Peace & Freedom: 2023 Fall/Winner issue

As members of the Domestic Prisoners of War (DPoW) Issue
Committee, we understand that these are easy statements to
agree with. But what are your experiences regarding this issue
and how has it hampered people you know? Here are just a
few things I have witnessed/experienced on a personal level:
• An ex – the father of my son, who had a number of mental
health issues – tried to hire someone to kill me, my new husband,
and another former girlfriend. (The person he tried to hire
was an ex police officer, and the investigation made the news)
• Another ex, the father of my eldest daughter, who struggled
with substance abuse issues, would drag me out of bed by my
feet, hold my head in toilets, and showed me where my body
would be found in a swamp. There are many other horror
stories with them that are too many to list here.
• As a mother of a child with Dravet Syndrome, one of the worst
forms of epilepsy, I see and hear many tragic and alarming
shares from members of the support networks I am involved
with. One mother lost her child due to court visitation rulings.
The father had promised the mother that “one day I will take
her (their child) away from you.” The child would come home
from visitation with bruises on her eyes and face. On her final
visit with her father, the child died in her father’s custody. She
was almost three years old. Another mother only escaped
her abusive partner due to her child’s medical conditions. The
courts allowed her to move to another state for better medical
care, which allowed them to escape the physical and emotional
abuse from the children’s father, including burning their son
with cigarettes.
There needs to be much more focus on social issues and
more effective legislation surrounding domestic violence. We
need to acknowledge the residual effects on survivors and
on our society. Survivors are not just here for academics and
researchers to “report on the need for...’x’ issue” or to tell our
stories for us. We must be supported in speaking for ourselves.
BIPOC Survivors Need Self-
Determination
By Rita Gonzalez
Co-chair of the DPOW Committee
I
am a BIPOC woman and a child sexual
abuse trauma survivor. Dee Murphy
and my other fellow activists
in the DPoW Committee are committed
to the work. We have shared
our personal stories as abuse survivors
and in turn have been inspired by one
another. We are quite protective over the work we do and
the privacy of our members.
Survivors lack true support. They are blamed, face repudiation,
are accused of lying, or they are ignored. Women who
fall within minority groups face extra hurdles when seeking
help or support.
As BIPOC survivors, we face the trauma of what was done
to us, and we relive those tortured moments every day. We are
triggered by simple things, a word or phrase, a scent, a sound,
a sight or a touch. Our thoughts and emotions in hyperdrive.
Boom! We’re back there, living it all over again, feeling anger,
disgust, or other extreme emotions and not knowing why. We
deny our pain, try to erase the memory. It’s still there.
Many women who have stood in my place are often
unable to share their perspectives due to being undermined
or stripped of their identity. Enduring domestic violence is a
dreadful situation but to view it from a racial lens and the
lingering effects of colonialism just adds more toxicity. It feels
permanent, pervasive, and personal.
We must discover our own truth, determine our own
worth, face what hurts and find what heals so we can be free.
Survivors of domestic violence have experienced the loss of
peace, autonomy, and freedom in some of the most drastic
ways possible. So self-determination and some level of autonomy
are extremely important for victims of violence, especially
BIPOC women. Autonomy is synonymous with freedom,
independence, and self-determination, defined as the state
of having control over one’s own actions, or the state of being
independent from external control. As victims of domestic
violence, child sexual abuse, or both, we haven’t experienced
that. We are prisoners trapped in this cycle of abuse.
We always remember the dark despair, feeling abandoned
and betrayed, feeling guilt and shame for something we
didn’t do but was done to us. No one can reach the hearts
of victims still trapped in dangerous situations or of survivors
who have already been through it. Perspective is often the
result of experience, and our experiences can be a powerful
tool to move society into recognizing as well as standing with
survivors. Together we can go past surviving and thrive.
Either you or someone you know has been or is currently
being abused. It could be a relative, friend, or an acquaintance.
Abuse occurs across age, class, race, ethnic origin, religion or
sexual orientation. And the consequences of such abuse affect
everyone directly or indirectly.
The great civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer said that
“nobody’s free until everybody’s free.” Martin Luther King
Jr. put it this way: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice
everywhere. Nelson Mandela said, “For to be free is not merely
to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and
enhances the freedom of others.”
What say you? What are you doing to stand with survivors
and enhance the freedom of others?
PEACE & FREEDOM FALL/WINTER 2023 | 19