If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck...

There is always the opportunity to shake your head at the crazy human race when watching the news on TV or reading the newspaper. We read about a heinous, violent crime or some guy named Madoff who made-off with billions and think to ourselves, "why do people behave this way?" Here's a possible answer: Because we don't really want to know.

For a brief time, I was reading the paper and collecting articles about civil rights violations against women all around the world. This was during my college days while taking my first Women Studies course at ASU. What a shocker that was. I found it odd that we even needed something like Women Studies until I realized how invisible our gender has been throughout history and education on so many levels. In class, the professor taught about female oppression and got me questioning, "how bad could it really be?" I decided to find out by scouring the Arizona Republic and became rather disheartened as my collection of misogyny articles grew into the double digits. After about 30 some articles in less than a month, I stopped. It was really depressing. Ignorance can be bliss.

Looking back I could see that most of the articles were about domestic abuse but rarely, if ever, mentioned those words. If you really look at homicide articles about women and children, usually the same language is absent.

For example, the CNN report of the highly publicized Jennifer Hudson tragedy. The reporter labels the triple homicide of her nephew, mother, and brother as "home invasion" and "first degree murder." Technically this is a true statement because yes he did invade the home and yes he did kill three people in cold blood; however, experience shows that an abuser will manipulate, use, and hurt loved ones to control or enact revenge on a victim, which makes it a full blown domestic abuse case in the worst way, which is what he did.

Reading further on the article states, "The motive for the shootings was 'domestic-related, between him and his former wife, and that's about as far as we can go,' said Deputy Police Superintendent Steve Peterson." The cause of the violence is conveniently skirted over which reduces the real issue by not calling it what it is: Domestic Abuse. Ewww that ugly title. If we choose to leave certain words absent, then people won't think about it that way. But hey, of course the motive shouldn't be a focal point, even if it becomes one in the courtroom. As readers we just want to know WHAT they did, not WHY they did it. Or do we?

To drive the point home, Jennifer founded her own nonprofit called Hudson-King Foundation for Families of Slain Victims, which provides shelter, food, clothing, and grief counseling to families. Notice how one article mentions domestic abuse and the other does not. Which one do you think stuck? I challenge you as an intelligent and informed viewer and reader of news media to look at the WHY as well as the WHAT, but watchout, because you might lose your bliss!

Sister's Ex Charged in Murder Case
Jennifer Hudson Announces Foundation for Families of Slain Victims
Jennifer Hudson Creates Domestic Violence Foundation