“Show me where it hurts, God said, and every cell in my body burst into tears before His tender eyes.”
Rabia – Eighth-century Islamic saint and poet*
When I read these words I thought of two women: Precious, from the movie of the same name and a former student whose funeral I had attended earlier that day. One was black, one was white. One still lived, one was dead at twenty-nine. Both were sexually abused and led lives overwhelmed with challenges and battles that for one, proved insurmountable.
I watched the movie with a friend I had met while working with young women, all victims of abuse of one type or another. For many of them, abuse began with sexual molestation as young children. As we walked out of the screening room, I became aware of the color not only of those of us leaving, but also of the line of people waiting for the next showing.
“Where are the WHITE people?” I asked. I have been seeing movies at this art theater for years and had never seen such lack of diversity. Does the general public think “Precious” is a movie for a “black” audience? I hope not. “Must be a fluke,” I thought to myself.
Maybe not, I thought after I spoke to a young friend a week later. She had seen the movie at a large, multi-screen complex in the middle of an upscale shopping center. After talking for a while about the importance of the film and how moving it was, I ventured to ask the same question: “I don’t want to sound racist, but I am wondering about the people in the theater. Was it a diverse crowd?”
“No, not at all. First, it was smaller than I thought. And almost everyone there was African American.”
Another fluke? I hope so. The themes dealt with in “Precious” transcend race, economic status, and nationality. Being poor and Black complicates things in our society, but the reality of abuse knows no boundaries, and sadly, no one culture seems any better at dealing with it than another.
“In Black culture people sweep things like this under the rug,” my young friend said. “Everybody wants to keep it a secret, and more and more people get hurt.”
“All cultures sweep abuse under the rug,” I replied. “Look at the Catholic Church; it did just that for years. Why? To protect the institution, the status quo? And the Church isn’t alone. In some sick way, no one wants to look at and admit the scope of abuse or deal with its consequences.”
That thought was reinforced when I read a newspaper article the following day about the lack of funding for women’s shelters. Many abused women and their children are turned away, forced to return to lives increasingly scarred by domestic violence. In the coming year, more shelters will close, endangering hundreds of others.
We have to ask hard questions: Why is there insufficient funding to protect the most vulnerable among us? Why do we assign this problem to a particular race, faith, or nationality (usually not our own) when it exists everywhere? Why are we willing to avert our eyes rather than confront the truth?
“Precious” forces us to see a broken society and inadequacies of services for those in desperate need. The movie reveals the importance of good teachers in seemingly impossible situations. It makes us squirm when stereotypical reactions to obesity are challenged. It teaches us to look beyond surface realities to causes. It allows us to know a real human being that most of us would be happy to pass on the street and never see again. Precious reveals our common humanity and the dignity of those we are tempted to “write off” as a drain on society.
Every person has truths to teach, especially people from whom we expect little or nothing. Through all the pain, injustice, and suffering, Precious shows us courage, tenacity, and amazingly, hope, whose name is Love.
© 2009 Mary van Balen
* From Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West. trans. Daniel Ladinsky. New York: Penguin, 2002. p 2.
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