On Domestic Violence, a local view, by Khary Bekka

In September, Naire McCormick, who grew up in the Red Hook housing projects, was killed by her spouse, who subsequently turned the gun on himself. For the people of Red Hook, this marked the second tragedy within the last year stemming from domestic abuse, where a man has taken it upon himself to claim the life of a woman as his possession. This has opened the door to another session of grieving, another session of questioning and another heavy dose of trauma for several families and a community.

How do we begin to discuss the issue of domestic abuse so that we can better understand what gives rise to this form of oppression, which continues to claim the lives of tens of thousands of women worldwide each year? In cases of spousal abuse leading to death, we see acts of passion where inflamed emotions like fear, jealousy and envy fuel a deadly rage. The possessive spouse recklessly believes that he or she has rights and rulership over the partner’s soul in life and death.

It took me a little while to feel capable of speaking toward the issue in a responsible manner. I needed to hear women speak first. Some time back, I had written an article on the #MeToo movement titled “Why the Me Too Movement Needs to Go Further.” I received some positive feedback on it, but unfortunately, before writing, I had failed to wipe clean the front window of my paradigm and ended up shifting the accountability to women as I advocated for an end to sexual assault.

My initial approach to the issue was in line with what has become the common response to the domestic violence dilemma, where we instruct the woman to acknowledge when she is in an abusive relationship and get herself out of it. This is not an adequate response to the problem,due to several factors in abusive relationships. Often fear is instilled into the relationship to keep the woman in place. [pullquote]A woman who has a nurturing spirit may believe that she can tolerate and help to change the man, which subsequently keeps her caged in an oppressive predicament.[/pullquote]

The concept of narcissism being expressed through domestic violence has, over the last year,received significant attention in the media, which has helped shed some light on the typical abuser’s characteristics. Still, does identifying abusive traits in a partner truly serve to remedy the problem of continuous acts of male dominance leading to the death of a woman? In the case of the narcissism theory, we are merely identifying characteristics that in fact are symptoms of what I need to term the disease of domestic violence.

In the search for a greater perspective, men, it is time for us to stand up!If someone desired to do a study on the spirit of a society, I would suggest that they observe people commuting on public transportation – I ride the trains daily, heading to work as early as 5 am. Here is where you can gauge the mentality of the people. As a man, I will be the first to tell you that we have lost our way, where we no longer think to consider applying compassion and courtesy in our interactions.This form of machismo is the way of the world, which expresses itself in several aspects of relationships between intimate couples, neighbors and nations.

On the subway, I have seen older women, pregnant women, and disabled women forced to stand due to some lazy narcissistic man who does not feel accountable or obligated to show common courtesy or compassion. What does this have to do with the problem of domestic violence? Our cultural paradigms are often and almost always expressed in the little things we do, which reinforce and maintain the habits in our ethics.

The perspective we gain from exploring the root of domestic violence can lead us to a greater perspective about old world cultural practices. Why do men feel as if we have dominance over a woman? Because we have been habitually taught that might is on the side of right! This concept,which lives within our basic fundamental relationships between man and woman, ultimately expresses itself in all our relations, from neighbors to nations.

The little nation with no standing army and no nuclear weapons has no prevalence on the world stage. Sorry, you’re not big enough or strong enough to matter. As a matter of fact, everything that you own, grow, produce or create create is mine to possess because I’m stronger than you and can impose my will on you.This is the attitude of the domestic abuser who feels as if they have the ownership of their spouse’s mind, body and soul because he or she is physically or mentally stronger than their partner.

We can talk about the various symptoms of “might makes right”–one being domestic violence–all day for the next thousand years and still find ourselves with egregious numbers of female deaths here in America and across the globe. Or we can step outside the box to find answers while reconsidering old, harmful paradigms that affect the way we deal not only with our partners but with people in general. I refuse to allow the tragic deaths of two beautiful women from the Red Hook community who died too young from domestic violence to be just another sad story.

This is not a question of a women’s strength to leave an abusive man; it is about a man’s strength and willingness to concede his strength to a greater cause. As men we must now take definitive steps to educate our sons about the dangers posed by notions of male dominance while opening their eyes to a better tomorrow governed by a concept of gender equality. Let’s start doing the little things, such as showing respect, consideration and courtesy to women, which will allow us to build up our strength to fight the disease of “might being on the side of right” and work toward changing an age-old world paradigm that has fueled both the rapes and murders of women and global atrocities of oppression against mankind.