Don't discount patriarchy's role in deadly domestic violence against Black women
I didn’t know Barbara Deer, but the West Side of Chicago loved her.
She volunteered in Garfield Park, beat the drum on local Juneteenth celebrations and championed healthy eating. Earlier this month her life ended violently, unimaginably in fact. Authorities say Deer’s 23-year-old son murdered her before taking his own life in her home.
Family and friends aren’t mourning in isolation. April has been a deadly domestic violence month for Black women. Cook County prosecutors say a man beat to death his on-again-off-again girlfriend Davonta Curtis, a transgender woman. In Florida, a husband is charged with fatally shooting his wife, Coral Springs Vice Mayor Nancy Metayer Bowen. Cerina Fairfax was killed by her husband, a former lieutenant governor in Virginia, at home with their children present, according to authorities. A Shreveport mass shooting left eight children dead and a wife wounded. Police killed Shamar Elkins, the father who they say carried out the gruesome shooting spree.
As the aftermath unspools of trying to make sense of the "why" in these tragedies, mental health is immediately named as the culprit.
Justin Fairfax, who police say killed himself after murdering his wife, was a rising political star whose career derailed after two women accused him of sexual assault several years ago. A crush of tasteless tributes on social media by his friends — mostly fraternity brothers, some colleagues — ignored the deathly circumstances and erased Cerina. Their “thoughts and prayers” centered on Justin, sans a word about the shooting.
Elkins’ family say the Louisiana man struggled with his mental health, and yet he had access to a firearm.
This is problematic. A narrative that exclusively focuses on mental health doesn’t take into account gender-based violence. Domestic violence cuts across racial and class lines all across the United States. (“Black excellence” didn’t protect Cerina.) But not naming patriarchy undermines the trauma Black women face in intimate relationships.
“Black women fall into what I call the trap of loyalty — not wanting to turn men over to the police. The dynamics of Black domestic violence create a different kind of opportunity for the escalation,” said Beth Richie, a Black feminist scholar at the University of Illinois Chicago. She has written books about justice, race, gender, violence and criminology. Richie advises the NFL on its gender violence prevention program.
In these recent cases, Richie noticed the “murder of Black women seemed to be a logical expression of all the frustration of relationship problems, careers being ruined or grief. The women who are in the intimate sphere of these men's lives become the logical target of their aggression.”
Well, of course, shoot the mother of your children or your partner when your life is in shambles!
Finding a way to analyze patriarchy while acknowledging mental health is needed, Richie said.
“There has to be some way to hold a complicated thought about the mental health crises that exist in our community, but not lead with that, because it focuses on the person who caused harm and not the mental health consequences of the person who was killed,” she said.
Patriarchy is an American value. Masculinity and guns too often collude. Cultural mores such as “boys will be boys” dismiss boorish behavior. Victim-blaming questions women about why they stayed in an abusive relationship or why they wore a certain outfit if they were sexually assaulted. Look no further than the sentiments around the likes of Jeffrey Epstein or Sean Combs. It’s up to us to disrupt the discourse and challenge ourselves to build healthy communities. First, by fully naming the problems.
Natalie Y. Moore is a senior lecturer at Northwestern University.