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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 24, 2014)
^Jortlanh (Observer September 24, 2014 Pagei Opinion articles do not necessarily represent the views o f the Portland Observer. We welcome reader essays, photos and story ideas. Submit to news@portlandobserver.com. A Real Discussion about Domestic Abuse An outrage that misses the mark by D evin R obinson I firmly believe that women and men are equal. Get that? Equal. But if we expect real equality, then we need to be equal all across the board. We spend a signifi cant amount of time focusing on what men should do while ignor ing what women should as well. There are various forms of abuse: mental, verbal, and yes, physical. All abuse is wrong on both sides. Since physical abuse is more evident, we give it more attention. Because it is more detrimental when a man strikes a woman, the woman instantly becomes the victim. However, that shouldn't m ean physical abuse from a woman towards a man should be minimized. Un fortunately we have become a society of "measurers". R esearch has show n th at women lead violence over men in many categories including, spitting, slapping, kicking, grab bing, pushing, shoving, throw ing th in g s , d a m a g in g property and threatening h a rm . M en le a d th e c h a rg e in m u rd e rs though. We com m it 90 percent o f all m urders, but 80 percent o f those m urders are inflicted on other men. Where is the outrage? I get it though. W omen inflicting vio lence are like car accidents while m en v io len ce is like plane crashes. C ar crashes happen more often with less chance of injury, while plane crashes leads to automatic investigations and fatalities. But does the physical outcome make it right? T here was literally zero out rage when B eyonce's younger sister Solange physically at tacked Jay-Z in that now infa m ous elevator video several m o n th s ago. B eyoncd even w ent on the jo k e about the ordeal in her new song "Flaw less." W hy was it a joke? B e cause Jay-Z didn't hit her back. So it becam e okay. The only rhetoric and outrage that ex isted was the public's despera tion to know what happened; for gossip’s sake. W hether the abuse leaves a physical mark or not, they all leave emotional wounds. A real man doesn’t hit a woman, is the new rhetoric, while a woman hitting a man is comedy. When can we begin the new rhetoric of "real humans don’t hit humans?" I believe no one should hit any one. I oppose abuse and vio lence in all context, one reason why I oppose the death penalty. We simply don’t have the right to strike one another. There is an element we woe fully ignore. When we are hard at work telling men to walk away, let's also focus on what he is being told to walk away from; which, obviously, is abuse. We are ignoring the taunting, an tagonizing, provoking, and ver bal abuse that leads up to many physical abuse cases. We are constantly telling men to "take it," walk away but eventually all that bottling up is gonna come out somewhere, at someone or something. It's human nature. It’s the abuse from abuse syn drome. America keeps missing the mark when it comes to this topic. If women are going to fight for equality, then they must also be the change they would like to see. My fear is for my three sons with ages ranging from 19-14. They could possibly face this issue in the future and I would hope that society and justice fairly deals with it. H ere’s the thing. Just like blacks spend so much time prov ing we are not racist that we make it easier for the racist to be racist, women spend a lot of time unconsciously proving they are not equal (with the wrong rheto ric) that it makes it easier for the chauvinists to be chauvinists. But I get it. In this country of "who has less are automatic vic tims" it also holds true in the world of domestic violence; who loses the battle is the victim, forgetting that we are in the middle of a bigger war of man kind. When we overlook taking re sponsibility and verbal restraint all we are really subliminally say ing is women aren't equal. We are saying women have less control over them selves than men, making men the superior being, which I don't believe. It's just a cop out. Emasculating of men and de humanizing of women both have lasting consequences. But when we fail to have a real discussion and insist on real responsibility from both ends, and fail to focus on real equality, all we simply are is a bunch of perpetual hypo crites. Devin Robinson is a college professor and the author of "Rebuilding the Black Ameri can Infrastructure: Making America a Colorless Nation". Children Incarcerated: A Father’s Perspective Inhumane system doesn’t benefit society by individual and family - or - free in the larger society struggling to survive while at war with him self as manifest in street gun violence in addition to being the preferred target o f malicious p o lic e an d v ig ila n te forces? Now, if while in prison, a young man could attain a college degree and/or complete certification as a technician in a field for which society states a N abeeh M ustafa A parent, a father, should not have to face this kind of consider ation: W ould his son be better off in prison, with all o f the psycho logical damage to that (O b stru er Established 1970 USPS 959-680 4 7 4 7 NE Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd., Portland, OR 97211 P u b l is h e r : E d it o r : Mark Washington, Sr. Rakeem Washington C reative D irector : P aul N e u fe ld t O ffice M anager /C lassifieds : A dvertising M anager : The Portland Observer w elcom es freelance submis sions. Manuscripts and photographs should be clearly labeled and will be returned if accompanied by a self addressed envelope. All created design display ads become the sole property o f the newspaper and can not be used in other publications or personal usage with out the written consent of the general manager, unless the client has purchased the composition o f such ad. © 2008 THE PORTLAND OBSERVER. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITHOUT PERMISSION IS PROHIBITED. The Portland O bserver-Oregon’s Oldest Multicultural Publication--« a member o f the National Newspaper M ich a e l L eig h to n E xecutive D irector : need, the rate at which our young men are incarcerated might be less problematic. But that’s sim ply not the case in the present “corrections” system. You have all these young men in the system with Measure 11 sentences (7 Vi year minimum) who will be released at some point. They face the very real prospect of being released back into the larger society with a huge deficit and no ability to compete in a job market that is Association-Founded in 1885, and The National Ad vertising Representative Amalgamated Publishers, Inc, New York, NY, and The West Coast Black Publish ers Association Lucinda Baldwin Leonard Latin P ostmaster : Send address changes to Portland Observer, POBox3 1 3 7 , Portland, OR9 7 2 0 8 CALL 503-288-0033 FAX 503-288-0015 news@portlandobserver.com ads@DOrtlandobserver.com si4bscriDtion@portlandobserver.com already difficult for those with college degrees. It appears to be a “set-up” where the only beneficiaries are those employed by the prison industrial complex, the judiciary system and their respective own ers and investors. Society does not benefit and is in fact injured and devalued by this inhumane system. While some of us ponder this situation, trying to ascertain what an individual or organized group can do to address this issue (which affects the whole of so ciety), daily, more young men (and increasingly, young women) are being devoured by this sys tem and more being vomited back out. Nabeeh Mustafa is a writer and community activist who has written three plays: "Vanport," "On Life's Terms, " and "Guilty. " He helped found Occupy North East to address housing and police accountability issues; is executive Secretary of X- Convicts Embracing Life, and is a spoken word artist with a just released CD, "Urban Proze. " H e is a retired fa ther o f three children. His daughter, Zarinah, is attend ing Spelman College in At lanta. His youngest son, Warith, is serving a manda tory minimum sentence o f 7 1/2 years at McLaren Cor rectional Facility. To Place Your Classified Advertisement Contact: Phone: 503-288-0033 Fax: 503-288-0015 e-mail: classifieds@portlandobserver.com
