I read last night that October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month and went to sleep dreaming about the domestic violence my family endured when I was child. At age 8, I took a Greyhound bus with my mother to Stateville Penitentiary, located in Joliet, Illinois to meet my future stepfather who was incarcerated. When I met him, he extended his hand to shake my hand and stated, "Young man, when you shake a person’s hand, always look them in the eyes and offer a firm handshake.” He taught me something the first time I met him! Today, each time I shake someone's hand, including during job interviews, I follow the advice he gave me. I was eager for him to become my stepfather!
The first day my stepfather left prison, he moved in with us, I heard my mother scream about 5 am in the morning. My stepfather gave my mother a black eye because, "She had a job to go to and he didn't." She started her new job that day as a nurse, wearing sunglasses to hide the abuse. In the book, The Battered Woman Syndrome (2016), author Dr. Lenore Walker said that male domestic violence is not about anger. It is about sexism. Men who batter women tend to have a more traditional view of the role of men than their female partner in a relationship. He often tries to use physical force to "Beat her into traditional conformity." My mother had a job and my stepfather did not. In addition, her name was on the apartment lease and his name was not.
We soon discovered that our stepfather had a heroin addiction (opioid use disorder) and he left home frequently to chase his addiction. The battery towards my mother intensified in frequency and force. Substance use does not cause domestic violence, it can increase lethality (Walker, 2016).
There is no cultural group that has a monopoly on intimate partner violence. During this month I decided to come out of hiding and discuss some of the unique features of domestic violence in African American communities as I have witnessed firsthand and in my role as a clinician. Because of our history of police brutality, African American women who are victims of domestic violence might fear that if she reports her partner to the police, the police might kill him. This fear could intensify during this era of police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and other unarmed African Americans. Also, a cultural norm which has existed since slavery of "Not airing our dirty laundry in public," could also decrease the reporting of domestic violence in African American communities. As a matter of fact, I am nervous just writing this blog post. But I have too!
For African Americans who are LGBTQ, hesitance to report domestic violence could be connected to a fear of potential police brutality of the partner and the fear of the consequences of outing yourself to the police when you make the report.
For African American men, high unemployment, racism, and dehumanizing experiences such as stop and frisk, police brutality, poor to no community service, and being left to die by paramedics has played a role in undermining the sense of ‘manhood’ for African American men in a country that has historically defined manhood as being the head of household, bread winner etc. Prior to Dr. King being assassinated in Memphis Tennessee, striking African American sanitation workers were protesting unequal pay and poor working conditions in comparison to their white counterparts. These men held up signs which read, “I am a man too!” During the 1960's and 70's it was easier for African American women and children to receive public assistance if they were not married or there were no men living in the home. Public Aid workers routinely made impromptu visits to these homes to assure there were no men there. There are reports of African American men hiding in closets or leaving out of back doors when these workers arrived. This was also dehumanizing. Combining other risk factors for male perpetration of domestic violence such as experience corporal punishment as a child, witnessing domestic violence as a child, sexism, a narrow view of the role of men and women in relationships, juvenile arrests, hostility towards women etc., along with how racism and dehumanizing experiences can impact one’s feelings of manhood, is a potential recipe for domestic violence.
I did a presentation entitled, Boys in Crisis and I learned that women in every cultural group in America, have more college degrees than men in that same culture with the biggest gap being between African American men and women. College graduation increases wage earnings. In a sexist society, along with other risk factors, will this also contribute to intimate partner violence in African American communities?
In the meantime, author Jawanza Kunjufu offers the following suggestion. “The African American Community needs to define manhood more broadly than the size of your paycheck. Manhood can also include being kind and supportive of your partner, spending time with and nurturing of your children, being a positive influence in your community.” I had an African American male client who returned to drug use after he was fired from his job. He said to me, "I don't feel like a man, since I lost my job.” I thought of Jawanza Kunjufu's quote and reminded him that every day he got up at 3 am to drive his wife home, "To help assure her safety," then he would make it home to prepare breakfast for his daughters, take them to school, prepare dinner for them, help them with their homework, while looking for future employment at the same time. He smiled and said, “I am a man.” He discontinued his substance use.
The movie What's Love Got To Do With It depicted the domestic violence relationship with singing duet and married couple, Ike and Tina Turner. This led to discussions about domestic violence in African American communities and empowered many women to seek shelter from intimate partner violence. Domestic violence seems to run in families across generations. As far as I can tell, it is no longer as prevalent in my family as it once was. Interestingly enough, substance use disorders recovery in my family has increased.
Years ago, author Peter Bell stated that addictions is best treated, “When the cultural context in which it develops is taken into consideration.” Perhaps this is also true for intimate partner violence. Domestic violence specialists should learn about nuances unique to each cultural group served.
