Of course you do. For all of us, that trial was not about a sports superstar in trouble. For us, it was about our biggest nightmare.
As the trial wound down toward a verdict, I lost count of how many times I heard TV commentators, reporters, and just plain people worry about the possibility of riots by African-Americans if the jury found O.J. guilty. A poisonous fear of race riots hovered in the air wherever white people discussed the case.
However, no one even broached the possibility of riots among abused and battered women as a result of a "not guilty" verdict. It simply never occurred to anyone that women would respond violently to what many perceived as one more piece of evidence that violence against women doesn't matter.
And why would anyone expect these women to riot? They've had enough of violence to last several lifetimes.
Instead, as the "Los Angeles Times" reported at the time, they came quietly, one after another, to the grave of Nicole Brown Simpson, a young mother most of them never met. They came to leave flowers and cards, notes and mementos. They came to grieve and, perhaps, to heal. They made Nicole's grave a shrine for battered and abused women.
They did this because battered women live daily with more than the fear of being killed. They live with the fear of being simply erased - of their lives being swatted away and forgotten like those of some annoying insect. The women who went to Nicole's grave wanted to make sure that Nicole never will be forgotten, eclipsed into oblivion by the glamour of O.J.'s celebrity. And perhaps in their grief and rage, they found a small ray of hope in a single sheet of white notebook paper left by the grave on which a child had written:
"Nicole, I am sorry what happened. I am sorry that your children are having to grow up without you. I don't know what I would do without my mother. I promise I will never hurt women. Love, Tyler Dubard, age 12."
That promise from a 12-year-old boy beats any memorial any of us could construct for Nicole Brown Simpson. It is up to us adults, especially male adults, to help the Tylers of the world learn to honor that simple, but powerful vow: "I promise I will never hurt women."
The struggle to end family violence was begun by women. But from the beginning, we knew we could not do this alone. And from the beginning, we have been joined by men of good will who share our dream of violence-free homes for all people.
"Domestic violence is a problem that should be considered by everyone, including men," said Tony Switzer in a recent issue of "The River", the newsletter of the Texas Council on Family Violence. Switzer is the Battering Intervention and Prevention Project (BIPP) Coordinator for the TCFV.
"I worry about the world my son is growing up in. Just because women are the primary target [of domestic violence] is no reason for me not to want him to understand about power, control and oppression," he said. There are 29 BIPPs in Texas. They include not only intervention and counseling for batterers, but also community education, The River reported.
BIPP workers go to schools and talk about dating violence, they go to prisons to talk about family violence; they go just about anywhere there is a need - which is, sadly, just about everywhere.
As always, the annual TCFV conference [Sept. 24-27, 2000, at the Red Lion Hotel in Austin] will feature a Forum on Men's Work. [For information, Call Tony Switzer at 512.794.1133]. The forum is designed to allow men to share their work experience in the Battered Women's Movement as well as introduce men who are new to the work to ways they can help. It is a safe place for men to speak up and out on this topic. Moreover, it is a safe place for a man to admit he doesn't know what to do to help.
So women, cut this out and give it to the men of good will in your life. Give it to your priest, rabbi, pastor. Give it to your local Scout leaders. Give it to the men at work. Give it to the men at church or temple or synagogue. Give it to your physician (male or female) and ask him or her to make copies and hand them out. Give it to the coaches of your children's sports teams. Give it to school principals and to school boards.
Men, speak up. Don't listen in silence to jokes that make light of family violence. Don't laugh when sportscasters or sports figures speak of "popping" their wife "a good one." Protest advertisements, commercials, or other public utterings that depict women as victims of violence as if it were the natural order of things.
If a friend, co-worker or acquaintance talks about hitting his wife or children, tell him that's not what real men do. Put him in touch with the local women's shelter. If they don't have a BIPP locally, they can refer him for help.
Most importantly, live out in your own life young Tyler Dubard's pledge: "I promise I will never hurt women."
For if we can create a world in which women are not being hurt, we almost certainly will have created a world in which we all will be safer.
Please sign my guestbook and
view it.
Statistics courtesy of WebCounter.