Heart breaking letter


Wendy,

My name is Maegan Black and I am currently involved in a lawsuit against the state of California. As a child I grew up watching my mother commit multiple acts of violence against my dad. The earliest incident I remember occurred when I was four and my mother continued to be violent.

No one would help. Teachers, friends of parents, anyone I tried to talk to about what was going on at home basically told me I didn't understand and my mother couldn't possibly be the violent party. The few times the police came to our home, they would always be ready to arrest my father, sometimes getting so far as to put the handcuffs on him, and it was up to me - just some snotty nosed brat - to scream as loud as possible that it was my mommy and not my daddy so they wouldn't take him away and leave me with her.

I grew up in this sort of environment and I learned the only way to survive was to watch every argument they had and be ready to interject myself as a distraction if I could before violence happened. I grew up paranoid and feeling like the safety in my house was something only I was responsible for. If Mom became violent, it meant I FAILED. That feeling would hit me like a bucket of cold water, but there wouldn't be any time for feeling sorry for myself. My next task was to try to break it up, screaming, threatening, pleading, whatever.

Somehow, probably through the grace of God, I came out of my childhood relatively normal. I learned to deal with my family's weird problems and history by trying to understand it the best I could. I became something of an armchair psychologist, really. Today I have a functional and friendly relationship with both of my parents, after 2003 my mother voluntarily got help for her abusive ways. I can say honestly that I like her, and it is possible that somewhere deep down its possible that I love her.

(We wish we could say the same.)

About a year and a half ago my father and I were introduced to Marc Angelucci, a leader of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Coalition of Free Men, and he asked us if we would be interested in trying to change the sort of treatment and attention male victims of domestic violence receive.

He talked to us about The California Battered Women Protection Act of 1994, which codified in Health & Safety Codes Section 124250 that defined domestic violence as something only experienced by women. This particular code created funding for domestic violence shelters and services. Because the law defines only women as victims of domestic violence, there is NO MONEY for male victims of domestic violence, and in a trickle down effect children of couples where the woman is the aggressor and the man is the victim are left with NOTHING. No help, no voice, no place to turn, and if their father does somehow manage to get out, they'll more likely than not live with their abusive mother.

Lovely system, really. When Marc explained all this me I wanted to cry. Groups which shout at the top of their lungs that they're helping women and children escape from violent and possibly life-threatening situations had shut the door on my family. They had made sure that my father could never get help, endangering me in the process, all in the name of gender politics and someone’s personal agenda.

Pops and I agreed to help Marc try to change this law. We're now currently suing the State in Black v. California to try to get that law changed. We just want the system to be gender neutral, men are helped, women are helped. End of subject. My interest is for kids growing up now in situations similar to what mine was to be helped and have their families helped the way I wasn't and my family wasn't. I don't know entirely why I wrote this email, but I do know that reading your article touched something in me and I had to say something. Thank you for spreading the word on a subject most people don't even know about, and those who do know about it try to ignore it.

Thank you again for writing this article. I figure if it touched something in me, it probably touched something in other people who read it too.




This article has been brought to you by the Dome$tic Violence Indu$try Industry Awareness Campaign, the fine folks who are bringing you the National Dome$tic Violence Indu$try Industry Awareness Year - see us, on the web, at www.DVIAC.org. We are supported by ongoing harassment and generous amounts of interference from WOMAN, Incorporated, elements of the San Francisco Superior Court's Family Division, and the so-called 'editorial' staff, there, at Craigslist, Incorporated - thank you!