We Should Still Believe Black Women [Op-Ed]

Source: Jacob Wackerhausen / Getty

The woman accusing Jay-Z of rape reveals an uncomfortable reality about how we perceive women’s stories of sexual assault.

NBC News recently released an exclusive interview with the woman who claims that rapper Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter along with Sean “Diddy” Combs raped her when she was just 13 years old at a party over 20 years ago. During the interview where she chose to remain anonymous, the woman, now a 38-year-old mother living in Alabama, claims that she attended the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards in New York City and was invited by Diddy’s limo driver back to a large white house where she was allegedly repeatedly raped by Diddy and Jay-Z while a female celebrity watched.

Jay-Z and his attorneys have repeatedly denied these allegations and have petitioned the court to have the lawsuit dismissed. NBC’s own reporting points out several inconsistencies in the accuser’s recollection of the events that allegedly took place. Still, the woman stands by her story, telling NBC News: “I have made some mistakes. Honestly, what is the clearest is what happened to me.”

Jay-Z Source: Timothy Nwachukwu / Getty

I admit, I can see how some people may find her story hard to believe. Unfortunately and perhaps more gravely, I can also predict how people will use this shaky allegation as a reason not to believe any other victims of sexual violence or any accuser who may come forward as hip-hop faces a reckoning for decades of exploitation and sexual violence within the industry.

Time and time again, when a powerful man is accused of assault or sexual violence, outcries of “golddigging” women lying and trying to “keep the Black man down” are soon to follow, even if their alleged victims are also members of the Black community. These women are called everything from slutty to stupid, they’re made to blame for their own sexual assault, or they just aren’t believed at all. We saw this after the arrests of Bill Cosby and R. Kelly and also as allegations against Diddy began to pour in last year. 

When Cassie Ventura first filed a civil suit against Diddy in 2023, alleging he physically and sexually abused her, there were figures in hip-hop who boldly and loudly called her a liar who was looking for a paycheck. However, when surveillance video emerged from a hotel showing Diddy violently assaulting Cassie in 2016, those same dissenters had to walk back their words. Diddy is currently behind bars at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center awaiting his criminal trial for sex trafficking, racketeering, kidnapping, sexual coercion charges and much more. Allegations against the mogul continue to roll in as his May 2025 trial approaches.

Crystal Magnum. Source: CNN screenshot

To be clear, false accusations, while rare, do happen. Crystal Mangum, a former stripper based in North Carolina who’s currently serving a prison sentence for fatally stabbing her boyfriend, recently recanted accusations she made that she was raped by three Duke University lacrosse players in 2006, admitting to the press that she made the whole story up. False reporting and wrongful convictions happen frequently against Black men, who are stereotyped to be brutish criminals but end up being themselves victims of a racially biased justice system. As a result, they have to deal with serious emotional, mental, and financial repercussions after their lives are upended.

Phony accusations and false reporting also have severe negative repercussions for actual victims of sexual violence. It creates doubt in the public’s minds and makes it easier for us to dismiss the stories of any other accusers and survivors who may follow. 

And that doubt can have dangerous consequences. 

As Diddy’s trial approaches, there are likely to be more people who come forward with allegations against the producer, his entourage, or other big names in the music industry. As the trial unfolds, verdicts may be passed down, civil suits may be settled or dismissed, or charges may be dropped entirely. We, the watching and waiting public, may never know all the details of what really happened or if anything happened at all. We may never know the truth and our idea of the truth is already subject to our personal opinions, fandoms, and biases. When the smoke clears, many of us may still not know who or what to believe. 

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Cassie and Diddy “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion & the Catholic Imagination.” the 2018 Costume Institute Benefit at Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 7, 2018 in New York City. Source: Taylor Hill / Getty

But no matter what happens in Diddy’s trial, Jay-Z’s case, or future claims against hip-hop’s biggest names, some things are absolutely true, that you absolutely must believe:

Someone is sexually assaulted in the country every 68 seconds. One in every six American women will be the victim of rape or attempted rape in their lifetime and Black women are disproportionately the victims of such violence and sexual assault. Over 40 percent of Black women have experienced some form of sexual coercion or unwanted sexual contact in their lifetime. Twenty-nine percent of Black women will experience intimate partner violence in their lifetime; that includes rape, physical assault, stalking, and much more. Black women are more likely than white women to experience this type of domestic violence. One in five Black women are survivors of rape and one in four Black girls will be sexually abused before they turn 18. 

Despite all the abuse Black women endure, most assaults against Black women go severely underreported. For every one woman who reports her assault to authorities, 15 other survivors choose to stay silent. This is because the shame, threats, racism, and outright disbelief lobbied against Black women force them into the shadows of regret, depression, self-blame and silence. And report rates are even lower for Black men who are victims of sexual violence for the same reason.

Source: MementoJpeg / Getty

That is the danger doubt poses to victims of violence. Every victim isn’t infallible, and every person accused isn’t a cartoon villain. But I don’t want the discourse surrounding the upcoming trial against Diddy nor the unfolding accusations against Jay-Z and other musicians, or even the false claims from Crystal Mangum to be the reason one more Black victim–woman, man, or nonbinary–suffers in silence. Suspicious or even made-up accusations about celebrity sexual assault shouldn’t distract us from the very real threat of sexual violence out there.

I still believe there are survivors whose stories deserve to be heard. A dropped charge or settled lawsuit, a dubious story, or even an outright lie doesn’t stop me from knowing that Black women all over this country and all over the world are silently surviving real sexual violence every day. And that violence won’t ever stop if we keep finding reasons or making excuses to ignore their cries for help.

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