Black Femicide: It's Spiritual

 

(c) Deborah Evans

If you are unfamiliar with the term "Black femicide", read the article referenced below to understand what it is and why it is a public health crisis:

Black Femicide: A Silent Public Health Crisis -- from advancingkids.org

Femicide is defined as an intentional killing with a gender related motivation.

Why is this a crisis in the Black community?

In 2022, The Guardian (UK) reported the rate of death by homicide for Black women increased by 33% in 2020 over the previous year..

In 2020, an average of five Black women per day were murdered in the United States.(FBI statistics)

Recent reports do not show a reversal of this trend. Read this Washington Post article about the lack of traction this issue has received.

Most of these murders were connected to domestic, family related violence. Victims included spouses, partners, mothers, grandmothers, aunts, sisters, co-parents, ex-wives, former girlfriends, women who rejected unwanted suitors. The vast majority of these murders were committed by persons known to the victim.

The majority of these murders were not committed by persons outside of the victim's community.

The church has remained largely silent on this issue. When was the last time you heard a pastor, Sunday school teacher, elder, or other church leader describe or discuss this issue? When was the last time you heard a church leader say domestic violence is never ok? Does this silence explain why the church has lost credibility in many parts of the culture?

Ultimately, Black femicide is a spiritual issue because domestic violence is always wrong and counter to God's guidelines for life and relationships. Assaulting or murdering someone is not a path to "enforcing" or "teaching" what some refer to as "submission." Physical abuse (which often leads to murder) is not the pattern of love Jesus Christ demonstrates for us.

Femicide is a spiritual issue because no culture has a future apart from its women and children. Women are the source of the future and children are the face of the future. Any other thinking leads to cultural suicide, and eventually, cultural genocide.

Jesus Christ warns us (see John 10:10) "The thief comes only to kill and steal and destroy." Note this progression: first the killing, then the irreversible loss related to the death (the theft of a future), and finally destruction. Jesus is describing a spiritual attack, an attack that begins with hatred and killing.

When women and children (anyone under the age of 18 in the U.S.) are not safe, honored, and protected the beginning of the end has arrived. 

Have you considered what the violence means? Have you decided it matters to you?