HEALING HER HURT: Detroit native Robin Stone's new book breaks the silence about sexual assault within black families
Detroit Free Press
By Cassandra Spratling
Free Press Staff Writer
May 4, 2004
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It appeared that Robin Stone had it all together. There she was in her 30s with all the ingredients that equal success: a top editing job at Essence, the nation's leading magazine for African-American women; a loving relationship with her husband, an adorable baby boy.
Outside, she was just fine.
But inside, something hurt and had been hurting for a long, long time. The reasons began to spill out at an Essence staff retreat.
Stone had been sexually abused by an uncle when she was a child.
She had carried the secret like an invisible but heavy
bag of pain that blocked her joy and stunted her sense of worthiness.
After the retreat, Stone took action to trash the bag. She sought counseling, did some research and wrote an article that appeared in Essence in 2001.
The response was overwhelming.
"Normally Essence gets about 50 letters or e-mails in response to an article," Stone recalls. "I got about 500. I was inundated with letters, phone calls and e-mails from people around the country, around the world actually. There are so many people living with these painful experiences and not dealing with them."
Many of the readers told Stone about their own assaults. Implicit, or sometimes clearly stated, were thanks for letting them know they were not alone.
Stone thought she was alone when she started looking for resources that would help her."I didn't find any information that spoke to me as an African-American woman," she says. The dearth of resources Stone found and the tremendous response to her Essence article prompted her to write a book that addresses sexual assault within African-American families. Many of the stories in the book came from readers. Others came from people she already knew or whom she met during research.