[NOTE: This is only tangentially related to politics, but I wanted to reach as many people as I can with it, and it is a problem that may have political solutions, so I decided to publish it here as well as at my blog on thevibesman.com. If the moderators wish it taken down I understand – Vibesman]
On November 29th, after being brutally bullied and harassed online for months by her peers, 18-year-old Texan Brandy Vela shot and killed herself in front of terrified members of her family. In the wake of her tragic, terrible death, her father has said that he hopes this incident will spark changes in the way bullying is handled, and her school has vowed “to make sure that there will be no more online harassment and use this as a learning lesson.” These are noble ideas, but they are facing an uphill climb against American culture. After all, bullying is abuse, Brandy Vela was a woman, and the abuse of women has already been accepted as normal in this country to a horrifying degree.
On November 27th, April Peck was shot and murdered by her boyfriend, Terrell Walker. There has been no outcry about the horrors of domestic assault, no vow to change things to end the endless cycle of abuse and murder of women by men. It’s likely the case would have gotten no national coverage at all except for the fact that Walker also shot and injured 17-year-old Daniel Wesley, a Good Samaritan who stopped to try to help April Peck while she lay dying in the street. The press regarded that as newsworthy because Good Samaritans rarely get shot but violence and abuse toward women by their partners is so commonplace as to be regarded as normal; a 2010 CDC report states that more than 1 in 3 women in the US “have experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime.” In Louisiana, where April Peck lived and was murdered, the rate of women murdered by men per capita is second only to Alaska. 94% of those women knew their murderer. 73% knew their murderer as a husband, boyfriend or an ex.
The deaths of Brandy Vela and April Peck are equally awful, yet are perceived in different ways by the press and the public at large. The death of Brandy Vela is seen as senselessly, needlessly tragic, and people want to know why it was allowed to happen and how it can be prevented in the future. This is the right reaction.
But the death of April Peck is treated as tragic but unavoidable. Many media accounts treat her death as the precursor to the events of violence that would come afterwards, events that would become the focus in many stories about April Peck’s murder. The media seemed to believe the shooting of Wesley deserved attention because it was obviously senseless and unjust, and that the police killing of Walker later in a shootout deserved attention because it was heroic and exciting. April Peck was a footnote in her own murder accounts. Because she knew her abuser and murderer, which is also true of 93% of all the women murdered by men nationwide, no one asks why her senseless death was allowed to happen and no one asks how this can be prevented in the future. But despite the vast gulf in the perception of these crimes of abuse by the media and the general public, there are many things about their deaths that are the same.
Brandy Vela was tormented and victimized over a long period of time. She told the police, she told her family, she told her school, she changed her phone number. She died anyway.
April Peck was tormented and victimized over a long period of time. She told the police, she told her family, she told coworkers and friends, she threw her abuser out of her house. She died anyway.
Police say they were unable to take action against Brandy Vela’s abusers because they did not know who those abusers were, thanks to an untraceable app they used in their online harassment. That may be true, but it seems unlikely that knowing who the abusers were would have fully stopped the abuse. After all, police knew that April Peck’s abuser was Terrell Walker, and they knew he was a danger to women.
Walker was arrested in 1992 and charged with first degree murder. He pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter and received 10 1/2 years in prison. He was arrested again in 2006 for stalking with a dangerous weapon. He pleaded guilty to a reduced weapons charge and received 2 1/2 years in prison. His ex-wife told police, “on multiple occasions that he physically abused her and threatened to kill her. Over several months, Walker allegedly broke into her home, implied over the phone he would kill her and, on one occasion, chased her down the street and dragged her into a car.” Relatives, friends and co-workers of April Peck all knew that Walker was jealous, abusive and violent.
On November 15th, not even two weeks before Walker killed April Peck, he was arrested for beating her up. The police report said he choked her and “stepped on her face” because he believed she was cheating on him, something her sister said was both a common accusation for him to make, and untrue. He was let out on bail three days later with an order by the judge to not see April Peck anymore. Barely more than a week later, they were both dead.
Much is made of the fact that although Brandy Vela called the police and told her family and changed her number, she could still not stop the abuse being heaped on her. Obviously, nobody blamed her for the actions of her abusers. This is the right reaction.
But April Peck also talked to the police, and told her family and friends. When Walker came home after making bail for assaulting her, she kicked him out of the house. Yet only April Peck is implicitly blamed for allowing her own abuse to continue, and so also for her failure to stop Walker from murdering her. In story after story, Peck is accused of “continuing to see” Walker after his release, even though, like most women caught in an abusive relationship, she was not in a position to decide whether or not to let her abuser keep abusing her.
In stories about Brandy Vela, officials from her school and the police department are made to answer questions about what they did to prevent her abuse, what they could have done, and what they will do in the future. No such questions are asked about the fate of April Peck. Not of the courts or the police or of our culture. We have apparently given up on our system and its power to protect someone like April Peck, and so we have allowed our system to give up on April Peck.
Cyberstalking, harassment and abuse (let’s stop calling it “bullying” which makes it sound like juvenile child’s play) has been an ongoing problem for women online for years now. It is real, it is heinous, and it should be fought and exposed whenever possible. But it is not a separate issue from the systemic harassment and abuse of women perpetrated in our culture since our culture began. In polite society, we like to think this abuse hides in dirty little corners, out of the light of day, but as more and more of our lives become exposed by social media new social norms, the abuse becomes more open, more pervasive, and tragically, more accepted, even celebrated. Our new President-elect has bragged on tape about abusing and sexually assaulting women, and been accused of assault publicly by several women. His words were brushed off by millions of Americans as harmless, the women who came forward accused of being liars and opportunistic charlatans. His chief strategist runs a website that ran an editorial by a misogynist titled “The Solution To Online ‘Harassment’ Is Simple: Women Should Just Log Off.”
The message is clear. The people who will soon run this country, and many of the people who populate it, will be fine with harassment and abuse online as long as it is directed toward women and by men, just as they are fine with that type of abuse offline.
Brandy Vela’s death is senseless, tragic and sad. Above all it should never have been made to happen, should never have been allowed to happen. And unfortunately, it will probably do very little to stop the same tragic, senseless thing from happening to another beautiful young woman who deserves better from our society. And in all those respects, the deaths of Brandy Vela and April Peck are, heartbreakingly, exactly the same.
If you or someone you know is being abused, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-SAFE (7233) or 800-787-3224 (TDD). For more info, go here. Call 911 whenever there is immediate danger.
If you or someone you know is being harassed or abused online, contact your local authorities, and report them to the social media and online service providers involved. Check here for more info.
In all cases, don’t be afraid to talk about it, with everyone you can. Stigma breeds ignorance, and ignorance of abuse by those who don’t practice it is a big part of the problem. Don’t be ashamed. Be angry. Don’t feel like you deserve it. Insist you deserve better.
Thanks for reading. See you soon.
(April Peck’s sister is running a gofundme drive for April’s children.)
