'm thinking about, actually there is an organization in Atlanta. 
The executive director's name is Doris Macuga Let me look it up 
real quick. I will put it in the chat. She works specifically with 
African immigrants. Let me look it up real quick, and I'll put that 
in the chart. Please, Purvi, Maria, if you all have any other 
resources. 

PURVI SHAW: So this is Purvi. And I see in the chat that folks 
have referenced Kemba here in New York City, also UndocuBlack. 
I think too of community-based organizations, like Sauti Yetu, 
which is based here, again, in New York City, and works with 
African communities. So there are different organizations, again 
working at a community-based level, and recognizing again that 
the history of immigration has also its own kind of trauma. 

So again, going back to a trauma informed perspective, again 
even with working with the South Asian community and 
immigrant survivors, we see that we need to think about the 
violence of intimate partner violence. But we also need to think 
about the trauma of migration, and what that can lead to, and 
whether that's increased isolation, worries around access and 


deportation, worries around visa status. So the actual microcosm 
and contexts. 

And again, for us at Sakhi, when I was there, the post 9/11 
context or survivors was also part of the trauma that they were 
working with. And one of the other traumas that is linked, again, 
to all of this, is trauma around economic access, trauma around 
even maybe having skills and certifications that aren't translated 
into an American environment. So all of those things are part of 
when we talk about the violence of immigration and immigration 
systems that are important to think about. 

And certainly, as we see with the continuing ongoing restrictions 
around asylum, part of that is also a concerted barrier for 
survivors of gender-based violence who are fleeing their home 
countries to come here. And we see, again, this link of mass 
incarceration to also immigrant detention. Detention of migrants, 
and also detention of folks who, again, are coming to escape 
violence from their home communities. 

So all of these are really crucial. I know that we're also running 
out of time. There's so many great questions around coalition 
building, working across communities. I wanted to shout out and 
say that, again, as Zoe mentioned, we're going to have more 
Vera conversations. And in my work with the Women of Color 
Network, Zoe, and Maria, and I are also going to be leading a lab 
around economic justice issues for survivors of color and 


Indigenous survivors. So I'm going to send in the chat some 
information about that for folks who may want to apply to be part 
of that. 

ZOE FLOWERS: Wonderful. Purvi, this is Zoe. Thank you so much 
for that. And Brandi, please put your question in the chat. I know 
you had your hand raised. So I want to make sure that we 
answer your question if we can. So we're at 3:21. Just checking 
the questions here. Yeah, we have a couple of minutes left. So 
Purvi and Maria, quickly, what are you excited about that you're 
seeing? Maria, I will ask you first, what are you excited about 
that you're seeing? 

MARIA DEL ROSARIO FRANCO-RAHMAN: I'm excited about 
having more conversation like this. I'm excited about dialoguing, 
and from that dialogue, more questions emerging. And for us to 
come together and build long-term solutions together. So I see, 
and I'm invigorated by everything that has transpired here this 
morning, here in Cali time-- after noon in the east coast. 

Something that I've been really excited about that I saw born out 
of the pandemic was to really look for how can we continue to lift 
up and build mutual aid for one another. And for me, growing up 
in the Latinx community, whenever one of our community 
members was in need there with a coperacha. There was all of us 
pulling our funds together to be able to support whoever needed 
that financial assistance at that moment in time. 


And it was like a community grant. And we just-- we trusted 
whoever the money went to that that would be used with their-- 
it would be used in the most effective way that that family or that 
individual thought they needed. And again, I'll reference 
FreeFrom's work during the pandemic. They had direct cash 
amounts go to survivors. And it was somewhere in the 100,000 
range that they were able to distribute these funds directly. 

So again, as we look at how has funding worked in the past, how 
have we supported survivors, and what are ways that we can 
directly support them. And once again, in retrospect, look at 
where are we 60 to 70 years into the movement, what has 
worked, what hasn't? Did somewhere along the way we de-center 
the needs of survivors as described by survivors? And how can 
we continue to bring them into the center? 

ZOE FLOWERS: Thank you. Thank you so much. This is Zoe. 
Again, Purvi, rounding us out, what are you excited about? 

PURVI SHAW: Well, first I just wanted to say-- this is Purvi. I 
wanted to thank Audrey, Christina, and Raylene and Hana, and 
Sandra, who've been interpreting and doing captions. Thank you 
for your energy and labors. And I am excited by what, Zoe, you 
mentioned, which is we're not returning to normal. 

There are, again, organizations like API, DVRP in DC area doing 
healing arts workshops, healing is not linear. And as Arundhati 


says, the pandemic is a portal. And so we are building the new 
future from this portal. And I am excited for us and all the 
suggestions in the chat that have been coming. We are part of 
this ecosystem, building a new future. 

ZOE FLOWERS: Ashay, ashay to that. I am going to turn it back 
over to Jacki. I'm excited just to keep having conversations with 
my wonderful friends. And I'm so happy that you all joined us. 
I'm excited about that. And I'm going to turn it over to Jacki. 
Thank you, all. 

JACKI CHERNICOFF: This is Jacki. Thanks so much, Zoe, and 
everyone, for creating this space for us today. And as Zoe 
mentioned, this is the first of a series of four conversations that 
she and her wonderful team are pulling together. So if you 
haven't registered already and are interested in, please do so by 
going to reachingvictims.org and registering for those feature 
sessions. 

And as we close, we just want to ask that you complete a brief 
evaluation, which will open automatically after you leave the 
session. We'd really appreciate it if you could take a few moments 
and share your thoughts and reflections, so that we can best 
continue to meet your needs. I know, there were probably a lot 
more questions than we maybe were able to answer today. So we 
will pull those questions. We will get those to Zoe. And we will be 
able to follow up with you all. And you can also connect directly 


with us at reachingvictims.org at Vera.org. And we can make sure 
that Zoe and her team get those questions and get connections to 
you all. 

So thank you, again, everyone, for sharing space with us, and 
giving us your time today. And we look forward to many more 
impactful conversations like this coming up. So thank you, and 
have a wonderful rest of your afternoon, or morning, or evening, 
again depending on where you are in the world. Be well. 

ZOE FLOWERS: Bye, everyone.