DISCUSSION ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Clarice:  Domestic Violence appears to be at an all time high lately and seems to be increasingly more gruesome. I know I'm preaching to the choir [again!] but please, please, mothers of young daughters, make sure your daughter knows that it's not cute and it's not flattering, and it's not a game, when some guy exhibits jealousy and possessiveness and other obsessive and controlling behavior toward her.

Rachel:  Amen! I recall a conversation that I had years ago with my youngest sister. She expressed that she was flattered that her boyfriend was jealous and always wanted to know her every move....gosh, golly, gee...that obviously meant that he LOVVVVVVVVVVVVED her!

I think that we are seeing a very high incidence of young women who are so desperate for attention that they are willing to accept (and sometimes expect) maltreatment from their men. It's so prevalent that some people aren't even upset or disturbed by it anymore.

I certainly agree that we have to teach our girls to love themselves, but I would like to go a step further. We need to teach our young men that the measure of a man is not how badly he can beat his woman. We've spent decades trying to solve male/female relationships by using a unilateral approach of putting all of the responsibility on the woman.

We've totally left the offenders out of the picture when it comes to solving what is essentially THEIR problem. Stay with me now.....when a woman is raped, folks want to ask (like they did when Mike Tyson was accused of rape) why did she go to his hotel room? I don't care if she went into his room butt naked, no one has a right to touch you without your permission.

I still can not recall hearing many people saying why did he think that he could force someone into having sex with him? It took several misdeeds for folks to finally see what type of man he really was. I won't even get into the Robin Givens mess.

Or if a woman is beaten, they want to know what did she do to provoke him? Not why does he feel he has the right to put his hands on her? It's really twisted and until we bring young men into the dialogue, nothing will ever change. That's my 2 cents.

Clarice:  You're 200% correct that our young men need to be taught some very serious and important lessons on this issue. Moreover, it is rally frightening when you realize that, for the most part, there is no one [or very few people] to teach them. Yes, mothers can do their best to teach them, but the harsh truth is that it takes a MAN [not just a male with specific body parts!] to raise a man! There are way, way too few of those around!

And, of course, once again it becomes business as usual and the major responsibility falls back to women to keep themselves safe from those predators.

My heart just bleeds for the 17 year old mother of THREE! Now everybody is on camera talking about how he acted, but meanwhile, it does not appear that ANYONE took any logical steps to try to prevent the situation. It just seems to me that an idiot who hid behind trees, followed her, constantly scoured the neighborhood [on a bicycle, no less!] until he found her, didn't want her to go to school, and threatened her with a knife, should have been shut down long before he decapitated her. Was ANYBODY paying attention or did they all mistake it for "love?!"

Rachel:  It does take a MAN to raise a son and you are right...there's no way a woman alone can adequately raise a boy to be a man. Unfortunately, there are too few men like the ones on this board so this problem won't go away anytime soon. And about that poor 17 year old....more likely than not, they probably thought it wasn't their business so they stayed out of it. Tragic!

Terrence:  Rachel, I agree with your intent, but your perspective concerns me a bit. Now let me be the first to acknowledge that we are at ends to find a remedy with domestic violence, so I can understand you’re wanting to caution your sister about some guy who is showing signs of possessiveness. However, let’s remember how flattering this was for all women years ago before the domestic violence saga took off. It meant the guy was being for real when he displayed such a genuine attachment to her. You take that out of the picture and you have her looking to guys who just take her for granted with her thinking that’s ok.

Maybe a better lesson to teach her would be to focus on how he treats other people. He may be the perfect gentleman with her but an asshole with others. Of course that may be something she views as manly, thinking she’ll always be excluded from it. Now is the time when you should be telling her it’s not ok to be with an asshole, and not after she ends up butt naked in his bedroom screaming NO! Of course she only went there because this perfect gentleman asshole who never displayed any jealousy proposed marriage to her – later on of course. I doubt Robin Givens ever gave Mike Tyson a reason to be jealous and I’m sure Mike was the perfect gentleman long enough to dispel any doubts in her mind about what was coming. However maybe if she had considered how he treated others then she could have then put 2 +2 together and (along with a lick of common sense) avoided the inevitable.

Rachel:  OK, something got twisted here...  My perspective is fine. I think you are getting confused about what I posted. My comments about my sister had nothing to do with rape. Also, it wasn’t a post that was totally about my sister. I was giving at least three different scenarios in which I attempted to make a point about a man’s possessiveness. With my sister, I was trying to explain how young women interpret a man putting them on lockdown (so to speak) as flattering…when actually it is far from it. Like I mentioned before, this was a while ago…. twenty one years to be exact…..she’s now forty. You’re speaking like I had this conversation with her last week. Perhaps, this is where the confusion began? lol

Now to respond to your comment about “how flattering this was for all women years ago before the domestic violence saga took off”. I have to take issue with you there. Firstly, you cannot speak for ALL women. I’d venture to say that you could really speak for none. You may be able to argue your point by saying SOME women, but there is no way for you to be able to declare that all women felt that way….no more than I can speak for ALL men….that would be preposterous! I would guess that if a woman did feel that way it would be because she needed to feel special or looked after until she got smart and realized that she was simply being controlled. Not ALL women are wise enough to see that at first….usually it takes years of manipulation and control for them to see through the B.S. There’s a world of difference in showing ‘genuine concern’ and “sweatin’ you”.

Also, I think you interpreted too much from one sentence that I wrote about our conversation. In fact, our talk spanned over the course of several hours therefore you cannot surmise what was said and what wasn’t. Your last paragraph is bordering on the sublime. Every time this subject comes up, I’m one of the first to say that women need to be schooled on how to recognize these vipers for what they are. Unfortunately, the smooth talkers are just that and not every woman can see through the B.S. It’s usually after experiencing a few bad apples that a woman learns how to spot them and if she passes this info along to the younger generation she’s usually accused of being a bitter man-hating bee-otch when she is simply talking about a segment of the male population. Men can similarly testify about the female counterpart…because they DO exist!

As far as Robin is concerned, I don’t recall hearing anything negative about Mike before their marriage. But then again, I’m not really into boxing….so there could have been rumors about him being a beast. But who can say for sure when a batterer becomes a batterer. I don’t believe you are born that way. I believe it is learned behavior….and someone has to be their first victim…perhaps she was. I do remember when she admitted what he had done on national television she was called everything but a child of god. Who knew after that interview that Mike would somehow become the ‘victim’? Now, that’s funny!

Unfortunately, there are no guarantees in life. You enter a relationship with hope….you try to put past demons to rest and look at your new partner for who he/she is. No one is a mind reader….the best that you can do is to get the hell out when s/he starts to act like a fool. In closing, watching how people interact and treat others isn’t a foolproof way to determine if someone is sane. Think about all the neighbors who declare that the local mass-murderer was a sweet, gentle soul. Evil isn’t always nicely packaged to mirror your usual garden variety slasher film. It’s insidious and subtle….to berate a woman because she’s as telepathic as Ms. Cleo or has the investigative skills of Inspector Clouseau is simply unfair. It may be more helpful to try to get the criminals to stop committing crimes than to put a woman down for being a survivor.

Robert:  Yes, we must raise our daughters not to be victims, but we should also raise our sons not to be perpetrators. Early childhood intervention will direct our boys to a different direction. Violence doesn't suddenly materialize in a teenager, as we all know. It is a learned behavior. Fathers need to understand the psychological messages they send their sons, with their language and with their actions. We all need to be on the same page if we are to stem the tide of domestic violence in our community.

Rosaline:  You know I agree, but it's just like when our mothers used to talk to us girls about sex and pregnancy: Yes, the boys bear some responsibility, but they ain't the ones left holding the bag, so to speak. With domestic violence, it's usually NOT the guys who end up dead or maimed. Until we see more of that happening, no one is going to seriously consider turning the tide. Very much like drugs and alcohol. You all will recall that as long as drugs were confined (for the most part) in the 'ghetto,' it was never a problem. It wasn't until drugs found their way into suburbia and the boardrooms did we declare "war on drugs," and determine that it was time to create "rehab facilities" and the like. By the same token, do you think for a minute that if the world wasn't full of old white men there would be Viagra?! I mean, folks are dying by the millions from cancer and somebody comes up with a way to...
[Somebody stop me before I hurl myself in front of a large SUV!]

Robert:  Unless the problem is confronted with our young boys, women in their future will continue to be maimed and killed. The "old white men" theory works in some cases, but domestic violence is something that we can handle in our own homes, with our own children.

Sheila:  I know this is preaching to the choir as well but where are the warriors? Even though I am at a crossroads about my girl Pearl Cleage at this moment, I am mindful of what she has said in the past about our community. I know violence is out there, but where are the warriors. For once in my life, I would like not to have to have this conversation because I know somebody's got my back. When can that be the case? The quotes below are from Cleage's latest interview in the Atlanta Tribune ....

"The problem is that the men in this community, who are good men, need to take responsibility for the behavior of the men who are not so good men. "

Gerald: And how are we suppose to do that? How can, and why should, anyone take the responsibility for the behavior for that man that killed that young girl? Or that man that shot his wife in her front yard, or for the man that was the subject in the testimonial of one of our dear sister. How? I would like to hear Pearl Cleage explain that to me. Society wants to place blame on any and everyone except where it squarely should be placed...on the perpetrator. I'm not going to be held accountable for no one's actions but my own and my responsibility does not extend to everybody who happens to share this world with me.

I'm sorry, but her comment enraged me a little.

Sheila:  I'm at a loss for words...  almost

"Or that man that shot his wife in her front yard".

Be omni-present. Be omni-present in our lives and in our communities. My grandfather was omni-present. Everyday, everyone in my neighborhood knew that down our street there were men who were omni-present. Mr. Porter, Mr. Ivory were always working in their yards. My grandfather, everyday, walked the block. After that he sat on the porch when time for neighborhood children to come home from school. If so and so's car didn't pull in their drive way at a certain time or God forbid somebody's porch light didn't come on, he would go looking. If he had to go looking, other men would meet him at the end of the drive way. Also we had keys to everyone's house and they had keys to ours. If they were to be late, he'd send one of us to turn the lights on. If one of us kids were late coming over the hill from school, half the neighborhood would come looking, and you'd better have a good reason for it.

I would like to know that today, if by chance, my path were to cross a psycho obsessive, that someone would come looking for me. I would like to know that there is no chance that someone could hide behind the trees in my neighborhood. I would like to know, that if a day would come that I don't make it home to my children, that there is someone out there who cares enough to notice.

If there are men who are not willing to take on that responsibility, then I hope

Terrence:  I'll have to side with Glenn a bit on this one.
I'll start with the women. It seems that even when women admit they are tired and trying to make ends meet that they ignore the main repercussions behind what drives them to even entertain the profile of the hustlers, bad boys and Mr. Excitement types that get them into these situations to begin with. No one seems to focus on the tendency of these women to walk out of one bad relationship just to end up with more bad company. They often seem to think that if a guy has a reputation where, "Oh, ain't nobody gonna mess with him" or "He drives a this and he drives a that" then he's going to be a good provider or protector and that the women in question will always be excluded from their wrath. It's moral insanity on the part of these women and these guys take full advantage of it. Address that!!!!

Now for the men. Like I said, I side with Glenn to a point. One thing that gets lost in looking at child-raising is the concept of individualism. It's like we think all kids are born the same until they learn something from somebody else and then take off with it. I contend that's a bunch of crap!!! Kids are born with different temperaments from the start and what they do with the information they receive is always going to be different from one child to another. We as parents are too often ready to take all the responsibility when a child comes out right but then we put our hands in our face and our thumbs up our *ss when they don't. We just don't show enough open appreciation for kids making that decision to do the right thing despite whatever is going down around them. We need more Robert types to perpetuate this in more areas.

Now don't get me wrong, we need to give direction and support to our kids more now than ever. If we don't somebody else will. We've rallied against prayer in school and yet we allow sex and violence to dominate TV. We sit there with wine in hand and tell our kids not to do drugs. We condemn parents who spank but put under-aged kids in jail. i just can't figure out what the mental block is, when some of us are confused by a kid who doesn't learn about consequences until he's 21. Not all kids have it in them to need a strong introduction to this and it's more about their personal moral make up than it is those vain individuals trying to pass themselves up as super parents. It's not a pretty perspective but lets keep it real folks. It hard for a lion to change the stripes he's born with. Nothing to do with somebody giving them to him.

All that said, I don't think looking at the child raising solution is appropriate given the assumption that we're trying to stop trouble before it starts. I think it's good to look at behavioral patterns and try to curb them or find an alternative release for them but it really is no small order and it's a commitment by specific parents of specific children to take on and that's where the focus and support should be. You can't build a bully, a rapist or a criminal out of an otherwise normal child. Only extreme circumstances can evoke what may be perceived as criminal such and stealing for food or retaliation from being abused can drive a normal child there. Looking at these extremes of personality alterations would give us a better perspective on what's needed to put into such a grand endeavor as turning a child around for the better. I can tell you that yelling from the podium ain’t gonna get it. Everybody's tired. Most of those who aren't, only put up where it's convenient. It's one thing to criticize and say what needs to be done, but it's all quite another to look at it square in the face and see it for what it is and still be willing to participate in yours as well as anyone else's responsibility, having realized what a truly tall order it really is. It matters not that you’ve raised 10 successful kids. Only the man or woman who has successfully turned at least one child around (boy, girl, man or woman) has the answer.
 

Rachel:  This may sound like I'm male-bashing, but judging from the little that I see....it appears that there aren't enough men to step up to the plate. I see so many TIRED sisters just trying to make ends meet and raise their families while the fathers are out in the street making more babies and ignoring them.

Of course, the easy answer is to tell the women that they should be more selective about who fathers their children (which I absolutely agree with!)....but there needs to be a deep dialogue between the men....and other MEN about how their behavior is negatively affecting the future of our people.

Things were never this bad when I was growing up....most men took care of their children...it wasn't nirvana...but it was a rare occurrence for a FATHER to be referred to as a "Baby Daddy" or "Sperm Donor". I don't think the same thing can be said for today. When a father is absent, the result can be found in the prison system, on the street corner and in the graveyard.

A Personal Story

Sonia: It's also about the signs... the indicators of that insidious disease, battered womens' syndrome. Lemme see... it wasn't a big deal when he wanted to know my every move. Kind of amusing, actually. I could handle it. No problem. Even joked about it w/ a couple of friends. OK, then he cut the telephone cords when someone called me. That wasn't amusing, but no need to panic. Saw someone else for dinner, we'd broken up by then, but still no grave matter when I got home and he was waiting in the parking lot. It became a little more serious when he bashed my head against my front door and took my keys, but still didn't tell anybody.

Later, after the rape and beating (not in that order), finally got the message and called the police -- after I hid his .357 when he fell asleep. Of course, when the police arrived, I just wanted to be left alone. No charges pressed, they couldn't determine that I was bruised (I'm not white, bruises don't show up that easily), no harm, no foul. Oh yeah -- begged me to get back together. Syndrome says 'hey -- you can still handle this, you're an enabler, a fixer, it'll be alright. Go ahead. YOU CAN FIX THIS.' "Fixing" now involves getting beaten regularly, having granted prior permission.

Now trying to hide total devastation from everyone. Got mad at my friend who figured out enough to call my mom and alert her that something was wrong. Didn't really wake up until I was almost dead the night of the Big Three -- kidnapping, beating and rape. OK, OK, OK -- realized I'm dealing with a complete madman. Can't fix this. But this is TOO humiliating. Who's gonna believe this? Doesn't matter, 'cause now he's stalking me. Talked to my pastor, who was his pastor (met him in church, y'know). Pastor says OK, just get an attorney and NEGOTIATE -- that way you won't damage his career.

Actually, that "pastor" saved my life. I left his office, went to the parking lot and turned out onto Memorial Drive -- and didn't stop until I got to the police station to file a report and swear out a warrant. We take our positive and negative motivation where we can get it.

Oh -- about the court thing. Knew it wouldn't be easy, but now a little courageous. Rape trial? Someone I dated who's by now violated the restraining order? No thanks. Let's stick with the misdemeanors. Now the DA is on my back, like he knows what it'll be like to be a defendant as much as this scumbag (growing a little stronger, now in therapy -- yep, he's a SCUMBAG!). A year and two prosecutors later, jury convicts him on all four counts, no jail time -- but I'm happy, 'cause if he went to jail it'd be for only enough time for me to fear for my life once he got out. Whew!

Battered women have to be worked with and worked on. They're silent. They don't like attention drawn to them. That makes them easy prey. They're co-dependent enablers who think they're so deficient no one else will have them. They put on a good front. They're good liars, and you can't call them crazy. Heck, they already know they're crazy. For the ones who manage to survive, it's almost an accident, but you can be sure that unless help is coming, they'll return to a relationship in which battering or emotional abuse will occur. (Or they'll let their CHILDREN emotionally abuse them...) And if they don't return to a batterer, they'll settle for the emotional abuse, 'cause after all "at least he doesn't hit me".

In the world of predators we live in, we've got to ratchet up the education of our young women as much as we need to look for signs in our young men. That way, looking for signs of BWS in women won't be such a cat-and-mouse game.