Violent Vibe

When charges against Chris Brown for attacking Rihanna first became public knowledge, I knew there would be men defending Brown. But I am still surprised by the women and girls who took his side as well.

“She brought it on herself,” some said. “She may have hit him first,” came from others. Or more frequently: “You don’t know what happened with them.”

What happened to the women’s movement? Did people really believe Rihanna could have done anything to justify that beating—to make violence against her acceptable?

Their court case ended=2 0like so many others in my courthouse and across the country: with little or no punishment for a very serious crime. I see it too often and the time has come for change.

The 2003 murder in my county of Ernestine Bunn Dyson began like many others. A judge asked her if she still wanted to prosecute her husband for a minor offense, and she said no. Hours later she lay dead on her living room floor. Her husband had followed her home, shot her to death and then killed himself. Their horrified children discovered their lifeless bodies lying in a pool of their commingled blood.

In 2006, the nation was shocked when Yvette Cade’s estranged husband walked into her workplace, poured gasoline over her head and then set her on fire. She nearly died from first-degree burns that covered her head, face and torso. What many didn’t realize was that he had repeatedly harassed her and that she had been berated by a judge who unilaterally dismissed a protective order she had gotten against her husband. Cade survived and has since led a campaign to educate others about domestic violence.

Bunn Dyson’s death led her sister, Deborah Williams, to co-create Project Safe Sunday, an outreach effort aimed at helping the faith community become more active in dealing with domestic violence in our communities.

As the local prosecutor, I worked with Williams, encouraging pastors to preach sermon s about domestic violence and to create support groups or ministries within their churches during Domestic Violence Awareness Month (observed every October). We offered to make bulletin inserts with emergency information for domestic violence survivors who needed temporary shelter or other support services.

I was surprised to find that most ministers were initially reluctant to get involved. Some thought the issue was “too hot” to raise from the pulpit, while others misinterpreted biblical passages as condon ing husbands “disciplining” their wives. Some believed women should always be counseled to stay with their husbands, even if they were being abused. We also found that many churches lacked basic information about how survivors could navigate the court system and how to access government services that could help survivors in tough situations.

In the first October of our campaign, only a dozen churches participated in Project Safe Sunday. But the response was strong, especially from women—and sometimes men—who were domestic violence survivors, or were still struggling to escape verbal and physical abuse. Now in its sixth year, the program has expanded in the Washington, D.C., area, and has now begun to take root in Cleveland, Chicago and Atlanta.

Domestic violence is a national epidemic that needs a strong and coordinated national response. In most jurisdictions, women make up the majority of the voters. It’s time for women to speak up and start pressuring their elected officials to make domestic violence reduction a top priority:
-Ask your senators, congressional representatives and state legislators what they are doing to fight domestic violence;
-Support local service providers (as a volunteer or a donor) that deal directly with domestic violence survivors;
-Form “court watch” programs to ensure your local police, prosecutors and judges treat domestic violence jus t as seriously as any other violent crime;
-Get your sorority, church and community association to lobby for domestic violence reduction programs; and
-Encourage and support men’s groups that help men with anger management, violence and esteem issues, along with those that help men who are abused.

Glenn F. Ivey is state’s attorney for Prince George’s County, Maryland.