New Columnist Jonathan Preston

*sophomore in English education

A few weeks ago, NBC broadcast a made-for-television movie titled Every Nine Seconds about a woman who tries to kill her husband after years of domestic abuse. As the title suggests, a chilling statistic was revealed at the beginning of the movie stating that a woman is abused every nine seconds in America.

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This movie was aired during National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, 31 days in October set aside to educate the public on the reality of the violence committed against women in this country and the world. What I have to wonder is, did anyone listen?

After I graduated from high school, I moved into an apartment with my best friend, his girlfriend and their newborn baby of 6 months. I loved the baby he was so cute and playful.

I always had known my friends to have a constantly rocky relationship. I wondered what they saw in each other and why they stayed together. They would argue over petty things like taking out the garbage or changing the baby’s diaper.

Eventually the voices rose, the insults grew, and before I knew it, the hitting began. Sometimes she would try to fight back, but mostly she would just submit to his abuse. He would kick her, slam her head into a wall, smack her, throw things, and do various other violent acts. Sometimes he even would take out his aggression on the baby. He never hit him, but he would yell and destroy his toys. After awhile, she would try to fight back more for the baby’s sake than her own but it never helped.

The police became involved, but they would just tell them to stop. I could write for hours about the violence I witnessed.

You may be asking yourself, What did you do? Well, I did nothing. As sad and cowardly as that may sound, that’s what I did. I’m not proud of that fact, not at all. I was scared I didn’t know what to do. My personal situation caused me to have nowhere else to go. I sat silent picking up the aftermath of the violence by sneaking away with the baby to shield him from the abuse, consoling her, and sickly agreeing with him on his justifications for the abuse. The regularity of the fights increased until we all had the courage to escape. I don’t know where she went, but I came to SIUC. But for three years I witnessed a degree of hate and abuse I never will be able to forget abuse that I didn’t have the guts to try and prevent.

Domestic violence is America’s and the world’s best kept secret. It doesn’t discriminate against age, wealth, race or sex. It takes many forms from words to fists, from looks to mentalities. What I learned from my experience is the reality of this disease. It has been an issue since the beginning of time, affecting us all in one way or another. Yet, people continue to let it happen. I held my tongue as I watched my best friend destroy the life of another human being. For that, I forever will feel guilt guilt for not responding, not speaking out.

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Silence is not golden. Silence is defeat. I no longer can be silent.

For some reason, some men live by some sick, perpetuated myth of superiority. It is seen in their looks, as their eyes hungrily follow the passing female, high-fiving their exclamations of how they’d like to get a piece of that. It is in the media, in jokes, and in family histories. Grandfathers have passed this myth on to fathers, who have passed it on to sons, who will pass it on to their sons. What’s really sad is most of them don’t even know they are doing it. I wish I had a solution. I wish I had an answer. All we can do is hope the myth of male dominance will be destroyed in enough testosterone-filled men to make a difference.

To all the men who will beat their wives and girlfriends maybe even their children tonight:May God have mercy on your souls. To all the women who will be raped or taken advantage of tonight or after attending the bars this weekend:I’m sorry on behalf of the few good men, I’m sorry. Stay strong. One day it’ll all be over.

Also remember that if any of you reading this are angry, then I must have done something right.