Molestation, Incest and Rape in African American Families

periphery. This is not a comprehensive examination of the serious subsequent
psychopathologies that occur during and after incest, molestation and rape. This paper
focuses primarily on the topic as it impacts the African American collective; therefore, the
mention of non-Black groups will be for the sole purpose of juxtaposed comparisons. This
paper endeavors to respond to the inquiry into the prevalence and impact of incest,
molestation and rape in African American families, the behavior that facilitates it, and the
proper response.
Introduction
A substantial portion of the nearly 50,000 hours of research that I have conducted over the last
20 years has been focused on three primary areas in which the African American collective
continues to struggle — education, mental illness and trauma (Wallace, 2015; Wallace, 2016;
Wallace, 2016; Wallace, 2016). When it comes to the complex dynamic of trauma, not only in
the distinct ways that it is experienced by African Americans, but in the numerous ways in which
trauma can be transmitted intergenerationally (Kahane-Nissenbaum, 2011; Kolk B. A., 2001;
Kolk B. V., 2014; DeGruy, 2005; Akbar, 1976), it is imperative to gain a lucid perspicacity of
how the trauma impacts all of those involved.
While there are multitudinous ways through which a person can be traumatized, without
question, one of the most prevalent and devastating forms of trauma is physical abuse, and of all
forms of physical abuse, those of a sexual nature are most nefarious, especially when the trauma
is experienced at the hands of a person who the victim should be able to trust to protect them
from that very type of behavior.
When I began counseling individuals, couples and families, years ago, I became overwhelmed by
the number of people who eventually admitted to being sexually abused, in some way, as a child.
This was especially true when it came to female clients. While psychology and psychiatry
textbooks are more accurate in their reflection of sexual abuse of minors in contemporary
literature, this has not always been the case. During this initial epiphany, the textbooks were still
minimizing the prevalence of child sex abuse. To be fair, it was not all a part of a nefarious and
sinister plan to cover up child molestation; it was more of a combination of the failure of victims
and their families to report the abuse. Minors depend on their parents and other adults, who are
close to them, to be their advocates — speaking up for and defending them in situations in which
they are unable to defend themselves. Unfortunately, many times, the person that should be their
greatest advocate is actually the person who is violating them. The underreporting of the abuse
led to a lack of urgency in confronting the issue on a grand scale. Actually, in many cases, the
family spent more energy and effort protecting and defending the perpetrator than they did the
victim.
During the early 1980s, the widely accepted view on incest, despite being immensely pestiferous
in its assertion of mitigated impact, declared that there was no conclusive empirical data to
support the theory that father-daughter incest was capable of producing serious subsequent
psychopathology (Kolk B. V., 2014).