It’s Domestic Violence Awareness Month and the Color Is Purple
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Did you know that? It’s also Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I’m sure you knew that because you can’t help but see the pink all around. On my flight last week, the airline was selling pink lemonade and martinis as well as collecting donations--all to go to breast cancer research. Football players in NFL games this month are wearing pink! Pink?! How cool is that? So why aren’t the airlines selling grape soda and football players wearing purple in support of ending domestic violence?
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Did you know that? It’s also Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I’m sure you knew that because you can’t help but see the pink all around.
I am amazed and delighted at the success of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. They have done a superb job of getting corporate sponsorship and involvement as well as extensive media coverage. On my flight last week, the airline was selling pink lemonade and martinis as well as collecting donations--all to go to breast cancer research. Football players in NFL games this month are wearing pink! Pink?! How cool is that? I commend and thank the Komen Foundation and all the other groups working so hard to find a cure to breast cancer and to support survivors and families. They are doing a great job.
So why aren’t the airlines selling grape soda and football players wearing purple in support of ending domestic violence? Because this is different. Breast cancer is a disease that has touched many, many families directly. We can rally around a disease. No one excuses or justifies breast cancer. No one quotes sacred texts to justify breast cancer. And now very few people are ashamed to be the victim of breast cancer. The survivors are our heroines whom we lift up and celebrate, affirming their courage and strength.
But domestic violence is a little different. It isn’t a disease or a natural disaster. Domestic violence is inflicted by an agent, one person on another. And not a stranger: an intimate partner is the abuser. The victim and abuser are part of a community, part of families, part of a congregation or mosque. The domestic violence is often a not-so-well-kept secret, but one we as bystanders don’t want to talk about. Victims/survivors too often live in silent shame, afraid to tell their stories because too often we continue to blame the victim for the treatment she/he receives at the hand of her/his intimate partner.
Interrupting this behavior by the agent of abuse means denying his presumed right to control and dominate his partner. This means a fundamental change in relationships, families, and parenting. This means stepping beyond some old traditions, teachings and customs that no longer serve any useful purpose (if they ever did). This means holding people accountable for the harm they cause others.
But this is why we don’t yet have a consensus in our society that domestic and sexual violence are unacceptable. Because it requires us to change--to change what we do, what we teach, what we tolerate.
So I am looking forward to the day when purple joins pink in October as we stand together to say, “We don’t do this here. Not in our church, mosque, synagogue, family, neighborhood, city, state, country.”
Check out the White House event for Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
Rev. Dr. Marie M. Fortune
FaithTrust Institute
www.faithtrustinstitute.org
the sanctity of silence for victims of domestic and sexual abuse
Stepping down I slowly walked to my seat slightly shaking t as this was my maiden flight in addressing this topic publicly. My baptism of fire was to be silenced as I expressed advocacy for that which has plagued and destroyed many years of my life as a victim of multiple forms of childhood abuse and abandonment. I will find the courage to speak out again showing my purple colors. I believe acceptance of the serious aspects of this violence can become as publicly acceptable as is breast cancer. I find it interesting to acknowledge that the percentage of women sexually and domestically violated is significantly greater than those afflicted with breast cancer. The color purple will be honored not in bruises but in the actions of brave victors.