Carl Starling was a rising star in his Maryland community. A former radio personality and successful business entrepreneur, his future looked bright. His marriage to a winsome, bright black woman further burnished his prospects.
But one afternoon, without provocation or warning, she allegedly attacked him. So he went to the local police station to file a complaint. But in a devious ploy, she filed a similar criminal complaint on the same day. The police came to the home, and found no evidence of abuse or harm. She submitted to a medical exam – again, nothing turned up.
Any guesses who was arrested? Ignoring Carl’s more timely complaint and the lack of evidence that she had been abused, the police arrested Carl. The victim became re-victimized.
The prosecutor refused to pursue the case. But Carl was so incensed by the injustice of the wrongful arrest that he demanded a Trial By Jury. After a two-day trial, Carl was found innocent of all charges.
How did this egregious example of wrongful arrest happen?
The answer requires us to delve into how Marxist philosophy has extended its tentacles into our society, and now permeates laws with innocent-sounding names like the Violence Against Women Act.
Most persons are aware of Critical Race Theory and how it rests on divisive Marxist concepts that violate the most basic principles of equal treatment under the law.
But fewer persons have heard of Critical Feminist Theory. Brandi Geisinger of Iowa State University has expounded on the tenets of CFT:
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1. “Gender oppression is endemic in our society. It is normal, ordinary, and ingrained into society.”
2. “Traditional claims of gender neutrality and objectivity must be contested.” In other words, we should replace objectivity with subjectivity
3. “The experiential knowledge of women, or their ‘unique voice,’ is valid, legitimate, and critical” – meaning we need to substitute facts with feelings.
For decades, policy-makers and researchers have known that domestic violence is an equal opportunity problem. The CDC reports that each year, there are 4.2 million male victims, and 3.5 million female victims of domestic violence.
But these numbers don’t endorse the female oppression narrative. So playing on persons’ sense of chivalry and fear, the Gender Warriors reframed the debate to focus only on male offenders and female victims. They decreed that the proposed law be known as the “Violence Against Women Act.”
Then-Senator Joseph Biden championed the bill, claiming the purpose of VAWA was “to make streets safer for women; to make homes safer for women; and to protect women’s civil rights.” Apparentl
No evidence was provided to support such wild and outlandish claims. Factual evidence was now considered to be irrelevant – remember the CFT precept that “objectivity must be contested.”
Once the narrative had been established, the battle was won. From that point on, women’s “unique voices” – not science, not the Constitution, or even a basic sense of fairness – would drive the debate.
So what about the hundreds of scientific studies that show equal perpetration rates by men and women? Irrelevant, the activists decreed!
The Fourth Amendment only allows a person to be arrested with “probable cause.” Sorry, a woman’s “voice” should be sufficient!
And what about the basic unfairness of arresting the male, even when the female is the more likely the offender? Nonsense. Domestic violence is all about men’s attempts to uphold patriarchal privilege!
So over the years, the Violence Against Women Act has spent billions of dollars to weaponize the criminal system and turn it into a cudgel, arresting, prosecuting, and incarcerating men on a mass scale.
As a result, we now face this mind-boggling fact: Despite the symmetry of male and female abuse, the Department of Justice reports that 81 percent of all arrestees are male. (See Table 5.9 in link)
These realities have had a devastating effect on black men’s ability to support their families and engage with their children.
It’s time that we stop the weaponization of the criminal system against men, and black men in particular. We need to remove VAWA’s mandatary arrest policies and scorched-earth implementation of restraining orders. We must eliminate “predominant aggressor” policies that profile men as abusers – which is what happened in Carl Starling’s case.
This is how we begin to mend the black family. And restoring the family unit will dramatically reduce domestic violence as well.
Edward E. Bartlett is president of the Coalition to End Domestic Violence.
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