DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: MY STORY
Last year, students at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois
invited me to speak to them about violence. I hesitated before
saying yes--but not because I was unfamiliar with the subject.
For the past 20 years or more that I have been in the
communications industry as a news director and as a radio and TV
talk show host, I have talked with and interviewed abused women
and girls. I have listened as teenage girls enrolled in a
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania program for pregnant teenagers told how
their boyfriends physically abused them, how their uncles,
fathers and neighbors sexually abused them. I have cleaned out
the closet to take clothes to women's shelters, to women with
blackened eyes, broken spirits and nothing but the clothes on
their backs--frightened that their abuser would discover where
they were hiding out. I have spoken with women in jail for
stabbing or shooting their abusers.
I have held frightened children in my arms. I will never forget
the 14-year-old girl who called my radio talk show from a pay
phone. She lived with an aunt who was a fanatical Pentecostal
and a strict disciplinarian. She volunteered to come to the
station and show me the various marks, old wounds, and current
cuts she had across her back and arms from the doubled extension
cords her aunt used to discipline her.
I have sat in therapy groups run by a Miami psychologist, Dr.
William Samek. His group consisted of men who beat, raped and
molested women and children. They were Black, white Hispanic
and Asian. Most of them offered excuses for their behavior:
they had been abused themselves.
The statistics about domestic violence in the African-American
community are frightening. 41% of the black women murdered ere
murdered by a family member, friend or acquaintance. Every 15
seconds in America, a woman is physically abused. Every six
minutes, a woman is raped.
Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to black women
aged 15 to 44. It's safe to say that I am well educated on the
issue of domestic violence. But lately, I have had to face the
hidden truth that I have been so committed to my desire to help
the women who are abused, that I have not dealt with the fact
that I have had a front row seat in the theater of domestic
violence: I was an abused wife.
I hesitated because this is a revelation I had no desire to
share. But it was happening as I started preparing my speech.
I began to recall my own experiences 25 years ago when I was
just beginning my TV career; when my nights were filled with
fear; when the husband I loved who had fathered my child had
become a stranger, a man subject to fits of alcoholic rage.
Finally I realized that I must share my own story, that I must
tell women and men who will listen that there is more to abuse
than just the physical side; that domestic violence can be
physical , emotional and psychological.
The victims are more than just the women or girls being abused.
In the case of a family where the mother is beaten and the
children watch, the children are also victims. Therapists also
are beginning to suggest, no matter how distasteful the theory
may be, that the abuser is also a victim. And I must say that
this is what I discovered interviewing abusers and sitting in on
therapy sessions, that almost all of the abusers had suffered
some form of domestic violence as a child. I have concluded
that we need to change our outlook on what domestic violence
really is and how we can get a handle on it.
Let me give you an example of what psychological and emotional
damage can do to those who live in the household. I want to
stress that my examples are true stories. These people have
given me permission to use their stories, but I have chosen not
to use their names.
My hairdresser is a striking woman, naturally wavy hair cut in a
fashionable style, and a to-die-for figure. When she heard that
I was going to speak about domestic violence she asked me to
tell her story. You see, she has never felt beautiful. When
people tell her, and men always do, what a knockout she is, she
just can't accept the compliments. As a child, she was told by
her mother than she was ugly and unwanted. In fact, she told me
her mother told her that her sisters were more attractive than
she was; that her birth was a mistake; that her mother had
thought about abortion. And, she said as her voice cracked, that
her mother had given her away for a while to her aunt, because
she didn't want her. Can you imagine being told this constantly,
until your mother sent you away at age three?
Then she said that her mother never hugged her as a child; that
even after she returned to her mother's home she was, and is to
this day, reminded that she was not wanted. Her eyes filled
with tears. She wanted me to tell you that you don't always
have to be beaten to be the victim of domestic violence. Tell
them, she said, that she will always live with the knowledge
that no one wanted her to be born.
If we are truly to begin to address the issue of domestic
violence, we must begin at the beginning with the messages
mothers give to their children. We must begin to teach mothers
to tell their children that they are worthy, that they are
loved. We must begin to show in our leadership, in our
relationships with others, that we have compassion,
understanding and respect for others. If those in government
would begin to express the importance of human respect and
self-esteem perhaps the message of caring would become
universal. We must also begin to place importance on and get
government support for the family. When we place more value on
weapons than we do on human life; when we circulate ads
ridiculing other politicians because they have different
opinions; when we cut out money for housing, education, the
environment, then we are saying to America--like my friend's
mother said to her--you are unwanted. And if we are to change
the concept of domestic violence, if we are to change the hatred
and brutality that comes out of far too many homes, we must
train our men to protect and not harm, to share emotions, to
channel whatever violence may hide in them genetically. We must
impress upon men that their sons may mirror their behavior.
When I was a kid, my six-foot-three-inch tall friend told me his
stepfather used him as a whipping board. No matter what
happened, he always got blamed. His parents and stepbrother and
sister slept upstairs in their house. He was placed in the
drafty room at the back of the house. Simple treats like ice
cream and popcorn were denied him. So my friend, who fought in
Vietnam, went to college, got married, who is living what
appears to be a successful life, carries the impact of domestic
violence with him daily, wrapped in memories of a childhood
spent largely at the end of a fist.
Finally, there is the sad story of a 28-year-old man who
wondered why his parents never told him he would amount to
anything; why he was told daily that he was stupid and should
forget about college, and why he was laughed at for not being as
athletic as his brothers. He cried as he remembered being
beaten with a razor strap until he was almost unconscious. Why
would his mother do that? Didn't she love him? At one point he
offered a woman some money just to hug him. And then he said
the words that kept me on the phone for hours: "I have never
felt love. I feel that I should take this gun I'm looking at
and kill myself. No one will miss me. No one will care."
If we are to consider fighting the growth of domestic violence
we must consider the true cause: the demise of the family,
whatever core group that family might be. If were are to truly
fight domestic violence we must emphasize to parents that every
child born in the world is a new thought of God, and every fresh
and radiant possibility for success, happiness and joy. If we
are to truly fight domestic violence we must begin to teach
parents that their lives are lesson books to children. When we
argue and fight, children mimic our behavior and act out the
violence they see in their lives, thus continuing the circle.
We must train parents not to be as quick to raise a hand as
punishment. Discipline need not be violent. If we are to try
and curb domestic violence, we must convince parents that what
they do and say is imprinted on the child and computed as proper
behavior. Children are like sponges: what they see, they sop
up.
If we are to make any gains, we must stop being violent towards
each other. Politicians should run on the issues, not against
each other. We must begin to present more positive images in
mass media. And finally, we must concentrate on morals and
values. We must return to a more spiritual family life. We
must teach men to respect women, women to care more for their
children, children to respect parents, and Americans to respect
each other.
I am living proof that you can survive domestic violence. I
survived because of the messages given to me by my parents. We
must invest in the family, and then the domestic violence will
stop.
That is my story.
|