Kasir Moton
Engw _1100
Professor Young
23 April, 2015
These Hands Don’t Hurt
One
in four women will experience domestic violence during her lifetime. So imagine
out of your mom, sister, aunt, and grandmother one of them has experienced
domestic abuse. Domestic abuse is when an intimate partner establishes power
and control over another person through fear and intimidation, often including
the threat or use of violence. Scary, right?
I know it is. Domestic abuse has been around for a long time. According
to the New Jersey Battered Women Service, last year in 2014, four million women
were physically assaulted by their partners. Due to the fact that the victims
don’t want to speak up in fear of hurting their loved ones, millions of women
keep quiet and continue to let the abuse happen. But not anymore- help me help
those who need a hand and who are voiceless. Dr. King stood up for the
voiceless, poor African American citizens who were being shipped off into war.
The reason why he stood up for them is so they could become inspired to standup
for themselves. Similarly, family and friends have to stick up for victims of
domestic violence so that they can become inspired to stand up for themselves.
The right time to speak up and break the silence is when your life or safety is
at risk.
A
wise man Dr. Martin Luther King, once stated in his speech" Beyond
Vietnam" that “The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to
stop it must be ours” (King). His words show that in order to stop the war,
people must have the willpower and initiative to stop it. Dr. King was speaking
for the people in Vietnam who were suffering from wasted land, homes being
destroyed and cultures being subverted from the war. Dr. King also spoke for
the poor people in America (and by poor I mean the American citizens who were
shipped off and forced to fight in the Vietnam war, the blacks ,and all the
poor) who were paying ,the double price of smashed hopes from dealing with the
corruption in Vietnam. Dr. King spoke up and expressed his opinion that America
was “adding cynicism to the death process” in Vietnam (King).
Similarly,
for domestic abuse to come to an end, initiative has to be taken. Women in domestically violent situations
often find a way to justify their significant other’s actions by giving excuses
for why the abuse is happening. For example, women who are being abused may say
“It only happens when he drinks … has a bad day…or when the house isn’t clean.”
And when this happens battered women often say “He didn’t mean it … I’ll say
something next time… he said he was sorry.” Women become vulnerable because
what do they do when the person they love is hurting them emotionally,
physically and mentally? It results in a woman being stripped of everything
which leads to the death of a woman’s pride, morals, and self-esteem. Moreover,
domestic abuse is the right time to speak up and break the silence because most
instances of domestic violence are never reported.
Although
I am not a woman or know what domestic abuse feels like, I do know firsthand
the hardship it brings because my mother was a victim for a short period of her
life. I was only thirteen at the time and I was living with my mother and her
boyfriend. I was upstairs in my room playing my new video game NCAA football
2005 when I heard the loud sound of pots being slammed around. At first, I
didn’t really think anything of it. I thought my mom was being clumsy as
always. Moments later, I heard my mom yell, “Fuck this! I don’t have time, I
have to go to work.” I ran downstairs to
see what was going on and I saw my mom on the floor. I stood back to see what
was going on and I saw my mother’s boyfriend punch my mom twice in the side.
From
that point on, my heart began to ache for my mom. I didn’t know what to do when
I saw the tears pour down my mom face. She glimpsed up and saw me and
yelled, “ Get off of me my son is right
there” and after that he grabbed her up by the collar of her black North Face
jacket and tossed her back to the ground. I ran at him crying tears of anger
and jumped on his back ripping the left sleeve of his blue collard polo shirt and
then tried to choke him but I was immediately swung off and thrown to the wall.
He stormed out the front door and my mom came running after me and said, “It
was my fault, okay. Next time let me
handle it okay? I love you and I don’t want you to worry about what just happen
okay? Don’t call your dad or anyone okay? This stays in this household.”
I wiped my mom’s face off and told her you
didn’t hit me when I was kid so I’m not going let anyone do it to you. My mom
went off to work and I stood in the house. It was silent for the whole day; I
was home alone until eight when my mom got off from work. My mom was at work
and called my grandmother and told her what happened. My grandmother came up to
the house the next morning with my dad and uncles and my aunt and the rest was
out of my hands. I don’t remember what happened after that but I was told it
was taken care of. The police were involved and I haven’t seem him since. This
goes to show that staying quiet doesn’t help anything. Staying quiet make
things worse, so stand up for what is right and break the silence when your
life is at risk. So help change that, and speak up, speak out, and make a
difference for victims of domestic violence because a lot of women’s lives are
at risk.
In
summary, keeping your mouth shut isn’t always good in life. There is a reason
why people in this world should speak up for themselves or for others who can’t
necessarily speak up for themselves. Unlike my mom, there are women who can’t
find the voice to be heard because they don’t have the courage or support to
speak up. Women in this world are being abused mentally and physically. So help
me help them find a voice by calling the New Jersey battered women service
hotline at 973-267-7520. They care and take initiative to protect the battered
women who fall to abuse every day, so we can let women know that our hands
don’t hurt. It’s okay to speak up and break the silence.
Work Cited
King,
Martin Luther. "Beyond Vietnam."Riverside Church, New York, NY. 15 April
1967. Speech.
