when a man hits a woman.......

*please note that this is my opinion. one of my friends advised me to be objective, but i can only write about what i feel.*

i have avoided commenting on the whole Chrihanna situation because they were on my list of favorite couples. so of course i am disappointed more than most. i really like them both and i hate the tornado of negative, accusatory press that is surrounding them. but this blog is not about them. its about me.

no i have never been in an abusive relationship and wish a ni**a would raise his hand to me. but i have been fighting men all my life. i have never understood what it was about me that made men want to get physical and not in a sexual way. i always chocked it up to me being a bigger woman. by the time i was 12, i was 5'7" and wearing a d cup bra. i was taller than most of the guys in my class, so i never got any love from those dudes. they always had snide remarks or were just down right mean. i am not naive and i understand when people are trying to provoke me and sometimes "the gary" came out in me (gary is my dad and that is another story).

i recall interacting with some guys in my cousin's neighborhood and things escalated unexpectedly. one young man decided to practice his comedy routine using me as the butt of his jokes. the jokes were cute and people laughed, but i was not going to just stand idle. so i made a few of my own jokes and got a bigger response. and that is when the drama began. i only remember feeling his fist hit my face and then my glasses broke. my cousin screamed and the guy just stood there looking indifferent. when my aunt saw the bruise darkening on my face and my broken glasses in hand, she was livid. when she found out that i was hit by a young man, she immediately marched me down the street to his home to speak with his mother. his mother was not too happy with her son. of course she forced him to apologized and then slapped the sh*t out him. you can say i was redeemed, but why was it so easy to haul off and hit me in the first place?

when i started high school in a different part of town, i thought things would be better. it was actually worse. i was threatened by one guy because i saw him cheating on his girlfriend. i had a teacher pull me off of another young man after he threatened me. what the hell was i doing to invoke the wrath of all these young men? i can only assume it was a little teenage angst. these were not guys that had any interest in me (that i knew), so it was not about rejection. i was pretty well liked by most people, but the black boys took more of an interest in kicking my ass.

i have never been a "delicate flower" type of woman. my mother told me i was a little rough around the edges, but that doesn't give any man the right to strike me. but in all those instances, no one ever came to my rescue. there were other guys around when the threats came and when the punches were thrown, but no one stepped in to save me. it was if they really didn't care. but if i had been that "delicate flower" female, would they have come to my rescue? if i was the cute little lady, would the reaction have been different? the problem is that it shouldn't matter. if any women is being attacked by a man, the reaction should be the same.

so when all of the Chrihanna drama took place, lots of people chimed in on the issue of domestic violence. but where was all of that rage when ordinary women were being beaten, when the lady down the street walked past with a black eye, when you saw him push her out of the car while it was moving, what did you have to say then? Kanye, what monies have you donated toward domestic violence since you were "devastated" by the incident? Jay-Z, since it should not happen to any young girl, what are you doing to prevent that? what knowledge are you imparting on the community to diminish domestic violence? *crickets* i need for people to take a stance, period. not when it only effects you or people close to you.