'An epidemic': Bexar County's domestic violence deaths are at unprecedented levels, advocates warn

This is a warning, my friends, out of Bexar County. We know that domestic violence and intimate partner violence is hardly limited either to the beautiful Gabby Petito or this county. Rather, this is happening everywhere—and is a global problem, as well.

The month of October is "Domestic Violence Awareness Month." You can find helpful information in English and Spanish from a website by this name, including a #WeAreResilient Toolkit. You can sign up for it here. You may also seek to be aware of whether a potential partner is an offender. 

A good first start is this National Violent Offender & Domestic Violence Registry that provides actual names together with state-level data, including legislative initiatives. 

In Bexar County where San Antonio is located, they are witnessing unprecedented, "epidemic" levels of "domestic violence deaths" (read:"'An epidemic': Bexar County's domestic violence deaths are at unprecedented levels, advocates warn"). In this article, president and CEO of Family Violence Prevention Services Marta Peláez says that however difficult the pandemic has been for all, it has been even more difficult for victims of abuse, expressing

“They found themselves isolated in the company of the perpetrator with their children, between four walls, withstanding unthinkable indignities, terror, abuse and manipulation.”

Clearly, while the pandemic has put a lot of stress on families, nothing justifies either violence or deaths. Praise to Marta Peláez, president and CEO of Family Violence Prevention Services for her life-saving work in Bexar County.

An extensive, 11-city study published in the American Journal of Public Health examines risk factors for femicide, or women's violence-related deaths, in abusive relationships. If found the following: 

"perpetrator's access to a gun and previous threat with a weapon, perpetrator's stepchild in the home, and estrangement, especially from a controlling partner. Never living together and prior domestic violence arrest were associated with lowered risks. Significant incident factors included the victim having left for another partner and the perpetrator's use of a gun. Other significant bivariate-level risks included stalking, forced sex, and abuse during pregnancy."

The power of prior domestic violence arrest lowering the risk of becoming a victim of domestic violence is noteworthy, suggesting that this is a partial remedy. Clearly, getting guns out of the home is, as well. Do seek help.There are resources, including a national hotline: 1 (800) 799-SAFE 7233). You can also text the word, START, to this number: 88788.

A quick search turned up these domestic violence hashtags so that we can follow the issue via social media:

#domesticviolence #domesticabuse #emotionalabuse #domesticviolenceawareness #abuse #narcissisticabuse #narcissist #survivor #toxicrelationships #gaslighting #ptsd #selflove #healing #sociopath #love #narcissisticabusesurvivor #mentalhealth #trauma #divorce #narcissism #womenempowerment #domesticviolencesurvivor #women #toxicpeople #psychologicalabuse #traumabonding #abusiverelationship #manipulation #metoo #bhfyp

Beginning with being aware that 1 in 10 high school students experienced violence at the hands of someone they dated, all of us need to educate ourselves on domestic violence so that we can end it in society. As per the eye-opening— indeed, shocking—statistics I provide below, it's closer to home than one might imagine with women and girls being particularly at risk. That said, men and boys are also victims. For instance, ten percent of men in the U.S. have experienced either rape or sexual violence; and more than a quarter (28%) of male victims of rape were 10 years old or younger.

We can all take steps big and small. Learn about domestic violence prevention in your state. Reach out to whoever represents you locally to access local resources. I just signed this petition calling for Domestic Violence Training By Police Departments. 

If you are in San Antonio and need help, consider reaching out to Marta Paláez' non-profit: Family Violence Prevention Services. If you're in Austin, reach out to Safe Place for help at any time of the day or night: 512-267-7233. To get out of danger, visit DomesticShelters.org.  Safe Place Austin is actually hiring right now.

We can all do something. We can all do more.

-Angela Valenzuela

References

Campbell, J. C., Webster, D., Koziol-McLain, J., Block, C., Campbell, D., Curry, M. A.,& Laughon, K. (2003). Risk factors for femicide in abusive relationships: Results from a multisite case control study. American journal of public health, 93(7), 1089-1097.

Continue reading here for general statistics.

Sexual Assault at UT this Evening: Know Your Rights

Friends,

This is a must-read.  The University of Texas at Austin just sent out an email that I think is worth sharing.  Horrifically, someone was assaulted this evening.  My interest in sharing this is that it expresses clear rights and parameters for consensual sexual activity between women and men.  Read the message and be sure to share this with your daughters and sons, and with your grandchildren, too, if you have any.

"Don't feel obligated to do anything you don't want to do. 'I don't want to' is always a good enough reason." 

Disclaimer: This graphic did not accompany
the university's email notice. Source:
https://peacerivercenter.org/saam2018/

And then the trauma, the aftermath—including having to contend with the fact that someone you know was the perpetrator (read official email notice below)—is messed up, sad, and terribly stressful for the survivors, mostly women—but men and children, as well.

Let’s be more intentional in such matters.  And let’s oppose all forms of violence, especially sexual violence that disproportionately affects women.

As the graphic says, let's also believe survivors, challenge victim blaming, and respect boundaries.

Let's have this young woman and all survivors in our continuous thoughts and prayers.  We have so much healing as a society to do and we all need to play some part in that.  If you are a UT student, scroll down to read about Student Emergency Services.

And get immediate help if you have been assaulted. Your wellness is a priority.

Angela Valenzuela

INCIDENT NOTIFICATION: Sexual assault

December 16, 2018

At 10:40 p.m., UTPD responded to a report of non-stranger sexual assault involving a UT student and an acquaintance at Jester West Dormitory.

The student reported the incident occurred at 5 p.m.

The UTPD Criminal Investigations Unit is actively investigating this incident.

The most common type of sexual assault is perpetrated by someone the victim knows, not by a stranger. Consent is enthusiastic agreement required by all and can be revoked at any time. Sexual activity requires consciousness and clarity.

Don't feel obligated to do anything you don't want to do. "I don't want to" is always a good enough reason.

Student Emergency Services supports students who have been or know someone who has been a victim of a crime on or off campus. For those services click on the link below:

http://deanofstudents.utexas.edu/emergency/victimservices.php

This notification is provided in accordance with the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Crime Statistics Act (20 USC, 1092(f)). The Clery Act is a federal statute requiring colleges and universities participating in federal financial aid programs to maintain and disclose campus crime statistics and security information.

The Bill Cosby Scandal Proves Why Black Women's Lives Still Don't Matter

Excellent analysis by Darnell Moore of power relations and their interwovenness with patriarchy and patriarchal power evidenced in the Bill Cosby affair.

-Angela

By Darnell L. Moore July 08, 2015

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After trailblazing black model and actress Beverly Johnson publicly alleged in an emotional and stirring Vanity Fair essay that she, too, had been sexually assaulted by Bill Cosby, she was ridiculed and discredited by many.

The backlash wasn't surprising. Devoted fans and celebrity friends of Cosby have long stood by the beloved symbol of (caricatured) black heterosexual manhood, even as the list of women accusing him of sexual assault has grown to include more than 40 names.

After Johnson's story ran, for example, black male commentator Cleo Manago postulated that Cosby might actually be the victim of an ostensible white-woman coup to take a good black man down, or of the "guilty until proven guilty" rhetoric historically aimed at black men. Boyce Watkins, a black scholar and social commentator, expressed similar views, noting that while his thoughts about Cosby were "deliberately mixed," the growing number of allegations were akin to a "modern day lynching" and "too consistent and orchestrated ... to believe that it's all happening by chance." Attorney Monique Pressley similarly questioned the "sheer volume of accusers" and stated "you'll have some people who will come forward and join the band wagon" during a News One Now Straight Talk episode with Roland Martin.

The support of Cosby by black men and women who might otherwise consider themselves freedom fighters in the struggle for black liberation has been perplexing at best and hypocritical at worst, especially when considering that some of Cosby's alleged victims were black, too. It reveals the dangerous limitations of a black politic of liberation that is concerned with white racial supremacy but not cued into the violent reality of intra-community misogyny and sexual assault. This lack of dual focus has harmed black women throughout history.

Source: David Livingston/Getty Images

To be fair, U.S. history provides much proof of the extent to which white people, and the state, have gone to protect white women from the archetypal dangerous black male. But Cosby's case should not be upheld as a contemporary example of white supremacy's attempt to take down a black man, especially not now that Cosby has admitted in court documents dating back to 2005 that he obtained prescription Quaaludes for women he wanted to coerce into having sex with him. Cosby is no Emmett Till.

Beverly Johnson, Lachelle Covington, Michelle Hurd, Angela Leslie and Jewel Allison are just some of the several dozen women Cosby allegedly abused. And they, just like those Cosby supporters who have claimed the sexual assault allegations are a consequence of white media's fascination with the demise of the black man, are black. In the case of those black people who publicly fight in support of Cosby, loyalty to race thus seems to also be an implicit allegiance to the cult of black patriarchy — black women's lives, well-being and safety be damned. 

 Cosby is no Emmett Till.

As Mic's Jamilah King wrote in reference to the allegations, "Sometimes it's hard to see patriarchy. And sometimes it isn't." Patriarchy is evident when the needs of alleged male perpetrators, like Cosby, rather than alleged victims remain centralized in conversations about sexual assault. Patriarchy is evident when female victims are cast as antagonistic troublemakers in the public eye, and the men accused are cast as prey. Patriarchy is evident when men — black, white or brown — push back against women's claims of rape even as their evidence continues to mount, even as the fact remains that an estimated 1 in 5 black women experience rape in their lifetime. 

"Rape is more protected in this country than black women," Jamilah Lemieux writes at Ebony in response to the Cosby allegations. The disavowal of black women's experiences is a problem whose roots can be traced back to the sexual assault of black women in slave master's bedrooms, and continues with the dismissal of black women's pain in contemporary courts of public opinion and law. 

Manago, Watkins, Pressley and others saw Cosby as a victim, but viewed the women who publicly shared painful stories of sexual violence as guilty of trying to take down a black man — one who, ironically, is notorious for disparaging black people. 

A black freedom fighter who claims to care for all black lives but supports alleged rapists who harm black women is not truly fighting for freedom. Black women deserve a black liberation ethos that also destroys male dominance, sexual violence, rape culture, sexism and patriarchy, especially when these show up within black communities. 

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Darnell L. Moore

Darnell L. Moore is a Senior Editor at Mic. He is also co-managing editor of The Feminist Wire. He thinks and writes about contemporary social issues from his stoop in Bedstuy, Brooklyn.

Follow @moore_darnell