Sil Lai Abrams

Sil Lai Abrams is an award-winning writer and domestic violence awareness activist. She is a sought after speaker on gender violence, race, and depictions of women of color in the media, and has spoken at over three-hundred organizations and universities around the United States. Abrams regularly provides television commentary on gender-violence and has been profiled in numerous magazines, including The Hollywood Reporter, EBONY, Redbook, Modern Woman, and ESSENCE. The Root praised Abrams for her use of "social media to protest the narrative that Black women's realities can be defined by dysfunctional entertainment" and she has served on the Board of Directors for two of the nation's largest victim services nonprofit organizations, Safe Horizon and the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Abrams is the founder of Truth In Reality, a media advocacy organization that challenges the racially stereotypical media messaging of Black women and girls. Through digital advocacy, public awareness campaigns, and educational programs, the organization aims to change society's acceptance of relational violence and reduce gender-based violence in the Black community. In 2017, Abrams was selected as a McBride Scholar at Bryn Mawr College, where she studies sociology and political science. Abrams' books, the 2007 self-help tome No More Drama: Nine Simple Steps to Transforming a Breakdown into a Breakthrough, and 2016 memoir Black Lotus: A Woman's Search for Racial Identity received critical acclaim from numerous literary journals including Kirkus Reviews and the Library Journal. In 2012, her EBONY essay "Passing Strangely" won the National Association of Black Journalists' "Salute to Excellence Award" in the Commentary/Essay Category as part of the magazine's "Multiracial in America" package.