
I have read commentary implying that, since homicide in America is preponderantly an experience of minority communities, especially African American communities, and occurs most frequently where limited financial or political resources exist, academic research into its ongoing effects on survivors has been lacking. As a non-academic, I would not be in a position to confirm or deny this accusation. Certainly, I have found some very interesting, informative, thought-provoking academic studies of how people cope with the aftermath of violence, of a killing in particular. Some papers have even focused on African American survivors. Recently, I read a paper that categorized types of grief after homicide and it seemed to resonate with the testimony of mothers and families of victims I have known.
One category that struck me in particular was called “Disenfranchised Grief.” Disenfranchised grief occurs when the victim was involved in criminal activity, especially when the killing happened in the course of a crime being committed by the deceased, like getting killed while committing a robbery or, as has also happened in a few cases I’ve covered, in a shoot-out between rivals. When this happens, the family sometimes feels that they have been deprived -- by judgement -- of the right to grieve, or to grieve to the profound degree of the despair and loss they absolutely feel.
What many families have found is that, even if the victim was not engaged in a crime at the time of his or her murder, but was known to be in the life, survivors can be deprived of their right to fully grieve, can be, in a word, disenfranchised. In such cases, families come to feel that no one, not the police, not the media, not their neighbors, will recognize the magnitude of their loss. Or, that there is a judgement being made about their lost loved one, and about their own role in the life of the deceased, and this judgement mitigates sympathy. Such judgement seems to prevail when the victim was a young African American man killed on certain streets of the city known for crime, at times of night when most of us are tucked away in our beds and think everybody else should be, too. Then an assumption is made, that the victim was likely engaged in something he or she should not have been engaged in, was choosing to put his own life at risk in order to commit a crime; therefore, if they didn’t exactly deserve to die for their sins, well then at least they bear part of the responsibility for their fate (don't we all?) and so we will limit my sympathies for them and their survivors, to reflect that responsibility. Is it 10%? 50%? You tell me.
In my work plan for the book there is a time upcoming for delving deeply into the academic research out there, and for interviewing academics. I hope I get to discuss this with them. I already talk with families about it all the time, about their sense of having been judged in the wake of their loss. It brings to mind why I think obituaries take on such importance in the aftermath. They are a chance for families feeling judged, who feel that the life of their lost loved one has been summed up by the way he or she died, to complete the record. The obituary is a chance to talk about all the things the deceased was in life: loving son brother mother sister aunty athlete musician classmate snappy-dresser fun-loving uncle father friend or fan. It is about who the deceased was to the living, a complex, complete person.
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