By Godfrey Lee

Domestic Violence and its signs were discussed at a Paint & Sip event held at the Marin City Art Gallery on Sunday, October 30.

The Paint & Sip instructor, Olubori Babaoye, a Nigerian-American artist from Oakland who works as a classical painter and digital illustrator, directed the group in painting a drawing of a tulip on a small canvas, encouraging each person to render work in their own individual style as they sipped wine. Domestic violence survivor Starr Lamare shared experience while they painted.

The group briefly discussed how abuse and violence impacts women and men in their relationships, and about the eight types of abuse: They are physical, emotional, economic, verbal, sexual, spiritual, stalking/cyber, and choking/strangulation. Below is a brief description of abuse described in a flyer from the Center of Domestic Peace.

• Physical abuse is physical violence done to the victim such as hitting, or around the victim such as breaking their possessions, which sends the message that “You’re next!”
• Emotional abuse is deliberately withholding the 4 A’s: acceptance, appreciation, attention and affection in order to control and coerce the victim. This will include negative name calling to demean the victim’s spirit.
• Economic abuse occurs when the abuser controls the victim’s financial resources, such as keeping the victim from getting a job or going to school, or unjustly taking their money.
• Verbal abuse is when the abuser threatens, teases, taunts, trivializes, or “Thingifies” (being called a name that makes the victim feel like an object) their victim.
• Sexual abuse is sexual behavior that crosses the victim’s boundaries without their permission.
• Spiritual abuse includes putting down the victim’s spiritual beliefs and customs. It can also include using improper interpretation of spiritual doctrines to control the victim.
• Stalking/Cyber abuse includes excessive following and repeated contacting, threatening the victim through a variety of means, or to monitor and harm the victim though computer technology.
• Strangulation is the squeezing of the victim’s neck, which cuts off blood flow and oxygen from the brain, resulting in loss of consciousness or death within a few minutes.

Lamare, a mother of three, described how she was burned in January of 2013 by her boyfriend, Dexter Oliver, in San Francisco, when they were arguing whether or not they should leave her wash clothes at the laundromat. Oliver then ran home, got some gasoline, ran back to the laundromat, threw the gasoline on Lamare, then lit the gasoline and setting Lamare on fire, according to the news reports.

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Oliver was soon arrested in Oakland and is still serving his 27 years prison term for attempted murder, along with a prior strike on his record.

Lamare says that life is hard for her, and she has her ups and downs. Still, as someone in the Paint & pointed out, that she is lucky to be alive, and that her children still have their mother to care for them.

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