Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 21, 1994 TAG: 9406240024
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
What's left is an unglamorous case of domestic violence that, minus the glitz and media drooling, fits a depressingly familiar pattern for those who work regularly with its victims.
How painful it is to overlay this ordinary sordidness on the public persona of O.J. Simpson, American hero, a man who is athletic, articulate, attractive, admired. A black man who scrambled to success in a racist society with a winning combination of ability and charm. Such a nice guy.
And a wife abuser.
Most men who abuse spouses or girlfriends don't fit this image, of course - mundane standards of achievement. Some studies find domestic violence most common in lower socioeconomic groups, or among men having difficulty providing for their families. It is this image of the wife-beater that, unpleasant as it is, the public can believe: an uncouth, uneducated, beer-swilling bully, defeated by life And venting his rage on the woman he can overpower. We can easily despise him.
There is another picture, though, of domestic violence. It crosses all socioeconomic barriers, occurs at all ages, among all races and religions, and is not limited to certain educational or occupational levels. At least one study, in fact, has found higher occupational status as one indicator of a certain type of abuser, men of power who may feel a need to exert it in all aspects of their lives.
Far from being monsters, some abusers are charming, considerate men, loved in their businesses and their communities. The thing they have in common with that despicable loser is the bottom-line belief that they have a right to control another person.
Simpson has pleaded, and of course must be legally presumed, innocent in the stabbing deaths of Nicole Simpson and a friend. Meanwhile it is tragic, especially when you consider the reinforcement of bigoted racial stereotypes, to see an admired, successful black man reduced to staring at America from a mug shot on a newspaper's front page. More tragic still, though, is the fate of the murder victims and their families.
O.J. Simpson is a nice person, his fans, friends and associates say. And in all of those relationships, he undoubtedly is nice. The chilling reality a worshipful public will have to understand and face, as Simpson maintains his innocence and this made-for-tv morality tale plays on, is that he is a convicted abuser. A "nice guy" who is sometimes violent.
by CNB