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| photo of Hero and anti-Terrorism Fighter for Freedom, Sara Kruzan, is from here |
For background on this post, see an earlier post, *here*.
Here are ten interlocking reasons why it is unlikely (and unjust) that Sara Kruzan will not be honored as an anti-Terrorism Hero:
1. Because women who defend themselves against men's violence against women, in men's war against women, aren't considered to be doing anything heroic. Heroism, in many instances, requires that U.S. men kill men and women who are not U.S. Americans.
2. Because men won't acknowledge there is a war against women. Men and the media call it "the battle of the sexes" instead.
3. Because when men terrorise women it's not considered "terrorism". And male pimps are not considered terrorists, even though they are rapists and traffickers of female human beings.
4. Because women aren't regarded as "U.S. Americans" unless they are viewed as standing alongside men in men's battles with other men globally. And even then they're only likely to be seen as U.S. Americans if they are white and middle class.
5. Because beyond calling for an end to men's violence against women in a single statement, President Obama won't address the issue as one of TERRORISM THAT THREATENS THE LIVES OF MORE [U.S.] AMERICANS (U.S. women and girls) THAN AL QAEDA AND THE TALIBAN COMBINED.
6. Because only Brown and Black people, these days especially if immigrants and Muslims, who are believed to pose a threat to U.S. Christian white het men are considered "terrorists" by corporate (conservative and liberal) media in this country.
7. Because dominant U.S. society doesn't care as much about hundreds of thousands of women and girls being trafficked, pimped, and enslaved by men for men's sexual pleasure and economic profits as it does about some people abroad considering doing violence to a few thousand people.
8. Because no one in all of U.S. history has ever been regarded as an anti-Terrorism hero if they've killed someone who is part of a class of people who oppresses them. Can you name one person of color, female or male, inside or outside the U.S., who has been named a Hero by the U.S. government for killing a white het male terrorist? How many Indigenous activists and warriors have been named Heroes by the U.S. government for killing white men who were mass-murdering terrorists against Indigenous Americans?
9. Because U.S. Christian white het men cannot be considered "terrorists" as a group, even while they commit more global terrorism than any other demographic on Earth.
10. Because the U.S. is promoted and protected as a Christian white het male supremacist nation, operating under the guidance of a Christian white het male supremacist sky-god.
If a husband or boyfriend threatening to kill and beating the shit out of his wife or girlfriend isn't an act of terrorism, what is it?
If a male pimp raping, trafficking, and enslaving girls and women isn't terrorism, what is it?
If a U.S. male soldier harasses, threatens, and rapes women not on U.S. soil--including women who are U.S. soldiers, can he still be regarded as a Hero and Freedom Fighter if he murders enough Brown men abroad?
What does it take for a woman to be considered an anti-Terrorism Hero? Can she achieve this distinction only by killing men, the way men can who only murder men who they oppress regionally, ethnically, or by race?
If a white male police officer murders Brown and Black people, male and female, he may be regarded as a Hero. But if a Black, Brown, or Indigenous person defends herself or himself, and their people, against a terroristic racist police officer or a terroristic police of military force, by taking him out or protecting their community, why isn't that person also a Hero?
Sara Kruzan commited an act of Heroism by standing up to a terrorist who had assaulted and threatened her life. She also prevented that same terrorist from committing many other atrocities against girls and women in the future. How could any judge or jury in the U.S. consider her the dangerous offender and the misogynist slaver-pimp the victim? What aspect of her action doesn't call for her to be honored in the U.S. by President Obama?
At 16, Sara Kruzan was sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole for killing the man who enslaved and sold her for rape as a child. This extreme sentence attracted the attention of women's rights and anti-trafficking advocates, including tens of thousands of Change.org members who called in the past few months for California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to commute Sara's sentence with her 16 years of time served. Amanda Kloer 
