Black Love Doesn’t Guarantee Happiness
posted by Misha Thomas | May 4, 2017 | In OpinionIt is disheartening and tragic that both the shooter and the victim of the San Bernardino school shooting were a Black couple.
I assumed the media would use this as another example of Black-on-Black crime or to disprove the facts that, according to Political Research Associates, the majority of school shootings involve a White males.
However, the point I want to make relates to the false perception that so long as a Black man has graduated from college, does not sag his pants and is conscious or religious then automatically he is labeled a “Good Black Man.”
Black women are constantly told that marriage automatically leads to happiness. Black women are openly shamed and pressured to ignore the signs of abuse because being a divorcee or single mother could tarnish their respectability or reputation.
According the Bureau of Justice Statistics, approximately 93% of Black victims of domestic violence have Black perpetrators. And Dallas Morning News reports, Black women are three times more likely to die at the hands of a partner or ex-partner than members of other racial groups. The leading causes of death for Black women ages 15 to 35 is reported to be “intimate-partner homicide.”
San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan stated that victim Karen Elaine Smith along with Cedric Anderson had only been married a short time. “They’ve only been married for a few months and they’ve been separated for about the last month, month-and-a-half, roughly, when this incident took place,” Burguan said, according to CNN.
Not only did Anderson murder his wife, Two students were injured in the murder-suicide and one of those children later died at a hospital, also according to CNN. Court records showed that there had also been two petitions for temporary restraining orders filed against Anderson by women in previous years.
I understand my community’s focus is for our men and women to stay together. So much has occurred over the decades that has forced us apart. Now we are fearful of being forced to stay apart. If we stay together without fixing issues, knowing the signs of abuse and taking action to decrease it, this will only continue to happen to black women. According to the New Choices, a non-profit helping victims of domestic abuse, some early signs of abuse are absences from work or school, low self-esteem and stress-related problems such as headaches, poor sleep and repeated aches and pains.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.