Today we’d like to introduce you to Queen Afi.
Hi Queen, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
When I was in high school, I lost the only person who ever meant anything to me, DuButt, aka LaShawndia Humphreys, my best friend.
It was at night, and I was in bed sleeping when a neighbor (we always kept our door open in the summer) came running through our door, yelling Rev. Mr. Gaston, my dad is a pastor. My father, being the good person that he is, didn’t want me to know what had happened, but I heard everything while standing at the top of my stairs, and I fainted. When I came to my father, he said, Are you okay, and I said, No, Du Butt is dead. He killed her.
She told me that he said he would kill her. I stormed out of my home on a long journey to figure out how I was going to kill her baby daddy for taking my sister away, and then I thought about killing myself, but either way, I spent all night crying on a cement rock at a playground, and it was at that moment that I vowed that a man would not kill me.
As time passed, I got older and became abusive. I built a wall and told myself no man would ever do what they did to Dubutt to me; as time passed, I would drink and get violent, and then into a fight. It was five years later, and I realized DuButt was not coming back. Over time, every relationship I was in was abusive. It was either me smacking, pushing, and kicking, or it was a man doing me that way.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I created more confusion at 17 years old and being beaten by my so-called boyfriend; my (my son’s father and I were 26 years old) boyfriend cheated on me, and I took his gun and pointed it in his face, and I said, I will kill you if you ever think about cheating on me again. How crazy was it that he could be dead and me locked up?
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
“The School for Domestic Violence”. In 2008, she founded the Domestic Violence Wears Many Tags (DVWMT) organization. DVWMT is a local non-profit serving as a concerted educational and resource center for helpless victims and abusers of domestic violence. DVWMT is on the personal mission of reversing the familiar cycle and teaching proactive methods of effective prevention.
QueenAfi spends her time educating against domestic violence not only victims but also abusers, both men and women and teens. Her life experience has given her the courage and strength to tell her story and how she has changed her life around and started helping others become educated on DVWMT perspectives and how to avoid becoming the victim and/or abuser.
Amid the work she’s been doing the past eight years in our communities, on July 30, 2016, QueenAfi lost her only daughter, “Smiley,” to the strongholds of domestic violence and gun violence. The resilience QueenAfi has is unmatched because she’s still having the dinner table conversation on domestic violence and the many tags it wears (verbal, emotional, sexual, financial, and physical), including mental health.
Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
QueenAfi willingly invests countless hours in properly investigating the most optimal strategies to graciously assist prospective clients with peaceful, solution-focused, and innovative ideas.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://dvwmtsorg.godaddysites.com
- Instagram: @_ViolWearManyTag
- Facebook: @DVWMT96
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DVWMT96
