Are the crippling vestigial limbs still attached to our lives that comes from our dark understanding of people as property; whether they be women, children, or men. We then have to take a critical look back into our long journey through history and cultures that glorify so many aspects of this, with critical race theory, feminism, post colonial trauma syndromes, etc and then even see how this has carried us forward into the present day where our institutions are failing those who we would have protected. It’s then we need to look at the legal jargon of words such as “custody”, the strange separation between domestic and other forms of violence, understand why one is not seen as serious, marriage or divorce courts, and on and on. It’s only when you realize that the systems are working exactly as intended. It’s we who have begun to wake up to the fact that they harm us mostly. Whole philosophies of paternalistic morality and power trips must be unwound and reimagined.
This story proves the point that for many people, especially smaller people who are physically marked by their identity classes, well, we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t, and mostly blamed for things we never had control over. I hope for Amy’s little ones and mom that they get the truth they need to set her life’s end straight once and for all. David, it seems, is being punished by a greater force and has no real peace for himself. His life is not enjoyable and the road he is on has very well defined endings, whether he ever ends up in prison or not. Tragedy is never one sided.
