You don’t know the victims, so throwing your uninformed guesswork into this as to why she made her decisions to marry him, how we should be ashamed of ourselves as a community, etc. isn’t really doing anything to help anyone.

The commentary from my post is fodder for the gossip mill? Why, because I posted updates submitted by FAMILY MEMBERS of the deceased? How do you know whom I do and do not know? The correct answer is, you don’t. You have no idea whom I’ve spoken to over the last 48 hours.

With all due respect, your assumptions and comment aren’t productive at all. I’ve worked very hard to make sure that this was a safe space for discussion. We’ve moderated aggressively to remove prying questions and other inappropriate content.

And frankly, I stand by what I wrote. We SHOULD be ashamed of ourselves, if we let such things continue to occur. If we are not open to understanding this issue and we just dismiss it away as “mental illness” or a one-off “anomaly”, we have learned NOTHING. I cannot believe the level of denial which has displayed itself during this thread via several comments from different people.

DV is an issue which affects EVERYONE, but it affects some communities in unique ways. This was not an aberration. I can count on both of my hands the number of women in my family and family whose partners isolated them/threatened to kill them/destroyed them emotionally/beat them severely. Stop trying to distance yourselves from it; if your family is perfect, well then God has blessed you abundantly. The rest of us aren’t so lucky– and neither are future desi victims of DV, if we keep up this wild goose chase of rationalizations and excuse-making.

::

“show some decency”, thank you so much for recognizing what I tried to do. I sincerely appreciate it.

I received so much support from my own community in trying to deal with this – people who understood my fears about acting or not acting, my reluctance to believe my love capable of acting in such a manner – people willing to ask questions, to help me stop and reflect, to love me regardless, to acknowledge danger without needing protection; telling me again and again to trust myself, trust my instincts, and teaching me to lead my own way to safety and healing. During the crisis point when i left, immediate family members were too close to the situation to be able to help fully without jeopardizing their own or my safety — my ex knew how to get to them and their homes; their own emotions and fear added to my stress. A big part of why I was able to talk to these friends was that we had been working together to end violence against women of color with an intersectional analysis that takes in everybody as whole multidimensional people living in a multidimensional world – sparked by our grief and rage stemming from a tragedy in our community. I had no desire to harm my ex-partner, but i did want to assure my own safety, and to think about issues of accountability to whoever his future partners might be. It was helpful to have friends who clearly saw the distinction between state punishment of my ex and my protection. It helps to know people who can focus on de-escalating violence. I was also very fortunate that my ex has not acted as this man did. At the same time, it was not useful to me to paint my ex as evil or pathological or anything else in this context, just as somebody who made some harmful choices. Portrayals which removed his humanity and agency prompted my protective urges to defend him or help him seek help rather than to recognize his responsibility for his behavior and focus on what i needed to be okay.

Conversations about racial, sexual, gendered, ethnic and class-based violence and about transformative justice help build trust so that resources are there when we need them. Also , I will note that other friends I reached out to were also supportive. Thus my friends were able to help me protect myself without escalating the violence, which fortunately was what worked for my situation. Everybody’s relationships are different, but by having these conversations not only on listservs but also in community we can help each other reduce shame and recognize both early warning signs (as my friends did for me) and dangerous moments (like trying to leave) so we can hopefully avert future tragedies within and beyond the desi community. Thanks for having this conversation, and again, my love and prayers are with the families of all involved.

I agree with ‘show some decency’, the commentary from the original post and these newer updates aren’t offering anything except fodder for the gossip mill.

i was talking about the comments, not the post.

Just keep reporting these crimes and maybe someone, somewhere will take courage and step away from an abusive relationship or be fearful enough not to hit their partner. And may these souls rest in peace.

A few things:

1. Every domestic violence expert should be able to tell you– DV is NOT caused by mental illness (“he was crazy”), loss of control (“he couldn’t help it”), jealousy, the victim’s actions (“she shouldn’t have left him”), drugs or alcohol, family history, witnessing it as a child, or any other EXCUSE that we can come up with. DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IS A CHOICE THAT A BATTERER MAKES TO BE COERCIVE, CONTROLLING AND MANIPULATIVE TO HIS/HER PARTNER, IN ORDER TO GAIN OR MAINTAIN POWER AND CONTROL. This is often done by using physical, sexual, emotional, verbal, mental, psychological, spiritual, economic, educational, medical and/or other tactics.

2. 1st Gen, 1.5 Gen, 2nd Gen, and now even teens in 3rd Gen– have all been known to perpetrate and are all vulnerable as victims. It is not about which generation you were born in– it is a choice you have made based on things you have learned & decided in your life.

3. We have done workshops in various settings, INCLUDING Malayalee churches, about domestic violence. Yeah, most people don’t talk about it, but that is the only way. Break the stereotypes, give options to victims, hold batterers’ accountable, speak up about it from public places, teach our children– these are our only avenues of hope.

At the risk of jumping to conclusions it

then don’t!