The estate of Henrietta Lacks sued a biotechnology company on Monday, accusing it of selling cells that doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital took from the Black woman in 1951 without her knowledge or consent as part of “a racially unjust medical system.“
For years, decades even, allegations swirled that R&B superstar R. Kelly was abusing young women and girls, with seeming impunity.
They were mostly young Black women. And Black girls.
It’s been more than three years since the (hash)MeToo movement launched a culture-shifting conversation about sexual violence. But Tarana Burke, the activist who gave the movement its name, says concrete change has been incremental at best _ and especially for Black survivors.
Violence against women and girls, one of the most widespread, persistent and devastating human rights violations in our world today, remains largely unreported due to the impunity, silence, stigma and shame surrounding it, says the U.N. on its webpage “end violence day.” The reality of domestic violence is a plague that affects millions of women, often trapped in a toxic environment they cannot escape.