A story from a white liberal woke woman, told by dr. Gad Saad

 More details about the same story

The narrative described refers to human rights activist Amanda Kijera, who published an essay detailing her experience following the devastating 2010 Haiti earthquake.

The Context of Her Journey

Amanda Kijera, an American human rights worker, traveled to Haiti shortly after the January 2010 earthquake. She went with the intention of doing aid work and actively sought to challenge and disprove international media reports claiming that Haitian men were systematically brutalizing and raping women in the displaced persons camps. She believed these reports were being exaggerated or weaponized by mainstream outlets to unfairly demonize Black men.

The Incident

While in Haiti, Kijera was cornered on a rooftop and brutally gang-raped by a group of men, including individuals she had been advocating for and assisting.

Her Response and "White Privilege"

Following the attack, Kijera wrote a widely discussed editorial titled “We are not your weapons – we are women,” published in April 2010. In the essay, she did not excuse the rape itself, but she contextualized the actions of her attackers through the lens of global racial hierarchies, colonialism, and white privilege.

Key arguments and points she made included:

Validating Global Anger: Kijera wrote that Black men have a legitimate right to feel rage regarding their historically oppressed position in the global white-dominated socioeconomic hierarchy.

Misdirected Rage: She argued that while their anger against systemic oppression and colonialism is justified, it is deeply misdirected when it manifests as sexual violence against women.

The Burden on Women of Color: She highlighted that women, particularly women of color, are ultimately forced to bear the brunt of the trauma and rage experienced by disenfranchised men.

Continued Solidarity: Despite the trauma, Kijera explicitly stated that she still viewed Haitian men as her "brothers" and refused to let her assault be used to validate racist stereotypes against Haitian people as a whole.

Aftermath and Debate

Kijera's essay sparked intense online and academic debate. Critics argued that her application of complex sociological theories (like post-colonial trauma and white privilege) served to minimize the personal accountability of the rapists. Conversely, supporters and intersectional feminists praised her for refusing to allow her personal tragedy to be co-opted into broader anti-Haitian or racist narratives, while still explicitly demanding that men stop using women's bodies as battlegrounds for their societal grievances.