The Silence is Deafening: Who is Speaking For Kasandra Perkins?

By now, you know about the murder/suicide that was committed by Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher. You have probably heard the gory details of Belcher’s shooting of his girlfriend, followed by Belcher killing himself in front of Chief’s staff at their facility. You likely saw the tearful interviews given by his teammates, following their emotional victory the very next day. Everything we’ve heard about for the most part, centers on the perpetrator, Jovan Belcher, professional football player. So far, the media has said little about the actual victim: I’m going to do my best to introduce her to you.

Her name is Kasandra Perkins, and like many women, she is a victim of domestic violence. Unlike her boyfriend Jovan Belcher, she does not have a large community of fans and teammates to mourn for her. She does however have a baby daughter, a daughter who will grow up to know very little about her parents, a daughter, who may someday, become a victim of violence herself. What Belcher did to Kasandra saddens me. The fact that Belcher is mourned more than Kasandra sickens me. The fact that this tragedy is not spurring on a larger conversation about violence against women terrifies me.

This is not a sports story: this is a story that gets repeated over and over, year after year. It’s the story of misogyny of anger, of control. It’s the story of patriarchy, of men desperately trying to maintain superiority in their relationships with women. It’s a culture of machismo, of teaching women where their place lies in the still male dominated pecking order. It’s a story in which a happy ending is never an option. It’s a story that will repeat indefinitely until the majority of men (and many women as well) can stand together and put a stop to it.

Guys, we can’t be silent about this: we must speak out on abuse, stop blaming the victim, and place the blame squarely on the shoulders of the abuser. In this case the blame falls on Javon Belcher. He is not the victim, Kasandra Perkins is. Until we as a collective gender can stand with women to express our disgust toward this violence that is too often covered up, and too often blamed on the victim, violence against women will continue.

That’s not an ending to a story that I wish to keep reading, what about you?

The GOP is Still Sinking The Ship of Moderation in The Raging Waters of Denial.

Look away! Look away! (Photo credit: Norm Walsh)

It’s been a little over a week now since the election, and the GOP seems to be sticking to some very confounding reasoning as to why they lost. It wasn’t because of their out of touch platform, it was because Obama got too many votes. Wait, what? That’s like the Kansas City Chiefs blaming their Monday night loss on Pittsburgh for scoring too many points. This is the message delivered: Whether it be Romney trying to cover his ass to his campaign contributors (or investment handlers as I like to think of them), or Paul Ryan bemoaning that Obama had too much support in urban areas.

That’s the Republican reasoning: Blame Obama for getting votes that they were sure would be coming to them. It had nothing to do with the fact that the GOP managed to alienate half the country. The election was lost because President Obama was irresponsibly appealing to a larger demographic of voters. Yet again, the GOP has found a way to blame our president for their utter failure. Talk about a gift – the Republican Party as it is in the present day, going down in flames, was gift enough for me. The Republicans can blame Obama and his “gifts” all they want, but truth is that the majority of us loathe their gifts to the perversely wealthy, big oil, and hedge fund managers.

One would think that the GOP would learn their lesson. Extreme conservatism is no more appealing then extreme liberalism. Yet, that’s the cold dish that they insist on serving. What happened to the moderates? What happened to cooperation? Apparently these are ideologies of the past. It’s not enough to enable corporate welfare, the GOP will not be happy until extremism rules our country in much the same fashion that extremists rule Iran. This is the party of Reagan no longer, this is the party of rich white ayatollahs who want to impose their will on the rest of us.

I was hoping this would change after the election. I was hoping the GOP would begin to make a sorely needed move toward the center. I guess I was wrong. Maybe they will get the memo, in time for the 2014 house and senate elections. I’m not holding my breath though.

Related articles

• GOP Extremism Will Doom Its Future Prospects (patheos.com)