Colin Flaherty Commentary News Video "The Quiet Crisis Killing Black Women"
In death, Delashon became one of the three women killed by their boyfriends, husbands and lovers every day in the United States. Domestic violence does not discriminate, and victims span all races, ages, ethnicities and religions.
The suffering, though, is not equally distributed.
In the U.S., black women face higher rates of domestic violence than do women of all other races, except Native women. In Dallas County, the most likely type of person to be killed by a romantic partner is a black woman, age 20 to 29, just like Delashon. Black women are four times more likely than their white peers to be murdered by a boyfriend or girlfriend, and twice as likely to be killed by a spouse. And they are seven times more likely to be slain while pregnant than white women.
Experts say this is not because black men are more violent. Rather, black women are more vulnerable to domestic violence due to a constellation of factors, including high rates of poverty, lack of access to resources and systemic racism within systems designed to help victims of abuse.
But relying on police can leave black women facing an impossible quandary: How can they trust a historically racist criminal justice system, one that systematically imprisoned their brothers and fathers, to protect them?
Why Black Women Don’t Report
While victims of all races experience shame about domestic violence, there is a deep culture of silence in black communities, said Zoë Flowers, a domestic abuse advocate and author of From Ashes to Angel’s Dust: A Journey Through Womanhood.
One reason is that many black women are socialized from a young age to believe they must be strong all the time.
“We are taught that telling your business, asking for help, showing vulnerability ― these are signs of weakness,” Flowers said. “We think we can handle whatever comes our way because that is the expectation.”
Many black women are also taught to protect the race at all cost, she said. That means victims of domestic violence may stay quiet to shield their communities from additional negative attention.
“People already feel like black men are more violent, that black women are loud ... all these stereotypes,” Flowers said. “You don’t want to open your community up for more scrutiny.”
There’s also a general attitude that women should stand by their partners, no matter what, she added. “Why? Because the world is hard on black men.”
The legal system incarcerates five times more black people than whites.
It’s not uncommon for black victims of domestic violence to recuse themselves from the criminal justice system, said Beth Richie, professor of African American studies and gender and women’s studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
“There is a feeling in black communities that the only time violence against black women is taken seriously is when it can be used to feed the arrest and detention of a black man,” Richie said.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/black-women-domestic-violence-delashon-jefferson_us_5c128145e4b0449012f7a511
12/17/2018 05:45 am ET
