Did you read the report out last week about a Brother that decided to shoot his pregnant girlfriend in the stomach with a sawed off shot gun? Or perhaps you missed the report out of St Louis about another man who not only killed his live in girlfriend, but shot her three kids execution-style?
Today is October 1st. a National Day of Unity as part of National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. If you are an African American woman, you should be AWARE of the fact that Black women are three times as likely to be the victim of domestic violence than our non-Black counterparts. But don't hold your breath waiting for our leading social or civic organizations to hold and vigils, public forums, or community outreach events.
Last week as we were awaiting word on the fate of Nailah Franklin, a mini discussion about domestic violence popped off in the comments section of a post about the case. and over at Concrete Loop and Bossip.
Dj Black Adam, a brave brother that frequently weighs into the fray at WAOD, and holds his own I might add, weighed in. Other than the typical "He's a psycho"/ "She's a psycho"/"Black women always fall for the abusers" discussion that we typically fall into, as the Black community has once again lapsed into in the aftermath of the Bynum-Weeks throw down in A-town, we don't tend to dwell too long on Domestic Violence in the African American community. We like the sound bytes. They're sexy and trite and they don't really force us to acknowledge that Black women are murdered by the men in their lives at a rate THREE times that of other groups of women
Where the relationship could be determined, more than 90 percent of black females killed by males in single victim/single offender incidents knew their killers . Nearly 12 times as many black females were murdered by a male they knew than were killed by male strangers in single victim/single offender incidents in 2005. Of black victims who knew their offenders, 60 percent were wives, common-law wives, ex-wives, or girlfriends of the offenders. Ninety-four percent of the homicides of black women where the race of the male offender was known were intra-racial. SOURCE
And did you know that there are actually factors that assess the "lethality" of your relationship? Peruse these factors for a moment, if you check off any of the factors, you have some thinking to do.
Typically when a discussion about DV pops up here on WAOD, we engage in a series of monologues about how bad it is. People tell their own personal stories of being victimized or people chime in about what they wouldn't take from anyone. Then someone chimes in about the culture of violence and misogyny and then a man will pop in with the typical "women are attracted to thugs"( as if "thugs" are the only ones who are beating and killing their partners). Then, as in th case with Juanita Bynum, we start trying to figure out what the victim did to provoke the attack trying to see if there was a "he was provoked" defense available and then we move on to the next story until we hear about another high profile DV case and we repeat the cycle.
Quite frankly after the last few weeks, I really don't feel like the usual. So I, being "different," have decided that we have more than enough women bloggers holding it down for DV Awareness Month so I want to hear from Black men on the subject. So our Guest Contributors for DV Awareness Month will be Black men
Will they say some things that the vast majority of the readers of this site take issue with? Absolutely! In fact I guarantee it because almost every time we have one of these discussions in the comments, "Gender Wars 2007" threatens to break out .
Plenty of women are going to be talking about DV this month, I'll be linking to their posts, but here at WAOD, I want to know what Black men really think about DV, if they think about it at all ( I know some do).
This will either be very enlightening or a train wreck, but it won't be a boring.
I've already secured two volunteers, if you are a male blogger and you want to write a post about YOUR THOUGHTS on Domestic Violence in the African American community, drop me an e-mail. All SANE contributions will be considered.
