RE: Call, Then Wait For Police

2009-OCT-08-2134Hrs

This would be a long piece to post to the Mausica E-mails, but I wish you could. Linda

Call For Help, Then Wait For The Police.

By Linda E. Edwards- on Domestic Violence

A man called the police emergency number in my county four days ago, and waited outside his house until the police arrived. He was holding a six-inch blade knife, and was covered in blood. “I just killed my wife “ he said. True to his word, the police found her body stabbed more than twenty times lying on the kitchen floor. They arrested him at the scene. A slam dunk of a who-done-it. The police also picked up their only child, a twelve year old boy, from school, and took him to the hospital, in case he needed to be treated for shock, before releasing him to his aunt.

Two neighbors, interviewed in what is euphemistically called an upscale neighborhood, said the usual ”The community is shattered”. ”Things like that do not happen here”.

His community as pictured by the media coverage of the murder scene, is called Pearland, an upscale community ($250,000. and up) in the cheapest housing market in the country. There had been no calls, the police said, about domestic violence. The two neighbors, both youngish African-American women admitted that they did not know their Chinese neighbor very well. They had all moved there about four years ago. The housing market was hot then.

What pressures lead a man to stab his wife more than twenty times, and leave a twelve year old without either parent? What seismic shift in societal values, sent this couple from China, all the way to America, to meet violent death in the heartland of upscale prosperity? Mrs. Lu can no longer tell us, and Mr. Lu wears his inscrutable Asian face; his glasses slightly skew in the arraignment photo.

The ethnic backgrounds of the commentator/neighbors and of the murderer and victim together are a comment on the changing face of surburbia, where people move in, and keep their friends from elsewhere, and perhaps do not get to know their neighbors. Domestic violence, in addition, continues to be the secret sin, that when it finally explodes, smashes so many lives.

Asian people, by tradition in the USA, have lived in Asian communities, where they shop, go to church and visit with friends, but in recent years, they too, move to upscale neighborhoods in the exurbs, where the lots are bigger , the children have more room to play, the lawns, by deed restriction are immaculate, and where, perhaps, no one drops over to anyone else’s house for a cup of coffee or tea, and people do not talk to their neighbors except on National Night Out, which was last night, October 6. On such a night, the focus is on keeping the community safe, by getting to know your neighbors, so when you see some stranger lurking around, you know he does not belong there.

Mr. Lu belonged there. Did anyone know Mrs. Lu was in danger? Apparently not. Was domestic violence the topic of crime in that Pearland , TX neighborhood last night? I doubt it.

There is no community in the world where domestic violence does not happen. We could fool ourselves if we want. We like to think of crime as that little thug like guy, with the baggy pants and the earring, that little African-American or Hispanic American boy and his pals, or the tattooed, hedonistic muscled guy in the athletic shirt, with two earrings and a Mohawk haircut, who belongs to gang, and may be running a meth. Lab..

Few types like that, pictured in the media for this or that carjacking, or minor drug bust, have wives, though many may have girlfriends who get slapped around. So, few murder their wives.

It is the spectacular murder, among the people who are “living the American dream,” that catches our attention. We love to think that a nice house in the suburbs, the two or more car garage, the lot fenced at the rear but sweeping vistas of manicure at the front, the two story brick buildings, were a kind of paradise. Every now and then we get a glimpse of the nightmares within those walls. From behind such walls, a Columbian doctor emerged in rage, and drove her Mercedes over her cheating husband, three times. From behind such walls, an Indian businessman mowed down his wife, with another Mercedes. From behind such walls, an Indian movie producer in the US shot and killed his wife and business partner.

The neighbor next door may be a wife abuser, but we mind our own business, until its too late. We should watch out for the woman next door who is not too friendly- perhaps her husband does not want her talking to the neighbors? We should watch out for the woman who is not seen outside, except entering and leaving the house- isn’t that strange, that she never picks a flower off her own bushes at the front?

All over North America and Europe, these women accompany their husbands in search of a better life. It usually means a better life for the husband, and more space and appliances to clean and maintain for the wife. The freedoms available to American women are not available to new immigrant wives from repressive cultures. I remember seeing some parents come to pick up their children from elementary school. The man and his eleven year old son rode up front, the woman rode in the back seat with her daughter! He was bearded, she was veiled, and they had switched countries, they had the mandatory child seat for the four year old in the back. That was all. So, when such a family is stressed by the business of being in America, or the west, who does the woman turn to? If they were poorer, living in a cheap apartment, the wife could meet other women in the Laundromat, but in a prosperous, new suburban home, all your appliances are installed, making your house an elegant prison, but a prison nonetheless.

From such a prison, a wife may be liberated only by death, while the husband, the cause of that death, heads to another type of prison. It is the boy child of twelve that causes me the most grief. That poor thing needs a lot of hugs, and some explanation as to why. I hope he gets both.

Elaine Edwards