Police

Stop Letting Your Husband or Boyfriend Beat You

For that woman out there whose husband or boyfriend is beating you, I pray that you will contact the police and let them know what is going on. Women, you are too precious and beautiful to allow a man to beat you. Of course, I understand that women do beat men, but this piece is devoted to women, who are unquestionably the greatest victims of physical and emotional abuse. A man does not have to physically hit you for it to be abuse. The most damaging abuse is emotional abuse because it can be more difficult to overcome. If your man is emotionally abusing you, please get out of the relationship with him.

I have seen too many men who emotionally abuse their women and do not see the tremendously violence that they are doing to them. You don’t own these women! When a man emotionally and physically abuses a woman, he is simply a coward. Why don’t you step to another man and try to do the same thing? If you need someone to pick on, I am always available! For men who are friends with other men who abuse their women, you guys need to be real men and stop them from beating on their women.

About three months ago, I had a conversation with a guy in Madison, Wisconsin who believes it is not another man’s place to try to intervene in another man’s relationship with his woman when there is some question about whether the man is abusing the woman. I let him know I disagreed with him very much. I think it is always best to err on the side of life and on the side of protecting our women from harm.

I have some strong feelings that a man I know in Madison, Wisconsin is emotionally and/or physically abusing his wife.  I have to admit that I don’t care too much for the lady’s husband anyway, but I do love the sweet personality of the man’s wife. I’m going to get this man arrested and put in jail because I am a mastermind and am going to prove he is beating his wife. He thinks he has been getting away with it, but I am going to bring him down!

I want women to start rising up against domestic violence. In your efforts to rise up against domestic violence, I want you to be more concerned about not being emotionally and physically abusive to men too. Women must form partnerships to combat domestic violence because most cases of domestic violence go unreported. I refuse to sit on the sidelines and watch the women in my environment continue to be victimized by abusive men. I will lead an effort and movement to see that any man who hits a woman ends up in jail for a long time. Keep your hands off these women!

Stop raising your voices and screaming at these women trying to intimidate them—this is emotional abuse. If you are a man and you feel the need to raise your voice at a woman and scream at her, please forget about yelling at her and come scream at me. I got the cure for all that screaming! Women, when these men start yelling at you trying to intimidate you, call the police on them. Now, I am not telling you to do trifling stuff like call the police on men just to try to make them mad, but I want you to call the police on men who are legitimately trying to intimidate you and who have a strong possibility of putting their hands on you in a violent way.

Stop the violence today!

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

White Seattle Cop Viciously Punches Black Woman in the Face

Police Brutality

For those who know me truly well, they know that I am not a person who “plays the race card” or who simply sides with racial and ethnic minorities because I am African-American. In fact, on many issues, I have been and am at odds with what many of my fellow African-Americans believe. Although I had originally planned to post an article that I have been working on for some time now (on a less serious topic), the White male cop in Seattle who viciously punched a 19 year old African-American female in the face compelled me to offer an immediate response.

I am quite unsettled by the reality that a White Seattle cop used a vicious punch to the face of a 19 year old African-American female simply because she lightly put her hands on his hands to step between the argument between him and the other 17 year old African-American female. Both of the females were jaywalking and the cop was trying to give them both tickets. While I think that the cop was well within in his right to give both of the females tickets for jaywalking, I contend that he unnecessarily employed excessive force. Neither of the African-American females posed an imminent threat to him. From my perspective, he simply did not like what the females were saying to him and did not like the fact that the 19 year old Black female lightly touched him.

The Black female never should have lightly put her hands on his hands, but this light placement of her hands on his hands did not warrant the use of excessive force. He could have removed her hands without using such great force. As a Criminal Justice minor during my undergraduate studies, I gained a firm understanding of criminal law, especially concerning policing. I have, therefore, a serious understanding about the fact that police officers have discretion (what is called “police discretion”). Police discretion does not allow a police officer to resort to an abuse of his power. An example of an abuse of police power is an unnecessary use of force. The police officer launched himself to ensure that he was punching the young lady with all of his power. All of this force for an unarmed 19 year old Black female? Really? On a street named after Martin Luther King, Jr.? Are you kidding me?

A Seattle police spokesman stated that the police officer acted within his discretion and disclosed that it’s up to an individual officer when to use excessive force. The police department has not punished the officer in any way at this moment. The department has required the officer to review training guidelines to see if improvement can be made. I’m certainly glad to see that the police department is having him to review training guidelines to see if he could improve his performance, but this is simply not all that the department needs to do to address this police officer. The department needs to fire this man for his unprofessional behavior and abuse of power. This is not the first time that Seattle police officers have unnecessarily brutalized a Black woman. They have brutalized Black women and men in the past.  A pattern has conspicuously evolved.

This evolution of police brutality causes me to think that racism was an important factor in how the White police officer handled himself. A Seattle police spokesman claims that the officer became increasingly fearful of his safety as he was handling this issue on his own and there was a crowd of people around. The officer claims that this could have been a tragedy. The spokesman is right about one thing: this was a tragedy. What is tragic about this event is an unarmed Black female was viciously punched by a White police officer. How’s that for tragedy? The only thing that I can see that motivated this cop to react in the way he did is a deep gut bucket Mississippi Jim Crowism mentality. As I watched his face and his delivery of the punch, the punish itself seemed to communicate one word for me: Nigger! Let me be clear—I never heard him say that word, but his actions communicated that he was calling her that name.

Black women are twice a minority: Black and female. Sexism played a significant role in this matter because it seemed to me that he wanted to put her in a woman’s place, a Black woman’s place (in his mind): on her back. This punch evinced a true disregard for the Black woman’s body. When looking at this punch from a gender perspective, I also see that the punched communicated this message to the woman: filthy Black whore. This could explain why he did not want her touching him—no matter how light of a touching it was.

I urge the Seattle police department to fire this White police officer, Ian Walsh, and to develop a comprehensive plan to significantly diminish the chances of an incident like this from occurring again. Moreover, I urge all people who have been unsettled and unnerved by this incident to make sure that justice is served in this case. We have to remember what justice really is. Justice is what love looks like in public.

Antonio Maurice Daniels

University of Wisconsin-Madison

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