This story out of Chicago has been eating me up. Serabi Medina, a cute 9-year-old girl was gunned down, shot in the head after riding her scooter.
43-year-old Michael Goodman was angry about neighborhood kids making noise. Incensed by 9-year-old Serabi riding “up and down the block” – Serabi had just caught up with the ice cream man! – Goodman fired off a single shot, at which point Serabi’s father told her to go back into their home. She would never make it – Goodman would follow her into the vestibule, raise his gun, and shoot Serabi in the head. Her father, who had just screamed out to Goodman asking “what are you doing?”, then tackled the shooter, causing the gun to discharge into the perp’s eye.
Goodman survived. He’s currently being held without bail.
He’s not who I’m concerned about.
Serabi’s mother was killed five years ago, also outside the apartment complex in which the family lived — back in Chicago’s West Side neighborhood of Austin in 2018. They moved to the Portage Park area of Chicago shortly after her death. Her father now is living with the trauma of losing ostensibly the two most important women in his life, both outside the home he ostensibly tried to provide for them.
All eyes should be on this man.
When people discuss the tragedies of violence against women, people forget that every murdered woman has any number of male relatives living with the trauma. Trauma that can, left unaddressed, manifest itself years later in any number of ugly formats. What kind of outburst will Serabi’s dad have in two, three years, if left untreated? Will he resort to suicide? Will he lash out in blind, misguided hopes of vengeance? This man needs help, and he’s not alone.
The hiker Rachel Morin who disappeared from Maryland’s Ma and Pa Trail and was later found murdered left behind a mourning sister who had to bury not only her but also her niece. Any male relatives of this family had to do similar.
Too many men leave trauma unaddressed, forgoing counseling or therapy, only to have the trauma rear its ugly head at the worst time. Will a male member of the Morin family call a female co-worker a “stupid bitch” for planning a hiking trip, without thinking or knowing why? Will Serabi Medina’s father tackle a random person in his apartment building because of “vibes”? Or perhaps an outburst on a larger scale, affecting his neighborhood? His community? Who knows what will happen – but we do know that the common denominator in all of these scenarios is the neglect of mental health.
Men’s mental health far too often falls by the wayside as it is – but violence against women adds the double whammy of “not wanting to make it about us”. Men shouldn’t have an issue with admitting that they have PTSD or anxiety because of what happened to their daughter, their mother, their sisters. When those we love are hurt, we hurt too.
Violence against women is also violence against all the men in their lives, in their families, who loved them. Intra-familial violence against women is violence against the entire family, the entire family structure and cohesion, not just the victims of the crimes.
Praying for Serabi Medina’s father, and all the other fathers out here going through pain similar to his. Stopping violence against women doesn’t just protect women, it protects everyone.
