{"id":70,"date":"2009-10-20T18:45:30","date_gmt":"2009-10-20T23:45:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/hblsasj\/?p=70"},"modified":"2009-10-20T18:46:56","modified_gmt":"2009-10-20T23:46:56","slug":"domestic-violence-week-a-literary-interpretation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hblsasj\/2009\/10\/20\/domestic-violence-week-a-literary-interpretation\/","title":{"rendered":"Domestic Violence Week (A Literary Interpretation)"},"content":{"rendered":"

You\u2019d have to get close to see the red-purple bruises on her dark-brown skin.\u00a0 The impressions of his thumb in the top of her collar bone, branching out to the thick twin lines that curved, almost, to the back of her neck. She covered them with make up and remembered how she couldn\u2019t breathe. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>The other bruises could be covered with clothing. The ones on the arms she\u2019d brought up, uselessly, to try and push him away. She\u2019d thought, in her anger and fear, that\u2019d she would have been stronger. That she could have done damage. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>God knows, she\u2019d tried. The words that came out of her mouth, swear and others, had been said in anger, some chosen to provoke him. Fed up, she\u2019d gotten in his face. Had been inches from his face, screaming. How tired she was, how he was never home and couldn\u2019t be working all the time–since there was never any money. Every cent seemed to be going to the essentials. Food. Rent. Cars. Gas. Credit Card. Heat. Light. Cable. Clothes. Loans they\u2019d had to take out for the food, rent, cars, gas, credit card, heat, light, cable and clothes. Marcus, their son, who\u2019d slept through the noise or stayed in his room, was two and went through clothes almost as fast as he went through diapers. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>Fed up, frustrated, tired, and lonely, she\u2019d yelled at him. Gotten in his face, called him names, accused him of things she didn\u2019t really believe were true. (Yes, he worked late, at one temporary job after another since he\u2019d been \u201cdownsized,\u201d but had never given her reason to suspect he\u2019d been unfaithful.) She wanted him to understand where she was coming from–feel the hurt, get angry, maybe, and somehow do better. Instead, his hands had wrapped themselves around her throat. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>She blended the make up carefully over her bruises. She didn\u2019t want questions. Her sisters, mother, cousins, friends, co-workers, offering advice she didn\u2019t want to take. Saying that they would have killed him, or at least called the cops. All the while they\u2019d be looking at her in pity and amazement, asking \u201chow could she have chosen\/stayed with\/had a child by a man like that?\u201d Thinking that the woman they knew was stronger and smarter than that, that she, and her family, had seemed to have it together. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>She was strong. Strong and practical enough to see the foolishness of their suggestions. The cops? When had they ever helped anyone who looked like her? And what–restraining order? Kick him out of the house she couldn\u2019t afford by herself? Kick Marcus\u2019 father out of his life, and chance that he\u2019d pay child support? Marcus needed to keep his father, and she needed to keep him too. He was a good man. He worked hard and hadn\u2019t cheated on her. He loved her, and he loved his son. She didn\u2019t want him out of their lives–much less in jail, another black man. A good black man. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span>He was a good man, and she was strong. She would talk to him about it, gently, and he would apologize. He would promise not to hurt her again, and probably wouldn\u2019t. She, in turn, would be more supportive. She\u2019d be nicer to him and keep her own anger in check.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span> Finished. Even from the short distance between herself and the mirror you couldn\u2019t really see the bruises.\u00a0 To see them, you\u2019d have to get close.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

Fact\u00a0 As with women of other races, among African American women killed by their partner, the lethal violence was more likely to occur if there had been incidents in which the partner had used or threatened to use a weapon on her and\/or the partner has tried to choke or strangle her.–American Bar Association, Commission on Domestic Violence; <\/a><\/em>http:\/\/www.abanet.org\/domviol\/statistics.html<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

DNH<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You\u2019d have to get close to see the red-purple bruises on her dark-brown skin.\u00a0 The impressions of his thumb in the top of her collar bone, branching out to the thick twin lines that curved, almost, to the back of her neck. She covered them with make up and remembered how she couldn\u2019t breathe. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1980,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13615],"class_list":["post-70","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-domestic-violence"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hblsasj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hblsasj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hblsasj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hblsasj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1980"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hblsasj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hblsasj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hblsasj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions\/78"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hblsasj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hblsasj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/hblsasj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}