All TMZ did was report the average day in the life of every
battered woman in this country and it doesn’t matter why it took so long, it
only matters that society isn’t burying its head in the sand anymore. The
assault against Janay Rice is what domestic violence looks like—sometimes even
worse. It is the reality for victims and their children. Their plight has been
minimized and disregarded for generations.
Domestic violence advocates, myself included, have been
championing for justice but our “rants,”
as novice people call them, have been ignored because society believes domestic
violence is a private matter. I have
boycotted professional sports for 25 years because of the assaults players have
been able to get away with because of their status. I literally walk out of a
room or I leave the building when a game is on because of my appalling distaste
for the tolerance for violence against women. People considered my ban silly,
but protesting was important to me. I shouted my disdain from the mountaintops as
an international speaker, author and director of a nonprofit called CHANCE
(Changing How Adults Nurture Children’s Egos) to train professionals, parents
and partners about the devastation of family violence. The mission at CHANCE goes one step further in
the campaign to support families: we provide replacement skills to people to
assist them with getting their needs met the right way. Here’s the most amazing
part: when people are given healthier tools and see that they can be heard and
regarded the right way, they use them. Violence is a learned behavior based on
the inability to cope and emote properly but more importantly violence is violence
because we allow it.
Being perpetrators or victims are not life sentences. I see
people change everyday but it starts with intolerance. In the past, I’ve heard
some of the most asinine excuses for athletes’ behaviors like, “I know he tore the hinges off the door, but
he’s such an awesome hockey player” or “That
girl is probably lying about the rape but this guy sure can shoot a basketball
like nobody’s business.”
The cover up for domestic/family violence is insidious and
reaches way beyond professional sports leagues. The police officer who charged
the victim in this case is no different than a lot of the police officers
serving our cities and our nation. I know countless accounts of law enforcement
not only failing to serve and protect
but also grossly carrying out miscarriages of justice. Advocating for victims
has been frustratingly perplexing because champions for the cause have
experienced unconscionable roadblocks generated by people’s willingness to turn
away or even punish victims for their predicaments. The catch-22 is if victims
stay they are blamed for making their beds, but when they leave they get blamed
too. The legal system goes beyond police officers and a victim trudging through
the system is like trying to push their way through a Hong Kong traffic jam.
The courts are just as guilty, insensitive and infected, as they use ridiculous
terms like Parent Alienation Syndrome to describe victims’
protection of their children. Victims are forced to co-parent or often lose
custody of their children to their perpetrators under the guise of failure to protect…but more disturbingly
is that the courts then give custody to the very persons who abused the
victims.
Case in point: one officer arrested a pregnant woman whose
perpetrator had been starving her 8-year old daughter and her. They had been
held prisoners in a locked room and she literally clawed her way out by
scratching and overpowering him. Visualize that picture. Although this guy had
four prior domestic violence convictions, the police officer arrested her and
labeled her the primary aggressor! Due to her conviction, she was ineligible for
victims’ shelter because she was now labeled as an abuser. And the perpetrator
taunted her because there wasn’t anything she could do. Now he didn’t even have
to lock the doors because she was trapped in isolation.
Another victim was sleeping in her bed when her ex-husband
broke into her apartment and commenced choking her. The police in that case
arrested her because the assailant had significant scratch marks on his arms during
her attempt to pry his hands away from
her neck. These stories are not the
exception; it’s the reality for battered victims and their children. And
unfortunately, the buck doesn’t even stop here. Judges, often female ones at
that, refuse to give restraining orders to victims even when the evidence is
overwhelming that the victims are in peril. What the average citizen fails to
realize is that domestic/family terrorism is the reason we have so much mental
illness, so much crime and so much violence, period. In my practice 100% of incarcerated
prisoners I’ve worked with have witnessed or experienced family violence—one
hundred percent!
I say kudos to TMZ and the NFL for exposing the Ray &
Janay Rice case, but the work is just starting. Janay’s life is in potential danger
because batterers externalize their behaviors. He’s going to blame her for
losing his job. The police officer’s
response enabled Ray Rice to blame her. Taking this to its logical conclusion,
what’s going to happen when he blames her for losing his $50 million job?
Social tolerance allowed Ray Rice to get to this point because he didn’t spit
on refs, he didn’t beat up other players, and he didn’t punch his coach...because
those behaviors were against the rules. Let’s move away from why it took the
NFL so long to switch gears and get it right. What matters, is they did. I
would like to see similar intolerance for this heinous crime throughout the
rest of society. Police officers need to serve and protect, judges need to hand
out restraining orders whenever anyone is or feels endangered—regardless, and
education and training need to be given to both perpetrators and victims alike
so each can make an informed decision about how to live their lives
differently. TMZ painted the picture of domestic violence for us all to see,
but now it’s time for action.
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