Is God Is Showcases the Effects of Patriarchy on Black Women Survivors
In an effort to understand Black women’s relationship to violence, and to understand the functions of racialized gender-based violence, it is important to engage in scholarship created in our voices—by us, for us. A recent release I deem vital in fostering this understanding is Is God Is (2026, dir. Aleasha Harris). Is God Is is a timely piece which uses dark comedy, horror, and African American southern aesthetics to critique and examine the functions of patriarchy in the lives of African-American women (and Black women more broadly).
Aleasha Harris’ pen is not to be tampered with! Her recent film, Is God Is, is both brilliantly told and quite timely, considering the uptick in domestic violence faced by Black women recently.
Harris paints a portrait of a family scarred—literally and physically—by a violent abuser. This abuser just so happens to be the patriarch of the family, and his portrayal by Sterling K. Brown left my skin crawling. In the film, twins Racine and Anaia (Kara Young and Mallori Johnson, respectively) are given a command by their mother—or in their eyes, God. Their mother (played by the legendary Vivica A. Fox), tells the twins to “make they daddy dead.”
Harris does a great job of humanizing the girls in this moment, portraying them as conflicted, and maybe even troubled. Though they don’t see themselves as killers, they are left with no other choice but to get Daddy’s head after seeing just how horrible their mother’s scars are.
The problem (or one of them) is patriarchy…
The film argues that being man-centered, or rooted in patriarchy, is a dangerous territory to be in. The first person we meet on the girls’ quest is Pastor Divine (Erika Alexander), another survivor of their father’s abuse. Inside her home—which doubles as a storefront church for the most devout of Christian believers—she sways the crowd with just a flail of her handkerchief. However, after realizing Racine and Anaia’s goal, her powerful facade crumbles. Pastor Divine exclaims her desire for “him” (their father, the abuser) to return.
Despite the abandonment, Pastor Divine still yearns for his attention. This is a common occurrence within communities of survivors. Explaining this cycle in a journal on violence against women, Holly Bell writes that a woman involved in a domestic violence experience “faces increasing threats by the [abuser] to kill her, her children, or any family or friends who assist her. Contrary to popular belief, leaving may actually increase violence” (Bell, 2003, p. 1245). So, at this moment in the film, viewers are encouraged to critically engage with Pastor Divine by asking ourselves: Why?
In a 2025 article written in the Journal of Family Violence, researchers consider the decision to leave an abusive relationship “a complex, often prolonged process shaped by a variety of factors, such as financial dependency, the presence of children, and…the availability of support systems.” (Mayeux et al. 2025, 2). For women of color and immigrant women, these barriers are often intensified. Many times, survivors are afraid of leaving—or even telling someone about what they’re going through—because they don't want to be shamed in their community or family unit. In 2023, researchers set out to explore barriers to help-seeking for women of color and immigrant women. They concluded that women within strong cultural and religious communities are “often fearful of the consequences of leaving their abusive relationship, concerned about the shame and humiliation this would bring to themselves and their family” (Hulley et. al. 2023. 5).
Pastor Divine does not see the impact this man has had on her, or the lives he has endangered with his reckless behavior. We leave her house with her screaming out for him to return. She has succumbed to the notion that every woman “needs” a man. Furthermore, she’s indebted to the trope that behind every “good Black man” is an even better/stronger Black woman.
How does class show up for Black women survivors?
This type of male-centering is also introduced to viewers by way of Angie (Janelle Monae), the father’s new wife. Angie is demure. Her house is fabulous, like something out of Architectural Digest (they clearly have MONEY). To the naked eye, her life is perfect. But, behind the veil of wealth and luxury, we see she’s been harmed as well. We’re introduced to her character as she’s making a run for it while her husband is away. We might think this shared survivorship would make her sympathetic to the twins and their mother. However, she later says to the twins that it wasn’t her fault their “ghetto trash mama got burnt” (Is God Is, 2025). To top it all off, she spits directly in Racine's face! Here, we see class and class difference being used as a tool to draw division within and amongst communities of Black women.
A Rachel Camp details how class functions as a tool of domestic violence and systems of violence more broadly, writing, “Rather than attribute blame for their economic insecurity to the structural sources of racism that perpetuate it, society pathologizes Black women, attributing blame for their economic insecurity to identity-based flaws” (Camp, 2022. p. 110). At this point in the film, viewers are encouraged to grapple with the multiple truths of Angie. Yes, at this moment, she is a nasty, classist woman who also could be labeled a “pick-me.” And also, she is just one of the many factors in a greater equation of systemic violence against women. More specifically, she is embodying tactical patriarchal femininity, what Danielle Procope Bell defines as “a performance used to attract the financial provision of an economically stable Black man” (Procope Bell, 2023).
In reflecting on domestic violence against Black women, my mind cannot help but think of Nancy Metayer-Bowen, the first Black and Haitian American woman member of the Coral Springs City Commission. Nancy, who I had the pleasure of being in community with during an internship in undergrad, was tragically slain by her husband in April 2026. According to the affidavit, when asked why he did it, he expressed he “just couldn’t take it anymore.” Women who hold similar positions to Nancy—who are deemed a “go-getter,” a “rising star,” and who have proximity to elite spaces such as higher education/academia and politics—often get grouped into a container of Black excellence.
This unrequested status of Black excellence within the community can make us more susceptible to violence by the men we often share space with. Abusers often get intimidated, feel powerless, and attempt to exert excessive power over the women they’re partnered with in an effort to regain control. Because how dare this woman have more power, more money, more success, more intellect than me?! Viewers see this perspective play out onscreen when the twins finally come face-to-face to fight their father. After being taken down, and beaten nearly to death, he still manages to stumble to his feet and enact harm on the sisters. Despite not being the next boys in the bloodline, they are the ones who embody leadership and militance. He recognizes their grit, skill, and urgency. How dare they fight back?!
Simply put by Shondrah Tarrezz Nash, “Some [Black women] attribute [intimate partner violence] to anger resulting from Black men's struggle to assume and maintain the roles expected of males in this country…” (Nash 2005, p. 1422). Black women navigate the nuanced placement of womanhood and Blackness, often engaging with the effects of systemic discrimination. Because of this, Black women survivors often feel conflicted about disclosing their experiences with abuse to anyone. Due to a history of being expected to “repair the damage dealt to the Black family through economic and racial adversity,” it is common for Black women survivors to experience shame or guilt for saying anything about their abusers, especially if he’s a Black man (Nash 2005, 1422). This shame acts as a direct barrier to leaving and staying away.
Because shame is not a simple feeling like happiness, sadness or anger, it is often harder to identify. The UC Irvine Law Review labels shame as a “self-conscious emotion”, meaning it is “shaped almost entirely by cultural/social norms, expectations, and our own (culturally shaped) value system” (Camp, 2022). With the shame comes the feeling of responsibility on the survivor’s part. If they leave or speak out, they will be blamed for trying to “bring a good man down.”
It's time to meet Black women survivors with more urgency!
The story of Metayer-Bowen is just one of many of the recent uptick in domestic violence against Black women. On Friday, November 14, 2025, GirlLala, a 21 year-old Black trans woman was murdered by her boyfriend after a dispute during a car ride (captured on Tiktok live) in Lauderdale Lakes, Florida. Video shows her then boyfriend taunting, hitting, and threatening her before eventually shooting her. As a hairstylist and influencer with over 290,000 followers on TikTok, GirlLala often captured this type of behavior on live stream, but the situations were often mocked, minimized, or totally overlooked altogether.
Ignoring violence against Black women is steeped in a culture of transmisogynoir and white supremacy. As detailed by Ashlee Marie Preston, violence experienced by Black transgender women is often overlooked because mainstream society does not “always take into consideration that racism, sexism, and transphobia are just as pervasive in the LGBTQ community as anywhere else” (Preston, 2020). This idea and the rhetoric around it then “serves as justification for the deprioritization of Black trans lives while classifying our fight for liberation as a distraction from [everyone else’s]” (Preston, 2020). In GirlLala’s case, her Blackness and womanhood made her susceptible to violence. Her transness heightened the risks of said violence because of systemic discrimination, misinformation and harmful cultural norms and gender constructs.
Is God Is paints a picture that survivors from different walks of life within the Black community can see themselves in. In these aforementioned real-life occurrences, both women were targets of abuse by men who they were very familiar with. These were not strangers. These men made deliberate choices, based on their own unflinching desire for total control and power, to end the lives of their partners. Popular culture upholds, protects and defends predators and abusers, yet demeans and demoralizes Black women and girls for expressing ourselves and advocating for ourselves. The film Is God Is reminds us of our current state.
Let Aleasha Harris tell it: we are in a state of emergency.
Meet the Author
Mercedes Loving-Manley
Mercedes is an artist and community curator born and raised in Dorchester, MA. The stories she creates are worlds of reimagined urgency and possibilities for Black people, especially Black trans folks. Her documentary film 'The World and Then Some’ highlights the experiences of Black LGBTQ+ folks from her hometown. Her favorite genre of film: documentary with music videos coming in a close 2nd place.